When do Machiavellians feel threatened? An investigation into fair situations. Rebecca L. Badawy, Robyn L. Brouer, Elizabeth A. Fabrizio. Journal of Research in Personality, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.02.004
Highlights
• Machs perceive threat in fair environments.
• Machs likely use intimidation impression management tactics when they perceive threat.
• Fairness serves as a cue for Machs to employ aggressive tactics to regain control, such as intimidation.
• Machs perceive a lower level of threat in unfair situations, suggesting that unfair situations may appeal to Machs because they are more easily able to rely on strategic manipulation.
Abstract: The Machiavellian (Mach) personality trait describes individuals who rely on manipulative strategies to achieve their goals, which are primarily extrinsic (money, success, power), often at the cost of interpersonal relationships. However, little is known about the environmental conditions that cue Machs to act in deviant ways. We explore the impact of fair environments on Machs’ perceptions of threat. Tested in an experimental study (N = 311), our results provide preliminary evidence that, contrary to normative responses to fairness, Machs have negative cognitive (experience threat) and behavioral intention (intimidation tactics) reactions to fair situations, and thus might actually function more normatively in unfair environments.
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
If nonhuman animals can suicide, why don’t they? On Peña-Guzman (2017) on Animal Suicide
Soper, C. A. and Shackelford, Todd K. (2018) If nonhuman animals can suicide, why don’t they?. Animal Sentience 20(14). http://animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/vol2/iss20/14/
Abstract: An evolutionary analysis suggests that selection is unlikely to have tolerated the capacity for intentional self-killing in nonhuman animals. The potential to escape pain by suicide would have presented a recurrent and severe adaptive problem for an animal with a reproductive future to protect. If the potential for suicide arose in the evolutionary past, anti-suicide mechanisms may have co-evolved, as we believe they have in adult humans. Peña-Guzmán’s (2017) argument that some nonhuman animals can suicide is incomplete without an account of the defences that result in the vast majority opting not to.
---
Peña-Guzman (2017) questions whether only humans suicide. (We use “suicide” as a verb, to
bypass the morally loaded “commit.”) He argues that nonhuman animals might, if not kill
themselves intentionally, behave on a continuum of suicidality. Peña-Guzmán advances this
position with evidence from three domains: First, aspects of emotional states and pathologies
associated with human suicidality are also found in other species. Second, nonhumans
sometimes die as a consequence of self-neglect or self-injury (and there are anecdotal reports
of apparently intentional self-killings among diverse fauna). Third, the use of laboratory
animals to model neurological and behavioural correlates of human suicidality implies an
acceptance that these animals provide valid homologues. Challenging what he views as a
premature consensus that suicide is uniquely human, Peña-Guzmán synthesises disparate
research sources, and raises important ethical questions for animal welfare.
Peña-Guzmán does not convince us that animals can suicide, for three reasons. First,
his definition of suicide – specifically including nonhumans and embracing incidental deaths
that arise from risk-taking rather than the intentional self-killing that characterises suicide
(Fairbairn, 2003; WHO, 2014) – sets up a circular track to Peña-Guzmán’s “continuist” conclusion. His argument illustrates Baechler's (1975/1979) point that an entire theory of
suicide is sometimes contained in the definition of suicide proposed by its author.
Second, although there is not space here for an itemized critique, much of the
empirical substance of Peña-Guzmán’s position is flawed. For example, he refers to child
suicide as if it is a unitary phenomenon, overlooking the emergence of suicide risk in normal
development: completed suicide among children under the age of ten years is rare, and under
five years virtually unknown (Nock et al., 2013). Peña-Guzmán refers in passing to suicide
among people with “severe cognitive disabilities” as if this were well-documented and
uncontroversial; yet, although mild to moderate intellectual disability (ID) is linked with
suicidality, there is little evidence of suicide among those with severe ID (Merrick, Merrick,
Lunsky, & Kandel, 2006).
There is no robust evidence of nonhuman suicides, notwithstanding countless
opportunities for such self-killings, if they occurred, to be documented by the world’s farmers,
animal breeders, naturalists, and scientists (Preti, 2007). We are left with anecdote and fable,
including the scorpion’s self-sting, proffered by Peña-Guzmán as an example of animal suicide
despite clear evidence that scorpions cannot sting themselves to death (Andreotti & Sabatier,
2013).
Scorpions are immune to their own venom, presumably because selection has
eliminated the germ lines of scorpions that were not so protected. The ubiquity of such
specific, self-preserving adaptations connects to a third, theoretical, problem with animal
suicide: the absence of a coherent explanation as to how selection could favour and maintain
such a capability. Many organisms sacrifice their soma according to algorithms of inclusive
fitness: non-breeding siblings in eusocial colonies – hymenopteran insects, for example – often
die defending the colony; other organisms that breed only once have nothing to lose by dying
once their reproductive work is done. But neither of these behaviours constitutes suicide in a
meaningful sense of the word – and neither reproductive strategy characterises dolphins,
scorpions, or most of the other candidates for animal suicide suggested by Peña-Guzmán.
Most animals have reproductive futures to defend, and hence have good genetic reason to
remain alive.
Suicide is not observed in nonhumans for a straightforward evolutionary reason: any
genes that permitted suicide would have been eliminated along with the suicides’ bodies. Any
animal that, in the absence of restraints, was capable of escaping its pain and suffering by selfkilling
would be expected to seize the opportunity, because some pain is unavoidable in the
Malthusian theatre in which selection plays out, and because pain is designed to motivate
action to escape. A suicidal animal, if it appeared, would face a predictable and severe
adaptive problem – the kind of problem that selection would expectably and powerfully have
addressed in the evolutionary past.
The most parsimonious explanation for the apparent absence of suicide among
younger children, the severely cognitively impaired, and nonhuman animals, is that these
populations lack the cognitive wherewithal to conceive and enact it (Baechler, 1975/1979).
Peña-Guzmán (2017) may be right that the difference in the cognitive abilities of humans
compared to other animals is a matter of degree, not kind, but this continuity does not
preclude a threshold effect: Humans alone cross a cognitive floor for suicide (Perry, 2014) as
the brain matures, usually around puberty. That most adolescent and adult humans can and
do endure misery without resorting to suicide points to the existence of powerful anti-suicide
defences, evolved mechanisms that emerge in normal mature humans. The possible nature of
these defences is the subject of a forthcoming book-length discussion (Soper, 2018). The point to make here is that Peña-Guzmán’s argument that nonhuman animals occasionally suicide to
end their suffering is incomplete without an account of the evolved protections that thwart
the vast majority from exploiting this supposedly available means of escape.
[References in link above.]
Abstract: An evolutionary analysis suggests that selection is unlikely to have tolerated the capacity for intentional self-killing in nonhuman animals. The potential to escape pain by suicide would have presented a recurrent and severe adaptive problem for an animal with a reproductive future to protect. If the potential for suicide arose in the evolutionary past, anti-suicide mechanisms may have co-evolved, as we believe they have in adult humans. Peña-Guzmán’s (2017) argument that some nonhuman animals can suicide is incomplete without an account of the defences that result in the vast majority opting not to.
---
Peña-Guzman (2017) questions whether only humans suicide. (We use “suicide” as a verb, to
bypass the morally loaded “commit.”) He argues that nonhuman animals might, if not kill
themselves intentionally, behave on a continuum of suicidality. Peña-Guzmán advances this
position with evidence from three domains: First, aspects of emotional states and pathologies
associated with human suicidality are also found in other species. Second, nonhumans
sometimes die as a consequence of self-neglect or self-injury (and there are anecdotal reports
of apparently intentional self-killings among diverse fauna). Third, the use of laboratory
animals to model neurological and behavioural correlates of human suicidality implies an
acceptance that these animals provide valid homologues. Challenging what he views as a
premature consensus that suicide is uniquely human, Peña-Guzmán synthesises disparate
research sources, and raises important ethical questions for animal welfare.
Peña-Guzmán does not convince us that animals can suicide, for three reasons. First,
his definition of suicide – specifically including nonhumans and embracing incidental deaths
that arise from risk-taking rather than the intentional self-killing that characterises suicide
(Fairbairn, 2003; WHO, 2014) – sets up a circular track to Peña-Guzmán’s “continuist” conclusion. His argument illustrates Baechler's (1975/1979) point that an entire theory of
suicide is sometimes contained in the definition of suicide proposed by its author.
Second, although there is not space here for an itemized critique, much of the
empirical substance of Peña-Guzmán’s position is flawed. For example, he refers to child
suicide as if it is a unitary phenomenon, overlooking the emergence of suicide risk in normal
development: completed suicide among children under the age of ten years is rare, and under
five years virtually unknown (Nock et al., 2013). Peña-Guzmán refers in passing to suicide
among people with “severe cognitive disabilities” as if this were well-documented and
uncontroversial; yet, although mild to moderate intellectual disability (ID) is linked with
suicidality, there is little evidence of suicide among those with severe ID (Merrick, Merrick,
Lunsky, & Kandel, 2006).
There is no robust evidence of nonhuman suicides, notwithstanding countless
opportunities for such self-killings, if they occurred, to be documented by the world’s farmers,
animal breeders, naturalists, and scientists (Preti, 2007). We are left with anecdote and fable,
including the scorpion’s self-sting, proffered by Peña-Guzmán as an example of animal suicide
despite clear evidence that scorpions cannot sting themselves to death (Andreotti & Sabatier,
2013).
Scorpions are immune to their own venom, presumably because selection has
eliminated the germ lines of scorpions that were not so protected. The ubiquity of such
specific, self-preserving adaptations connects to a third, theoretical, problem with animal
suicide: the absence of a coherent explanation as to how selection could favour and maintain
such a capability. Many organisms sacrifice their soma according to algorithms of inclusive
fitness: non-breeding siblings in eusocial colonies – hymenopteran insects, for example – often
die defending the colony; other organisms that breed only once have nothing to lose by dying
once their reproductive work is done. But neither of these behaviours constitutes suicide in a
meaningful sense of the word – and neither reproductive strategy characterises dolphins,
scorpions, or most of the other candidates for animal suicide suggested by Peña-Guzmán.
Most animals have reproductive futures to defend, and hence have good genetic reason to
remain alive.
Suicide is not observed in nonhumans for a straightforward evolutionary reason: any
genes that permitted suicide would have been eliminated along with the suicides’ bodies. Any
animal that, in the absence of restraints, was capable of escaping its pain and suffering by selfkilling
would be expected to seize the opportunity, because some pain is unavoidable in the
Malthusian theatre in which selection plays out, and because pain is designed to motivate
action to escape. A suicidal animal, if it appeared, would face a predictable and severe
adaptive problem – the kind of problem that selection would expectably and powerfully have
addressed in the evolutionary past.
The most parsimonious explanation for the apparent absence of suicide among
younger children, the severely cognitively impaired, and nonhuman animals, is that these
populations lack the cognitive wherewithal to conceive and enact it (Baechler, 1975/1979).
Peña-Guzmán (2017) may be right that the difference in the cognitive abilities of humans
compared to other animals is a matter of degree, not kind, but this continuity does not
preclude a threshold effect: Humans alone cross a cognitive floor for suicide (Perry, 2014) as
the brain matures, usually around puberty. That most adolescent and adult humans can and
do endure misery without resorting to suicide points to the existence of powerful anti-suicide
defences, evolved mechanisms that emerge in normal mature humans. The possible nature of
these defences is the subject of a forthcoming book-length discussion (Soper, 2018). The point to make here is that Peña-Guzmán’s argument that nonhuman animals occasionally suicide to
end their suffering is incomplete without an account of the evolved protections that thwart
the vast majority from exploiting this supposedly available means of escape.
[References in link above.]
Sexual arousal by dominance and submissiveness was long considered as pathology; surprisingly, approximately half of respondents were excited by their partner’s submission or their own submission
Sexual Arousal by Dominance and Submissiveness in the General Population: How Many, How Strongly, and Why? Eva Jozifkova. Deviant Behavior, https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2017.1410607
ABSTRACT: Sexual arousal by dominance and submissiveness was long considered as pathology. Surprisingly, approximately half of respondents (n = 673) were excited by their partner’s submission or their own submission. A strong preference was found in 8.2% of respondents. Respondents of 6.1% were not even excited by equality, but only by disparity. The respondents differed in the type of disparity that they prefer, and how strongly they preferred this disparity. We suggest that sexual arousal by dominance and submissiveness is related to a common mating strategy.
ABSTRACT: Sexual arousal by dominance and submissiveness was long considered as pathology. Surprisingly, approximately half of respondents (n = 673) were excited by their partner’s submission or their own submission. A strong preference was found in 8.2% of respondents. Respondents of 6.1% were not even excited by equality, but only by disparity. The respondents differed in the type of disparity that they prefer, and how strongly they preferred this disparity. We suggest that sexual arousal by dominance and submissiveness is related to a common mating strategy.
Closed-loop stimulation of temporal cortex rescues functional networks and improves memory
Closed-loop stimulation of temporal cortex rescues functional networks and improves memory. Youssef Ezzyat et al. Nature Communications, volume 9, Article number: 365 (2018), doi:10.1038/s41467-017-02753-0
Abstract: Memory failures are frustrating and often the result of ineffective encoding. One approach to improving memory outcomes is through direct modulation of brain activity with electrical stimulation. Previous efforts, however, have reported inconsistent effects when using open-loop stimulation and often target the hippocampus and medial temporal lobes. Here we use a closed-loop system to monitor and decode neural activity from direct brain recordings in humans. We apply targeted stimulation to lateral temporal cortex and report that this stimulation rescues periods of poor memory encoding. This system also improves later recall, revealing that the lateral temporal cortex is a reliable target for memory enhancement. Taken together, our results suggest that such systems may provide a therapeutic approach for treating memory dysfunction.
Abstract: Memory failures are frustrating and often the result of ineffective encoding. One approach to improving memory outcomes is through direct modulation of brain activity with electrical stimulation. Previous efforts, however, have reported inconsistent effects when using open-loop stimulation and often target the hippocampus and medial temporal lobes. Here we use a closed-loop system to monitor and decode neural activity from direct brain recordings in humans. We apply targeted stimulation to lateral temporal cortex and report that this stimulation rescues periods of poor memory encoding. This system also improves later recall, revealing that the lateral temporal cortex is a reliable target for memory enhancement. Taken together, our results suggest that such systems may provide a therapeutic approach for treating memory dysfunction.
Gender Earnings Gap among a Million Uber Rideshare Drivers: Driving Speed, Experience, and Work Location Preferences
Unpacking the Gender Earnings Gap among Uber driver-partners. Rebecca Diamond, Jonathan Hall, and Cody Cook. https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/unpacking-the-gender-earnings-gap-among-uber-driver-partners-e8f11df12045. Abstract from The Gender Earnings Gap in the Gig Economy: Evidence from over a Million Rideshare Drivers (https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/UberPayGap.pdf):
The growth of the "gig" economy generates worker flexibility that, some have speculated, will favor women. We explore one facet of the gig economy by examining labor supply choices and earnings among more than a million rideshare drivers on Uber in the U.S. Perhaps most surprisingly, we find that there is a roughly 7% gender earnings gap amongst drivers. The uniqueness of our data—knowing exactly the production and compensation functions—permits us to completely unpack the underlying determinants of the gender earnings gap. We find that the entire gender gap is caused by three factors: experience on the platform (learning-by-doing), preferences over where/when to work, and preferences for driving speed. This suggests that, as the gig economy grows and brings more flexibility in employment, women’s relatively high opportunity cost of non-paid-work time and gender-based preference differences can perpetuate a gender earnings gap even in the absence of discrimination.
The growth of the "gig" economy generates worker flexibility that, some have speculated, will favor women. We explore one facet of the gig economy by examining labor supply choices and earnings among more than a million rideshare drivers on Uber in the U.S. Perhaps most surprisingly, we find that there is a roughly 7% gender earnings gap amongst drivers. The uniqueness of our data—knowing exactly the production and compensation functions—permits us to completely unpack the underlying determinants of the gender earnings gap. We find that the entire gender gap is caused by three factors: experience on the platform (learning-by-doing), preferences over where/when to work, and preferences for driving speed. This suggests that, as the gig economy grows and brings more flexibility in employment, women’s relatively high opportunity cost of non-paid-work time and gender-based preference differences can perpetuate a gender earnings gap even in the absence of discrimination.
Lay people tend to ascribe greater epistemic authority to those experts whose advice confirms people's opinions, both measured and manipulated; when participants' own opinions are not salient, people tend to evaluate experts' authority as higher when their advice confirms social norms
Zaleskiewicz, T. and Gasiorowska, A. (2018), Tell Me What I Wanted to Hear: Confirmation Effect in Lay Evaluations of Financial Expert Authority. Applied Psychology. doi:10.1111/apps.12145
Abstract: In real life, people engage in interactive decision processes by consulting with experts. However, before taking advice, they must recognise the authority of an expert to assess the quality of the advice. The main goal of this research was to investigate how the confirmation effect affects lay evaluations of the epistemic authority of financial experts. Experiment 1 showed that lay people tend to ascribe greater epistemic authority to those experts whose advice confirms people's opinions, both measured and manipulated. Experiment 2 revealed that when participants' own opinions are not salient, people tend to evaluate experts' authority as higher when their advice confirms social norms. In Experiment 3 we jointly investigated the effects of participants' own opinions and social norms on the evaluations of authority. When both sources of expertise were made salient, decision-makers favoured advice confirming their own beliefs and used it to evaluate experts' authority. Three interpretations of the role confirmation plays in the experts' authority evaluations are proposed: (1) self-defensive strategies; (2) processing fluency; and (3) psychological consequences of naïve realism. The paper discusses practical implications of the results. We propose that increasing consumers' knowledge about biases might protect their evaluations of financial advice from being susceptible to the confirmation effect.
Abstract: In real life, people engage in interactive decision processes by consulting with experts. However, before taking advice, they must recognise the authority of an expert to assess the quality of the advice. The main goal of this research was to investigate how the confirmation effect affects lay evaluations of the epistemic authority of financial experts. Experiment 1 showed that lay people tend to ascribe greater epistemic authority to those experts whose advice confirms people's opinions, both measured and manipulated. Experiment 2 revealed that when participants' own opinions are not salient, people tend to evaluate experts' authority as higher when their advice confirms social norms. In Experiment 3 we jointly investigated the effects of participants' own opinions and social norms on the evaluations of authority. When both sources of expertise were made salient, decision-makers favoured advice confirming their own beliefs and used it to evaluate experts' authority. Three interpretations of the role confirmation plays in the experts' authority evaluations are proposed: (1) self-defensive strategies; (2) processing fluency; and (3) psychological consequences of naïve realism. The paper discusses practical implications of the results. We propose that increasing consumers' knowledge about biases might protect their evaluations of financial advice from being susceptible to the confirmation effect.
Light to moderate drinking is associated with indices of better white matter health; never drinkers and heavy drinkers had highest white matter lesion burden
Alcohol intake and brain white matter in middle aged men: Microscopic and macroscopic differences. Linda K. McEvoy et al. NeuroImage: Clinical, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2018.02.006
Highlights
• In middle-aged men brain white matter metrics differed by amount of alcohol intake.
• Fractional anisotropy (FA) was highest among moderate drinkers.
• FA decreased with heavier drinking (>2 drinks/day, on average).
• Never drinkers and heavy drinkers had highest white matter lesion burden.
• Light to moderate drinking is associated with indices of better white matter health.
Abstract: Heavy alcohol consumption is associated with deleterious changes in the brain but associations of moderate alcohol intake are not well understood. We examined the association of alcohol consumption with brain white matter health in 377 middle-aged men (56–66 years old; mean 61.8 ± 2.6 years) who were participants in the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging (VETSA). T1-, T2-, proton density-, and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance images were obtained. Diffusion measures were quantified from 12 major white matter tracts. Global white matter lesion (WML) burden was also quantified. Mixed effects linear models examined differences in diffusivity and WMLs by amount of alcohol intake. Analyses adjusted for numerous demographic, health, and lifestyle variables. An inverted-U association was found between alcohol intake and fractional anisotropy (FA) in several tracts, including the inferior-frontal-occipital fasciculus, uncinate fasciculus, superior longitudinal fasciculus, the forceps minor and the anterior thalamic radiations. In these tracts, FA increased with increasing alcohol intake, peaking with moderate alcohol intake (9–28 drinks in 14 days), and declining with heavier intake. Associations remained significant after exclusion of individuals with diabetes or hypertension. There was a U-shaped association in WML burden with highest burden among never drinkers and heavy drinkers (>28 drinks in 14 days). This association was no longer significant after exclusion of individuals with hypertension, since WML burden among heavy drinkers no longer differed from that of other drinkers. This suggests that hypertension related to heavy alcohol intake may contribute to WML burden observed among heavy drinkers. Together, these correlational results suggest that among middle-aged men, moderate drinking may be associated with metrics of better white matter health, particularly microstructural measures, whereas drinking beyond recommended guidelines may be associated with both microstructural and macrostructural white matter damage.
Keywords: Neuroimaging; Diffusion-weighted imaging; Fractional anisotropy; Aging; White matter lesion; White matter hyperintensity; DTI; Ethanol
Highlights
• In middle-aged men brain white matter metrics differed by amount of alcohol intake.
• Fractional anisotropy (FA) was highest among moderate drinkers.
• FA decreased with heavier drinking (>2 drinks/day, on average).
• Never drinkers and heavy drinkers had highest white matter lesion burden.
• Light to moderate drinking is associated with indices of better white matter health.
Abstract: Heavy alcohol consumption is associated with deleterious changes in the brain but associations of moderate alcohol intake are not well understood. We examined the association of alcohol consumption with brain white matter health in 377 middle-aged men (56–66 years old; mean 61.8 ± 2.6 years) who were participants in the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging (VETSA). T1-, T2-, proton density-, and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance images were obtained. Diffusion measures were quantified from 12 major white matter tracts. Global white matter lesion (WML) burden was also quantified. Mixed effects linear models examined differences in diffusivity and WMLs by amount of alcohol intake. Analyses adjusted for numerous demographic, health, and lifestyle variables. An inverted-U association was found between alcohol intake and fractional anisotropy (FA) in several tracts, including the inferior-frontal-occipital fasciculus, uncinate fasciculus, superior longitudinal fasciculus, the forceps minor and the anterior thalamic radiations. In these tracts, FA increased with increasing alcohol intake, peaking with moderate alcohol intake (9–28 drinks in 14 days), and declining with heavier intake. Associations remained significant after exclusion of individuals with diabetes or hypertension. There was a U-shaped association in WML burden with highest burden among never drinkers and heavy drinkers (>28 drinks in 14 days). This association was no longer significant after exclusion of individuals with hypertension, since WML burden among heavy drinkers no longer differed from that of other drinkers. This suggests that hypertension related to heavy alcohol intake may contribute to WML burden observed among heavy drinkers. Together, these correlational results suggest that among middle-aged men, moderate drinking may be associated with metrics of better white matter health, particularly microstructural measures, whereas drinking beyond recommended guidelines may be associated with both microstructural and macrostructural white matter damage.
Keywords: Neuroimaging; Diffusion-weighted imaging; Fractional anisotropy; Aging; White matter lesion; White matter hyperintensity; DTI; Ethanol
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Putting numbers to our happiness
Bryson, A. and MacKerron, G. (2017), Are You Happy While You Work?. Econ J, 127: 106–125. doi:10.1111/ecoj.12269
Abstract: Using a new data source permitting individuals to record their well-being via a smartphone, we explore within-person variance in individuals’ well-being measured momentarily at random points in time. We find paid work is ranked lower than any of the other 39 activities individuals can report engaging in, with the exception of being sick in bed. Precisely how unhappy one is while working varies significantly with where you work; whether you are combining work with other activities; whether you are alone or with others; and the time of day or night you are working.
Abstract: Using a new data source permitting individuals to record their well-being via a smartphone, we explore within-person variance in individuals’ well-being measured momentarily at random points in time. We find paid work is ranked lower than any of the other 39 activities individuals can report engaging in, with the exception of being sick in bed. Precisely how unhappy one is while working varies significantly with where you work; whether you are combining work with other activities; whether you are alone or with others; and the time of day or night you are working.
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