In the absence of a clear majority, the diversity of social information produces opposite effects on herding behavior and subjective uncertainty

Navajas, Joaquin, Oriane Armand, Bahador Bahrami, and Ophelia Deroy. 2018. “Diversity of Opinions Promotes Herding in Uncertain Crowds.” PsyArXiv. April 5. doi:10.31234/osf.io/mvy25

Abstract: Classic and recent studies demonstrate how we fall for the ‘tyranny of the majority’ and follow the dominant trend, perhaps wisely, when uncertain. In many social interactions, however, there is no clearly identified majority, and aggregating the various opinions of others is non-trivial. We asked whether in such conditions herding behavior depends on statistical properties of social information, namely, the variance of opinions in a group. Participants privately estimated the price of eight anonymous paintings. Then, in groups of five, they discussed and agreed on a shared estimate for four paintings. Finally, they provided revised individual estimates for all paintings. We observed that groups converged to each other and boosted their confidence. However, the more diverse groups herded more and showed less confidence. These findings suggest that, in the absence of a clear majority, the diversity of social information produces opposite effects on herding behavior and subjective uncertainty.

Insomnia and mortality: a meta-analysis shows that longevity is not impacted

Insomnia and mortality: a meta-analysis. Nicole Lovato, Leon Lack. Sleep Medicine Reviews, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2018.10.004

Summary: The purpose of this review was to evaluate the strength of evidence for a relationship between risk of mortality and frequent and ongoing insomnia using a meta-analytic strategy.

Seventeen studies, including a total of 36,938,981 individuals followed up for a mean of 11.6 years, reporting the investigation of the association between mortality and frequent (≥3 nights/week), ongoing (≥1 month) insomnia were identified.

There was no difference in the odds of mortality for those individuals with symptoms of insomnia when compared to those without symptoms (OR= 1.06, 95%CI=0.61-1.84, p=.84). This finding was echoed in the assessment of the rate of mortality in those with and without symptoms of insomnia using the outcomes of multivariate models, with the most complete adjustment for potential confounders, as reported by the individual studies included in this meta-analysis (HR= 1.07, 95%CI=.96-.1.19, p=.22). Additional analyses revealed a tendency for an increased risk of mortality associated with hypnotic use.

The current evidence reinforces the use of cognitive therapy, within a CBTi framework, as a frontline non-pharmacological treatment for insomnia to reassure patients their longevity will not be impacted as a consequence of suffering from insomnia.

Humans & news media prioritize outlying information & one reason for a negativity bias in news consumption & production is that negative information is more “outlying”: that is, further away from expectations

A Model of Attentiveness to Outlying News. P J Lamberson, Stuart Soroka. Journal of Communication, Volume 68, Issue 5, 1 October 2018, Pages 942–964, https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqy040

Abstract: This paper offers a formal-theoretical account for the preponderance of negative news content. It draws on work suggesting that humans and news media prioritize outlying information and argues that one reason for a negativity bias in news consumption and production is that negative information is more “outlying”: that is, further away from expectations. Expectations change over time, however, and so too do negativity (and other) biases. This dynamic is explored using some simple simulations, followed by an empirical explication using data on the U.S. economy alongside media coverage of the economy and public economic expectations. The end result is a broadly-generalizable account of the shifting prominence of “outlying” information.

The Salafi Worldview and the Hermeneutical Limits of Mainstream Sunni Critique of Salafi-Jihadism

The Salafi Worldview and the Hermeneutical Limits of Mainstream Sunni Critique of Salafi-Jihadism. Adis Duderija. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2018.1529359

Abstract: The aim of this article is to point to the hermeneutical limits of the critique of mainstream Sunnism vis-a-vis the Salafi-jihadist interpretations with particular reference to the literature produced by the proponents of the IS. The main argument the article makes is that by subscribing to what will be termed a “Salafi worldview,” mainstream Sunnism shares many interpretationally crucial epistemological and methodological mechanisms with those adopted by the proponents of the ideology behind the IS. As such mainstream Sunnism has strong hermeneutical limits that do not allow it to be in a position to mount an interpretationally effective rebuttal of many beliefs and practices Salafi-jihadists resort to including those pertaining to apostasy, enslavement, and gender-related issues.

---

What matters most from the perspective of the aims of this article is not necessarily the question of whether or not the proponents of the IS interpretations of Islam are citing the Qur’an and hadith de-contextually or selectively,64 or whether or not their appropriation of Hanbali/ahl al-hadith scholars is doing justice to their views or whether or not their appropriation of the Companions or the Salaf are indeed representative but the actual mode of reasoning employed and the epistemological and hermeneutical process that informs their construction of authority and normativity.  Based on the above evidence and analysis it is clearly evident that the mode of reasoning and the construction of authority employed by the IS proponents shares the same Salafi worldview as does mainstream Sunnism. One of the implications of this finding is that theological rebuttals penned by mainstream Sunni scholars have significant hermeneutical limits and make it very difficult to render the interpretations of Salafi-jihadist groups like the IS as hermeneutically unreasonable if mainstream Sunni hermeneutical commitments embodied in the Salafi worldview are taken as normative .  Hence, the persuasive power of mainstream Sunni critique of Salafi-jihadism based on scriptural hermeneutics on issues such as those discussed above, but also others,65 is greatly impaired. Hence, it is not surprising that, for example, in mainstream Sunnism, apostasy is considered to be punishable by death although differences in opinion exist as to what constitutes the acts of apostasy or what its basis is (i.e., religious or political).  66 Or, to provide another example, it is not surprising that there are many shared beliefs, laws, and practices pertaining to the role and status of women in society, including dress codes, between the proponents of mainstream Sunnism and those associated with the IS ideology.67 I argue that these are the result of their shared subscription to the Salafi worldview as described here.

If mainstream Sunnism was to render the views of Salafi-jihadist grounds such as the IS hermeneutically unreasonable it would need to adopt a significantly different approach to conceptualizing the concept of turath by moving away from its emphasis on isnad and a heavily textualist epistemology, and also rethink other aspects of what we described as the Salafi worldview. It would, at the minimum, have to adopt a much more contextualist approach to the conceptualization and interpretation of the Qur’an and the hadith; it would need to rethink the concept of Sunna and its relationship with the methodologies associated with authenticating the hadith and it would need to subscribe to a rationalist Islamic theology and theory of ethics.68

Low levels of professional competency across professional domains can be due to difficulty measuring relevant outcomes, impoverished performance feedback, & lack of accurate assessment tools or decision aids

Assessment of Expert Performance Compared Across Professional Domains. Rick P. Thomas, Ashley Lawrence. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Volume 7, Issue 2, June 2018, Pages 167-176, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2018.03.009

Abstrac: In this paper, we review several task characteristics to explain why experts across domains differ in their level of skill (expertise). Domains may have low levels of professional competency because of difficulty measuring relevant outcomes, impoverished performance feedback, and lack of accurate assessment tools or decision aids. Acknowledging that domains differ furthers research on expertise because it elucidates some common controversies. For example, the role of nurture (job-relevant experience) versus nature (talent or pre-existing abilities) in skilled performance, and the problem that expert-level knowledge and fast decision-making do not always translate into superior performance across domains—the process–performance paradox. Moreover, recommendations for improving domain competence must take into account the underlying differences among domains to provide recommendations appropriate for the current level of competency exhibited by the professionals in the domain.

General Audience Summary: The goal of this paper is to explain why variability in performance exists between professional domains. For example, weather forecasters accurately predict next-day precipitation 82 percent of the time, whereas clinical psychologists and psychiatrists only accurately predict patient violence 39 percent of the time. We review evidence that specific professional domains may have low levels of skill because of difficulty measuring relevant outcomes, impoverished performance feedback, and lack of accurate assessment tools or decision aids. Weather forecasters have access to accurate and usable feedback for their 24-hour precipitation forecasts, whereas clinical psychologists do not have access to feedback of that quality for their predictions of violence. Understanding how differences between professional domains affect performance advances recommendations for improving competence. We also address important issues like why some professionals do not perform better as they gain experience and whether guided practice is really the only ingredient needed to develop high-level skill by evalu-ating the veracity of the claim that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to develop expertise. Similarly, we evaluate whether popular examples, like Shaquille O’Neal’s free-throw shooting improvement under Ed Pablashkis and Judit Polgár’s skill development in chess under her father’s tutelage, are truly mentorship success stories.

Check also Erekson, D. M., Janis, R., Bailey, R. J., Cattani, K., & Pedersen, T. R. (2017). A longitudinal investigation of the impact of psychotherapist training: Does training improve client outcomes? Journal of Counseling Psychology, 64(5), 514-524. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2017/11/a-longitudinal-investigation-of-impact.html

Choosing the vocational compared with the academic pathway was associated with higher conscientiousness & less interest in investigative, social, and enterprising activities

School or Work? The Choice May Change Your Personality. Jessika Golle et al. Psychological Science, https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618806298

Abstract: According to the social-investment principle, entering new environments is associated with new social roles that influence people’s behaviors. In this study, we examined whether young adults’ personality development is differentially related to their choice of either an academic or a vocational pathway (i.e., entering an academic-track school or beginning vocational training). The personality constructs of interest were Big Five personality traits and vocational-interest orientations. We used a longitudinal study design and propensity-score matching to create comparable groups before they entered one of the pathways and then tested the differences between these groups 6 years later. We expected the vocational pathway to reinforce more mature behavior and curtail investigative interest. Results indicated that choosing the vocational compared with the academic pathway was associated with higher conscientiousness and less interest in investigative, social, and enterprising activities.

Keywords: educational pathways, personality development, Big Five traits, vocational interests, propensity-score analysis

Gender differences in adult numeracy are larger in societies that combine egalitarianism with gender segregation in the labour market, & smaller in countries with more inequitable gender relations; this is not an outcome of female disempowerment

Gender differences in adult numeracy: a comparative study. Rose Cook. Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD, UCL, June 2018. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10055384/1/Cook_10055384_thesis.pdf

Abstract: This thesis presents a comparative study of gender differences in adult numeracy in 20 OECD countries. It explores the ways in which the widespread male advantage in adult numeracy is associated with gender relations. Gender relations are measured in terms of gender differences in power and status, the gender division of paid and unpaid labour, and gender culture. The thesis uses quantitative secondary analysis of data from the OECD ’s 2012 Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), which provides direct measures of adults’ numeracy skills. The analysis proceeds from an original theoretical framework which combines insights from life course research on the determinants of skills in adulthood, as well as integrating feminist theory of multidimensional gender relations. At the individual level, the results demonstrate that female advances in education do not necessarily equalise adult numeracy. Women’s participation in the labour market is also not enough to guarantee equal levels of adult numeracy: women must also be able to access occupations that use numeracy skills. Cross-nationally, there is no obvious empirical relationship between gender inequality, conventionally conceived, and the gender difference in adult numeracy. Instead, paradoxically, gender differences in adult numeracy are larger in societies that combine egalitarianism with gender segregation in the labour market, and smaller in countries with relatively inequitable gender relations. Overall, there is little evidence that gender differences in adult numeracy are associated with conventional indicators of gender inequality in this sample of countries. The thesis thereby questions the findings of previous research and suggests that instead of being framed as an outcome of female disempowerment, gender differences in adult numeracy should be understood in relation to the multidimensionality of gender relations in post-industrial societies.

Cats were tested in a two-way choice test with human gazing cues; found the hidden food with high success rate by following referential gazes; verbal ostensive cues before gazing made establishing of eye contact with cats faster

Cats (Felis silvestris catus) read human gaze for referential information. Péter Pongrácz, Julianna Szulamit Szapu, Tamás Faragó. Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2018.11.001

Highlights
•    Cats were tested in a two-way choice test with human gazing cues.
•    Cats found the hidden food with high success rate by following referential gazes.
•    Verbal ostensive cues before gazing made establishing of eye contact with cats faster.

Abstract: Companion cats often occupy the same anthropogenic niche as dogs in human families. Still, cat cognition remains an underrepresented research subject in ethology. Our goal was to examine whether two components that are crucial in dog-human communicative interactions (sensitivity to ostensive signals; gaze following) are also present in cats. In a two-object choice task, we used dynamic and momentary gazing in ostensive and non-ostensive communicative situations. We tested 41 cats at their owner's home. Cats on the group level achieved a 70% overall success rate, showing that they are capable of following human gaze as a referential cue. Cats' success rate was unaffected both by the type of gazing and the presence/absence of ostensive communication, showing that the subjects followed readily even the more difficult momentary cues. We found a trend (p = 0.085), showing that young cats (max. 1 year old) may achieve higher success rate than adult animals. Ostension had a significant effect on the latency of eye contact, which was the shortest when the experimenter called the cat's attention with ostensive signals (p = 0.006). Our results are the first that prove cats' ability to follow human gaze, which is considered to be one of the more difficult visual referential signals given during human-animal interactions. Although ostension did not affect the success rate of cats, we found ostensive human signals to be a more effective attention elicitor compared to non-ostensive vocalizations. Our study therefore provided the first insight to the existence of sensitivity to human ostension in another non-human species besides dogs. These results emphasize the possible relevance of the domestication process and responsiveness to socialization in the development of human-compatible socio-cognitive skills even in such animals as the cat, where the ancestor was not a highly social species.

Inside China’s training camps for "soft" boys: “we were too attentive to him and deprived him of the opportunity to be independent. He was not confident and wept at setbacks. He was like a sensitive girl.”

Inside China’s training camps, where boys are learning how to be men. Zhuang Pinghui. South China Morning Post, Nov 04 2018. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2171040/inside-chinas-training-camps-where-boys-are-learning-how-be-men


Excerpts:

Wearing headbands reading “Tough Guy” and chanting slogans such as “Who is the best? I am the best”, “Who are we? We are the man”, they were there to learn all about focus, cooperation and competition through lectures, games and American football.

It was the fifth day of an 18-day course held on weekends for boys aged seven to 11 that aims to rescue them from their day-to-day, all-female environment and prevent them from being “oversensitive, vulnerable, whiny, petty or irresponsible”.

Members of the Boys’ Club recite declarations of manhood at the beginning of lectures, which include subjects such as safeguarding their country, honour and dreams.

They make vows to be ambitious and competent as an eagle, smart and kind as a dolphin and persistent and down-to-earth as a horse.

The boys address each other as “comrade” or tongzhi, which literally means to share the same ambition.

Boys’ Club founder Tang Haiyan was a physical education teacher in Beijing before starting his specialised training centre in 2012. Since then, more than 20,000 children have taken part in his courses, including some who travel from far outside Beijing to follow his unique programme.

“There is a crisis in boys’ education and I threw myself into practical actions to save them and help them find their lost masculinity,” Tang said.

This was long before state media became concerned about the softer, more androgynous physical appearance of modern male celebrities and their potential impact on society and young children.

When a nationally televised show for school pupils caused a public outcry in September this year, many parents of boys realised their sons were just not man enough and since then have been spending big bucks on a mission to reverse the trend.

For about 10,000 yuan (US$1,400) parents can sign up their sons for 18 sessions of weekend training. There are other, shorter themed activities such as running topless in winter, climbing a mountain in temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius in Heilongjiang, China’s northernmost province, or trekking for a week across a desert.

Last weekend some of the children dressed up as soldiers and played a real-life version of the popular video game Counter-Strike on the set of patriotic military film Wolf Warrior.

Zhang Haiwei, mother of 12-year-old Tong Tong in Qingdao, in the eastern province of Shandong, was determined to send her son for 14 days of military-style training in Beijing after hearing a lecture by Tang five years ago.

“Tong Tong’s father was busy and not around much. I looked after my son and he had been surrounded by women all the time. He was weak and wept whenever there was some difficulty,” Zhang said.

“It might be that we were too attentive to him and deprived him of the opportunity to be independent. He was not confident and wept at setbacks. He was like a sensitive girl.”

[...]

Tang said most boys were raised by their mother and grandmothers, and surrounded by female teachers in school who, in turn, set the same standard for boys as girls – such as to be quiet, behave and not to be naughty all the time.

This, Tang said, was unfair and put boys in a disadvantaged position.

“Boys behave differently from girls and they develop at a different pace, but I have been to many schools, top or average, and it has become a crisis in society that boys are overshadowed by girls,” he said.

“Their confidence has been shattered. We must help boys regain the true colours of men, their masculinity.”

[...]

He felt the boy was being spoiled and would not be able to handle a life like his own in the army, with its long and hard physical exercises.

So two years ago, when he learned Tang was coming to his city, Zhang signed the boy up for two weeks of military style-training that included walking weights across sand, carrying cabers – the Scottish long pole – wrestling, and American football.

“My son Ming Ming came back a changed person,” he said.

“He knew what discipline was and followed rules strictly. He understood the meaning of persistence, team cooperation and competition.”

He signed up for more courses.

They argue that spatial-processing principles in the hippocampal-entorhinal region provide a geometric code to map information domains of cognitive spaces for high-level cognition

Navigating cognition: Spatial codes for human thinking. Jacob L. S. Bellmund, Peter Gärdenfors, Edvard I. Moser, Christian F. Doeller. Science, Vol. 362, Issue 6415, eaat6766, Nov 09 2018. DOI: 10.1126/science.aat6766

A framework for cognitive spaces: Ever since Tolman's proposal of cognitive maps in the 1940s, the question of how spatial representations support flexible behavior has been a contentious topic. Bellmund et al. review and combine concepts from cognitive science and philosophy with findings from neurophysiology of spatial navigation in rodents to propose a framework for cognitive neuroscience. They argue that spatial-processing principles in the hippocampal-entorhinal region provide a geometric code to map information domains of cognitive spaces for high-level cognition and discuss recent evidence for this proposal.

Abstract: The hippocampal formation has long been suggested to underlie both memory formation and spatial navigation. We discuss how neural mechanisms identified in spatial navigation research operate across information domains to support a wide spectrum of cognitive functions. In our framework, place and grid cell population codes provide a representational format to map variable dimensions of cognitive spaces. This highly dynamic mapping system enables rapid reorganization of codes through remapping between orthogonal representations across behavioral contexts, yielding a multitude of stable cognitive spaces at different resolutions and hierarchical levels. Action sequences result in trajectories through cognitive space, which can be simulated via sequential coding in the hippocampus. In this way, the spatial representational format of the hippocampal formation has the capacity to support flexible cognition and behavior.

Structured Abstract

BACKGROUND: Ever since Edward Tolman’s proposal that comprehensive cognitive maps underlie spatial navigation and, more generally, psychological functions, the question of how past experience guides behavior has been contentious. The discovery of place cells in rodents, signaling the animal’s position in space, suggested that such cognitive maps reside in the hippocampus, a core brain region for human memory. Building on the description of place cells, several other functionally defined cell types were discovered in the hippocampal-entorhinal region. Among them are grid cells in the entorhinal cortex, whose characteristic periodic, six-fold symmetric firing patterns are thought to provide a spatial metric. These findings were complemented by insights into key coding principles of the hippocampal-entorhinal region: Spatial representations vary in scale along the hippocampal long axis, place cells remap to map different environments, and sequential hippocampal activity represents nonlocal trajectories through space. In humans, the existence of spatially tuned cells has been demonstrated in presurgical patients, and functional magnetic resonance imaging provides proxy measures for the noninvasive investigation of these processing mechanisms in human cognition. Intriguingly, recent advances indicate that place and grid cells can encode positions along dimensions of experience beyond Euclidean space for navigation, suggesting a more general role of hippocampal-entorhinal processing mechanisms in cognition.

ADVANCES: We combine hippocampal-entorhinal processing mechanisms identified in spatial navigation research with ideas from cognitive science describing a spatial representational format for cognition. Cognitive spaces are spanned by dimensions satisfying geometric constraints such as betweenness and equidistance, enabling the representation of properties and concepts as convex regions of cognitive space. We propose that the continuous population code of place and grid cells in the hippocampal-entorhinal region maps the dimensions of cognitive spaces. In these, each stimulus is located according to its feature values along the relevant dimensions, resulting in nearby positions for similar stimuli and larger distances between dissimilar stimuli. The low-dimensional, rigid firing properties of the entorhinal grid system make it a candidate to provide a metric or distance code for cognitive spaces, whereas hippocampal place cells flexibly represent positions in a given space. This mapping of cognitive spaces is complemented by the additional coding principles outlined above: Along the hippocampal long axis, cognitive spaces are mapped with varying spatial scale, supporting memory and knowledge representations at different levels of granularity. Via hippocampal remapping, spaces spanned by different dimensions can be flexibly mapped and established maps can be reinstated via attractor dynamics. The geometric definition of cognitive spaces allows flexible generalization and inference, and sequential hippocampal activity can simulate trajectories through cognitive spaces for adaptive decision-making and behavior.

OUTLOOK: Cognitive spaces provide a domain-general format for processing in the hippocampal-entorhinal region, in line with its involvement beyond navigation and memory. Spatial navigation serves as a model system to identify key coding principles governing cognitive spaces. An important question concerns the extent to which firing properties of spatially tuned cells are preserved in cognitive spaces. Technological advances such as calcium imaging will clarify coding principles on the population level and facilitate the translation to human cognitive neuroscience. Spatial navigation is mostly investigated in two dimensions and naturally limited to three dimensions; however, the processing of complex, multidimensional concepts is vital to high-level human cognition, and the representation of such high-dimensional spaces is an intriguing question for future research. Further, the role of brain networks acting in concert with the hippocampus, in navigation specifically and cognitive function in general, will provide insight into whether and how cognitive spaces are supported beyond the hippocampal-entorhinal region. Finally, the precise way in which cognitive spaces and trajectories through them are read out for behavior remains to be elucidated.

Found some evidence that both self-reported formidability is associated with higher levels of conservatism in women & self-reported grip strength with conservatism in men

Is Formidability Associated with Political Conservatism? Nicholas Kerry, Damian R. Murray. Evolutionary Psychological Science, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-018-0181-5

Abstract: Physical formidability has played an important role in intra-sexual competition throughout human history, influencing social capital and, in turn, social cognition. However, the degree to which physical formidability is associated with social and political attitudes in contemporary environments remains poorly understood. The current studies tested the hypotheses that formidability is associated with more politically conservative attitudes and, more specifically, less support for financial egalitarianism and more approval of military intervention. Across three studies, comprised of both online and undergraduate samples (two pre-registered; total N > 900), we found some evidence that both self-reported formidability and grip strength were associated with higher levels of conservatism. However, this evidence was inconsistent across different measures and across samples, with relatively small effects for some conservatism measures and no effects for others. There also emerged sex differences, such that self-reported formidability was a better predictor of conservatism in women and objective grip strength was a better predictor of conservatism in men. Unlike previous research, we did not find consistent evidence of a relationship between formidability and either financial egalitarianism or military approval. Attempted experimental manipulations of formidability in studies 2 and 3 yielded inconsistent results.

Keywords: Political attitudes Human capital Strategic morality Formidability Conservatism Pre-registration

Does legal marijuana access blunt academic performance in college? It does.

Getting into the weeds: Does legal marijuana access blunt academic performance in college? Adam C. Wright, John M. Krieg. Economic Inquiry, https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12743

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of legal access to marijuana on student performance stemming from a voter‐approved initiative legalizing marijuana for those 21 and older in the State of Washington. Using panel data from a medium‐sized public university, we use a within‐student and within‐class estimator to show that legalization reduces students' grades, with an effect size about one‐half the impact of gaining legal access to alcohol. Consistent with how marijuana consumption affects cognitive functioning, we find that students' grades fall furthest in courses that require more quantitative skills. These effects are largely driven by men and low performers. (JEL I23, I18, K32)

How negative parenting might hamper identity development: spontaneous aggressiveness and personal belief in a just world

How negative parenting might hamper identity development: spontaneous aggressiveness and personal belief in a just world. Jan Hofer & Benedikt Spengler. Self and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2018.1541026

ABSTRACT: Based on studies indicating that identity formation is shaped by perceived negative parenting and personal factors, we hypothesized that negative parenting relates to adolescents’ self-reported spontaneous aggressiveness and their personal belief in a just world and consequently, is associated with problems developing a firm meaningful interpersonal identity. In a series of four studies, we gathered data from 807 German students aged between 13 and 18 years by using two well-validated methods for measuring of identity development (i.e., Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status, Study 1; Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale, Studies 2/4). Analyses revealed an indirect link of negative parenting on facets of identity development via spontaneous aggressiveness (Studies 1 and 2). Based on findings that negative parenting was associated with spontaneous aggressiveness via personal belief in a just world (Study 3), analyses conducted in Study 4 indicate a two-staged indirect link of negative parenting on facets of identity development through personal belief in a just world and spontaneous aggressiveness. Above all, problems in the development of and satisfaction with personal meaningful identity commitments could be verified. Implications for research on interpersonal identity formation are discussed.

KEYWORDS: Perceived negative parenting, interpersonal identity, spontaneous aggressiveness, personal belief in a just world

Self-control has largely been thought to exclusively promote socially-desirable behaviors; but consistent with newer models, it is equally plausible that, under some circumstances, could increase obedient aggression

The Intricacies of the Pursuit of Higher Self-Control. Liad Uziel. Current Directions in Psychological Science, https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417744322

Abstract: Self-control is a central human capacity associated with a wide range of personal and societal advantages. In view of its benefits, increasing self-control among children and adults has been advocated as a remedy to many of society’s illnesses. This approach is evident in the popular media, as well as in educating and governing agencies, and has subsequently taken root in the general public. The present article advocates a broader approach by noting some of the downsides of the pursuit of high self-control. It does so by highlighting often-ignored issues relating to (a) uncertainties about the nature of self-control, (b) nuances concerning the benefits of high self-control, and (c) undesirable implications of wanting more self-control. The conclusion is that research on self-control should deal not only with the benefits of self-control but also with the costs associated with advocating, wanting, and even having high self-control. This approach would provide society with informed knowledge about potential side effects of one of the most powerful psychological solutions to its ailments.

Keywords: self-control, self-regulation, desire for self-control, overcontrol, public policy

Check also “Thou Shalt Kill”: Practicing self-control supports adherence to personal values when asked to aggress. Thomas F. Denson et al. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.09.001

Abstract: Poor self-control is a root cause of aggression and criminality. But people can improve their self-control through repetitive practice. Because self-control involves acting in accordance with personal values, practicing self-control can promote attainment of value-consistent goals. The present research tested the hypothesis that practicing self-control could both decrease and increase obedient aggression. In Experiment 1, relative to the active control group, participants who practiced self-control were more hesitant to engage in mock violence (e.g., “cutting” the experimenter's throat with a rubber knife), especially for participants high in dispositional empathy. In Experiment 2, practicing self-control increased obedience to kill insects, but only among participants who felt little moral responsibility for their actions. There was a trend for decreased killing among participants who feltmorally responsible for their actions. Our findings suggest thatwhen asked to behave aggressively, self-control promotes adherence to personal values, which may or may not fuel aggression.

To date, self-control has largely been thought to exclusively promote socially-desirable behaviors. For instance, studies showing that self-control reduces reactive aggression strongly support this notion (Denson et al., 2011; Finkel et al., 2009; Moffitt et al., 2011). However, consistent with newer models of self-control (Fujita, 2011; Inzlicht, Schmeichel et al., 2014), it is equally plausible that under some circumstances, SCT could increase obedient aggression

Self-curiosity, the psychology-drive to explore one's inner functioning, is borne out of dissatisfaction with one’s own psychological world

Self-curiosity: Definition and measurement. Filippo Aschieri, Ilaria Durosini & Justin Dean Smith. Self and Identity, https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2018.1543728

ABSTRACT: This article frames self-curiosity – the curiosity that people have about their inner world – within the overarching construct of curiosity and describes its psychological correlates identified in the empirical literature. The construct of self-curiosity is defined as one’s tendency and interest in exploring their inner functioning. It can be assessed through self-report on the Self-Curiosity Attitude-Interest Scale (SCAI), which comprises two positively correlated factors: (1) Attitude toward Self-Curiosity and (2) Interest in Increasing Knowledge of Self. Research provides evidence of the nomological network of self-curiosity, its relationship with other personality traits, and how it varies among different levels of intelligence, between cultures, and across stages of life development. The principal results on self-curiosity are summarized and current research directions are discussed.

KEYWORDS: Self-curiosity, curiosity about self, curiosity, self, psychological assessment

Harm, even when it appears to be unintentional, may augment mind perception for robotic & nearly human entities, at least as long as it is perceived to elicit pain

Avatars in Pain: Visible Harm Enhances Mind Perception in Humans and Robots. Aleksandra Swiderska, Dennis Küster. Perception, https://doi.org/10.1177/0301006618809919

Abstract: Previous research has shown that when people read vignettes about the infliction of harm upon an entity appearing to have no more than a liminal mind, their attributions of mind to that entity increased. Currently, we investigated if the presence of a facial wound enhanced the perception of mental capacities (experience and agency) in response to images of robotic and human-like avatars, compared with unharmed avatars. The results revealed that harmed versions of both robotic and human-like avatars were imbued with mind to a higher degree, irrespective of the baseline level of mind attributed to their unharmed counterparts. Perceptions of capacity for pain mediated attributions of experience, while both pain and empathy mediated attributions of abilities linked to agency. The findings suggest that harm, even when it appears to have been inflicted unintentionally, may augment mind perception for robotic as well as for nearly human entities, at least as long as it is perceived to elicit pain.

Keywords: mind perception, pain, empathy, harm, robots, anthropomorphism

Google, Tell Me. Is He Gay? Masculinity, Homophobia, and Gendered Anxieties in Google Search Queries About Sexuality: Many less queries about sisters, daughters, wives, girlfriends

Mishel, Emma, Tristan Bridges, and Mònica L. Caudillo. 2018. “Google, Tell Me. Is He Gay?: Masculinity, Homophobia, and Gendered Anxieties in Google Search Queries About Sexuality.” SocArXiv. November 7. doi:10.31235/osf.io/4se75

Abstract: How can we really know how accepting people are of same-sex sexual identities? Responses in surveys and interviews are prone to social desirability bias. In this article, we offer a new proxy for this concern: the relative prevalence of Google search queries demonstrating concern over gay/lesbian sexual identities. Theories of gender have long suggested a strong relationship between masculinity and heterosexuality. Likewise, sociological research shows a consistent pattern of femininity being devalued culturally, particularly when enacted by boys and men. And, scholarship on the relationship between gender and sexuality suggests that boys’ and men’s heterosexuality is more precarious compared to that of girls and women. Using Google Trends analysis, we illustrate what these theories posit on a larger scale than previous research has been able to establish. Specifically, we show that gender-specific Google search queries concerned with the status of individuals as gay/lesbian show patterned bias toward masculine searches. We put these search data into context by comparing search frequencies with other popular searches associated with the gender-specific statuses we analyze, and argue that these data offer a new kind of support for three interrelated theories of gender and sexual identity and inequality.

Both extreme political attitudes, albeit more pronounced for right/conservative than for left/liberal attitude, are associated with higher average offspring number compared to intermediate attitudes

Political attitude and fertility: Is there a selection for the political extreme? Martin Fieder, Susanne Huber. Front. Psychol. | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02343

Abstract: There is growing evidence that human ideology as well as social and political attitudes also have a genetic basis. In case of some genetic predisposition of political attitude, an association with fertility would be a hint of potential selection on political ideology. We therefore investigated on the basis of men and women that have completed, respectively, almost completed reproduction, of three different data sets (the World Value Survey 1981-2014 covering a wide range of countries and developmental levels, n = 152,380, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe of 2005, n = 65,912, and the General Social Survey of the USA 1972-2014, n ~ 6200) whether political attitude is associated with number of children.
Overall, in the world wide survey, both extreme political attitudes, albeit more pronounced for right/conservative than for left/liberal attitude, are associated with higher average offspring number compared to intermediate attitudes. If countries are analyzed separately, however, the picture is inconsistent, and in most countries, the association is non-significant. In the European and the US-survey, only the political right is associated with above average number of children. The time series of US data from 1972 to 2014 shows that at least in the US-sample, this pattern emerged during the 1990s: in the 1970s and 1980s, also in the US-sample both political extremes had a reproductive advantage, which vanished for left wing individuals during the 1990s.
From an evolutionary perspective, we are not able to draw final conclusions as the association between political attitude and reproduction varies across countries and time. Nonetheless, the overall pattern suggests that in human evolutionary history, both left and right political attitudes may have conveyed fitness benefits so that both attitudes have been kept in the population.

Keywords: evolution, Number of children, political attitude, Behavior Genetics, Liberal - Conservative

LGBT Adolescents: Attempts by parents/caregivers or being sent to therapists & religious leaders for "conversion" are linked to depression, suicidal thoughts, suicidal attempts, less educational attainment, & less weekly income

Parent-Initiated Sexual Orientation Change Efforts With LGBT Adolescents: Implications for Young Adult Mental Health and Adjustment. Caitlin Ryan et al. Journal of Homosexuality, https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2018.1538407

ABSTRACT: Studies of adults who experienced sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) have documented a range of health risks. To date, there is little research on SOCE among adolescents and no known studies of parents’ role related to SOCE with adolescents. In a cross-sectional study of 245 LGBT White and Latino young adults (ages 21–25), we measured parent-initiated SOCE during adolescence and its relationship to mental health and adjustment in young adulthood. Measures include being sent to therapists and religious leaders for conversion interventions as well as parental/caregiver efforts to change their child’s sexual orientation during adolescence. Attempts by parents/caregivers and being sent to therapists and religious leaders for conversion interventions were associated with depression, suicidal thoughts, suicidal attempts, less educational attainment, and less weekly income. Associations between SOCE, health, and adjustment were much stronger and more frequent for those reporting both attempts by parents and being sent to therapists and religious leaders, underscoring the need for parental education and guidance.

KEYWORDS: Sexual orientation, LGBT youth, reparative therapy, conversion therapy, sexual orientation change efforts, suicidality, depression

Women using contraceptives presented increased frequency of mind wandering when compared to naturally cycling women and & who did not differ between each other; the three groups did not differ in terms of the nature of mind wandering

Increased frequency of mind wandering in healthy women using oral contraceptives. Catherine Raymond et al. Psychoneuroendocrinology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.11.005

Highlights
•    Women using oral contraceptives (OC) present increased frequency of mind wandering compared to naturally cycling women and men.
•    OC use is not associated with different nature (positive or negative) of mind wandering.
•    Mind wandering is associated with depressive symptoms.

Abstract: Oral contraceptive (OC) is the most common type of contraceptive method used in industrialized countries. A recent epidemiological study showed that OC use was associated with the onset of depression in young women. Mind wandering, a cognitive process associated with spontaneous thoughts unrelated to the task at-hand, has previously been associated with depressive thinking. Consequently, mind wandering might be a precursor for cognitive vulnerability in individuals who are at-risk for mood disorders. The purpose of this study was to examine the frequency and nature of mind wandering in women using OC in comparison to two control groups: naturally cycling women and men. We recruited 71 participants (28 women currently using OC, 14 naturally cycling women in the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle and 29 men) aged between 18 and 35 years, and measured the frequency and nature (guilt/fear oriented and positive) of mind wandering using the short version of the Imaginal Process Inventory. In all analyses, we controlled for depressive symptoms to delineate the unique association between OC use and mind wandering. We also measured estradiol, progesterone and testosterone to confirm expected group differences in sex hormones concentrations. Results show that women using OC presented increased frequency of mind wandering when compared to naturally cycling women and men who did not differ between each other. The three groups did not differ in terms of the nature of mind wandering. These results show that OC use is associated with increased frequency of mind wandering and suggest that the association between OC use and dysphoric mood described in previous studies may be partially explained by the impact of OC use on cognitive processes underlying mind wandering.

Robust effects of religiosity on adolescent depression that are stronger for the most depressed; these effects are not driven by the school social context; religiosity buffers against stressors in ways that school activities & friendships do not

Religion and Depression in Adolescence. Jane Cooley Fruehwirth, Sriya Iyer, Anwen Zhang. The University of Chicago 2018. Preprint, DOI: 10.1086/701425

Abstract: Depression is the leading cause of illness and disability in adolescence. Many studies show a correlation between religiosity and mental health, yet the question remains whether the relationship is causal. We exploit within-school variation in adolescents’ peers to deal with selection into religiosity. We find robust effects of religiosity on depression that are stronger for the most depressed. These effects are not driven by the school social context; depression spreads among close friends rather than through broader peer groups that affect religiosity. Exploration of mechanisms suggests that religiosity buffers against stressors in ways that school activities and friendships do not.

Are Women More Likely than Men Are to Care Excessively about Maintaining Positive Social Relationships? They are, but gender difference was significantly smaller in collectivist countries

Are Women More Likely than Men Are to Care Excessively about Maintaining Positive Social Relationships? A Meta-Analytic Review of the Gender Difference in Sociotropy. Kaite Yang, Joan S. Girgus. Sex Roles, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-018-0980-y

Abstract: Sociotropy is defined as the tendency to overemphasize maintaining positive social relationships (Beck 1983). Although the stereotype that women care more about interpersonal relationships than men do is well-documented (Cross and Madson 1997), the literature provides mixed support as to whether women are more sociotropic than men are. This is important to establish because sociotropy consistently correlates positively with depression (Robins et al. 1994) and thus a gender difference in sociotropy could contribute to the well-documented gender difference in depression (Girgus and Nolen-Hoeksema 2006). The present meta-analysis asks whether the gender difference in sociotropy exists, and if so, at what magnitude, by aggregating 108 independent effect sizes from 90 papers (n = 30,372 participants). The average weighted effect size of the gender difference was d = .34, with women scoring higher than men on sociotropy. Culture was a significant moderator: The gender difference in sociotropy was significantly smaller in research from collectivist countries, where interpersonal harmony and cooperation are emphasized for both genders, than in research from individualistic countries, where men are supposed to be independent and agentic and women are supposed to be communal and concerned with relationships. Further research is needed to explore the development of this gender difference and its relationship to the gender difference in depression.

Adolescents have unfavorable opinions of adolescents who use e-cigarettes: Unattractive, trashy, immature, disgusting, and inconsiderate

Adolescents have unfavorable opinions of adolescents who use e-cigarettes. Karma McKelvey, Lucy Popova, Jessica K. Pepper, Noel T. Brewer, Bonnie Halpern-Felsher. PLOS One, Nov 07, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206352

Abstract

Introduction: While evidence suggests positive opinions of smokers are associated with tobacco use, research exploring adolescents’ opinions of e-cigarette users is nascent. We hypothesized that adolescents harbor positive opinions of e-cigarette users, and that these opinions will be more positive among adolescents willing to try or who have used e-cigarettes.

Methods: Participants were 578 U.S. adolescents (ages 14 to 20) recruited from ten California schools. An online survey assessed their attitudes toward and opinions of adolescents who use e-cigarettes in 2015–2016. Analyses examined whether these variables were associated with willingness to try and use (ever vs. never) of e-cigarettes.

Results: The majority (61%) of participants had negative overall opinions toward adolescent e-cigarette users. Few participants ascribed positive traits (i.e., sexy, cool, clean, smart, and healthy) to e-cigarette users. Participants who were willing to try or had used e-cigarettes endorsed positive traits more than those unwilling to try and never-users (all p < .01). Participants sometimes endorsed negative traits (i.e., unattractive, trashy, immature, disgusting, and inconsiderate) to describe e-cigarette users. Unwilling and never-users viewed negative traits as more descriptive of e-cigarette users than willing or ever-users (all p < .01).

Conclusions: Adolescents generally had somewhat negative opinions of other adolescents who use e-cigarettes. Building on adolescents’ negativity toward adolescent e-cigarette users may be a productive direction for prevention efforts, and clinicians can play an important role by keeping apprised of the products their adolescent patients are using and providing information on health effects to support negative opinions or dissuade formation of more positive ones.

Digital Screen Time and Pediatric Sleep: On its own, has little practical effect on pediatric sleep

Digital Screen Time and Pediatric Sleep: Evidence from a Preregistered Cohort Study. Andrew K. Przybylski. Journal of Pediatrics, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2018.09.054

Objectives: To determine the extent to which time spent with digital devices predicts meaningful variability in pediatric sleep.

Study design: Following a preregistered analysis plan, data from a sample of American children (n = 50 212) derived from the 2016 National Survey of Children's Health were analyzed. Models adjusted for child-, caregiver-, household-, and community-level covariates to estimate the potential effects of digital screen use.

Results: Each hour devoted to digital screens was associated with 3-8 fewer minutes of nightly sleep and significantly lower levels of sleep consistency. Furthermore, those children who complied with 2010 and 2016 American Academy of Pediatrics guidance on screen time limits reported between 20 and 26 more minutes, respectively, of nightly sleep. However, links between digital screen time and pediatric sleep outcomes were modest, accounting for less than 1.9% of observed variability in sleep outcomes.

Conclusions: Digital screen time, on its own, has little practical effect on pediatric sleep. Contextual factors surrounding screen time exert a more pronounced influence on pediatric sleep compared to screen time itself. These findings provide an empirically robust template for those investigating the digital displacement hypothesis as well as informing policy-making.

Keywords: digital displacement hypothesis, digital screens, pediatric sleep

High-level language processing regions are not engaged in action observation or imitation

High-level language processing regions are not engaged in action observation or imitation. Brianna L. Pritchett, Caitlyn Hoeflin, Kami Koldewyn, Eyal Dechter, and Evelina Fedorenko. Journal of Neurophysiology, https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00222.2018

Abstract: A set of left frontal, temporal, and parietal brain regions respond robustly during language comprehension and production (e.g., Fedorenko E, Hsieh PJ, Nieto-Castañón A, Whitfield-Gabrieli S, Kanwisher N. J Neurophysiol 104: 1177–1194, 2010; Menenti L, Gierhan SM, Segaert K, Hagoort P. Psychol Sci 22: 1173–1182, 2011). These regions have been further shown to be selective for language relative to other cognitive processes, including arithmetic, aspects of executive function, and music perception (e.g., Fedorenko E, Behr MK, Kanwisher N. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108: 16428–16433, 2011; Monti MM, Osherson DN. Brain Res 1428: 33–42, 2012). However, one claim about overlap between language and nonlinguistic cognition remains prominent. In particular, some have argued that language processing shares computational demands with action observation and/or execution (e.g., Rizzolatti G, Arbib MA. Trends Neurosci 21: 188–194, 1998; Koechlin E, Jubault T. Neuron 50: 963–974, 2006; Tettamanti M, Weniger D. Cortex 42: 491–494, 2006). However, the evidence for these claims is indirect, based on observing activation for language and action tasks within the same broad anatomical areas (e.g., on the lateral surface of the left frontal lobe). To test whether language indeed shares machinery with action observation/execution, we examined the responses of language brain regions, defined functionally in each individual participant (Fedorenko E, Hsieh PJ, Nieto-Castañón A, Whitfield-Gabrieli S, Kanwisher N. J Neurophysiol 104: 1177–1194, 2010) to action observation (experiments 1, 2, and 3a) and action imitation (experiment 3b). With the exception of the language region in the angular gyrus, all language regions, including those in the inferior frontal gyrus (within “Broca’s area”), showed little or no response during action observation/imitation. These results add to the growing body of literature suggesting that high-level language regions are highly selective for language processing (see Fedorenko E, Varley R. Ann NY Acad Sci 1369: 132–153, 2016 for a review).

NEW & NOTEWORTHY: Many have argued for overlap in the machinery used to interpret language and others’ actions, either because action observation was a precursor to linguistic communication or because both require interpreting hierarchically-structured stimuli. However, existing evidence is indirect, relying on group analyses or reverse inference. We examined responses to action observation in language regions defined functionally in individual participants and found no response. Thus language comprehension and action observation recruit distinct circuits in the modern brain.

Bullying victimization may causally impact children’s wellbeing (not much) in the short-term, especially anxiety & depression levels; with time there is reduction of adverse effects, which highlights the potential for resilience

Schoeler, T., Duncan, L., Cecil, C., Ploubidis, G. B., & Pingault, J-B. (Accepted/In press in APA's Psychological Bulletin). Quasi-Experimental evidence on short and long-term consequences of bullying victimization: A meta-analysis. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/quasiexperimental-evidence-on-short-and-longterm-consequences-of-bullying-victimization-a-metaanalysis(80472578-8c16-425f-ad79-61533a0b414f).html

Abstract: Exposure to bullying victimization is associated with a wide-range of short and long-term adverse outcomes. However, the extent to which these associations reflect a causal influence of bullying victimization remains disputed. Here, we aimed to provide the most stringent evidence regarding the consequences of bullying victimization by meta-analysing all relevant Quasi-Experimental (QE) studies. Multilevel random effects models and meta-regression were employed to (i) estimate the pooled QE-adjusted effect size (Cohen d) for bullying victimization on outcomes and to (ii) evaluate potential sources of heterogeneity. A total of 16 studies were included. We derived 101 QE-estimates from three different methods (twin design, fixed effects analysis, and propensity score matching) for three pools of outcomes (internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, academic difficulties). QE-adjusted effects were small for internalizing symptoms (dadjusted=0.27, 95%CI 0.05;0.49), and smaller for externalizing symptoms (dadjusted=0.15, 95%CI 0.10;0.21) and academic difficulties (dadjusted=0.10, 95%CI 0.06; 0.13). Accounting for a shared rater effect between the exposure and the outcome further reduced the effect for internalizing (dnon-shared rater=0.14, 95%CI 0.05;0.23) and externalizing symptoms (dnon-shared rater=0.06, 95%CI 0.01;0.11). Finally, the adverse effects declined on the long-term, most markedly for internalizing symptoms (dlong-term=0.06, 95%CI -0.01;0.13). Based on the most stringent evidence available to date, findings indicate that bullying victimization may causally impact children’s wellbeing in the short-term, especially anxiety and depression levels. The reduction of adverse effects over time highlights the potential for resilience in individuals who have experienced bullying. Secondary preventive interventions in bullied children should therefore focus on modifiable factors that lead to resilience and address children's pre-existing vulnerabilities.

A retrieval-specific mechanism of adaptive forgetting in the mammalian brain

A retrieval-specific mechanism of adaptive forgetting in the mammalian brain. Pedro Bekinschtein, Noelia V. Weisstaub, Francisco Gallo, Maria Renner & Michael C. Anderson. Nature Communications, volume 9, Article number: 4660 (2018). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07128-7

Abstract: Forgetting is a ubiquitous phenomenon that is actively promoted in many species. How and whether organisms’ behavioral goals drive which memories are actively forgotten is unknown. Here we show that processes essential to controlling goal-directed behavior trigger active forgetting of distracting memories that interfere with behavioral goals. When rats need to retrieve particular memories to guide exploration, it reduces later retention of other memories encoded in that environment. As with humans, this retrieval-induced forgetting is competition-dependent, cue-independent and reliant on prefrontal control: Silencing the medial prefrontal cortex with muscimol abolishes the effect. cFos imaging reveals that prefrontal control demands decline over repeated retrievals as competing memories are forgotten successfully, revealing a key adaptive benefit of forgetting. Occurring in 88% of the rats studied, this finding establishes a robust model of how adaptive forgetting harmonizes memory with behavioral demands, permitting isolation of its circuit, cellular and molecular mechanisms.

A major problem with the Resplandy et al. ocean heat uptake paper: 23/25 is less than 1, not more

A major problem with the Resplandy et al. ocean heat uptake paper. Nicholas Lewis. Nov 7 2018. https://www.nicholaslewis.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/A-major-problem-with-the-Resplandy-et-al.-ocean-heat-uptake-paper.pdf

[Update Sep 26 2019: Paper was retracted at the journal's request. Check at the end.]

---
Excerpts:

On November 1st there was extensive coverage in the mainstream media1 and online2 of a paper just published in the prestigious journal Nature. The article,3 by Laure Resplandy of Princeton University, Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and eight other authors, used a novel method to estimate heat uptake by the ocean over the period 1991–2016 and came up with an atypically high value.4 The press release 5 accompanying the Resplandy et al. paper was entitled "Earth's oceans have absorbed 60 percent more heat per year than previously thought",6 and said that this suggested that Earth is more sensitive to fossil-fuel emissions than previously thought.

I was asked for my thoughts on the Resplandy paper as soon as it obtained media coverage. Most commentators appear to have been content to rely on what was said in the press release. However, being a scientist, I thought it appropriate to read the paper itself, and if possible look at its data, before forming a view.


Trend estimates

The method used by Resplandy et al. was novel, and certainly worthy of publication. The authors start with observed changes in 'atmospheric potential oxygen' (ΔAPOOBS).7 In their model, one component of this change (ΔAPOClimate) is due to warming of the oceans, and they derived an estimate of its value by calculating values for the other components.8 A simple conversion factor then allows them to convert the trend in ΔAPOClimate into an estimate of ocean heat uptake (the trend in ocean heat content).

On page 1 they say:

                   From equation (1), we thereby find that ΔAPOClimate = 23.20 ± 12.20 per meg, corresponding to a least squares linear trend of +1.16 ± 0.15 per meg per year 9

A quick bit of mental arithmetic indicated that a change of 23.2 between 1991 and 2016 represented an annual rate of approximately 0.9, well below their 1.16 value. As that seemed surprising, I extracted the annual ΔAPO best-estimate values and uncertainties from the paper's Extended Data Table 410 and computed the 1991–2016 least squares linear fit trend in the ΔAPOClimate values. The trend was 0.88, not 1.16, per meg per year, implying an ocean heat uptake estimate of 10.1 ZJ per year,11 well below the estimate in the paper of 13.3 ZJ per year.12

Resplandy et al. derive ΔAPOClimate from estimates of ΔAPOOBS and of its other components, ΔAPOFF, ΔAPOCant, and ΔAPOAtmD, using – rearranging their equation (1):

            ΔAPOClimate = ΔAPOOBS − ΔAPOFF − ΔAPOCant − ΔAPOAtmD

I derived the same best estimate trend when I allowed for uncertainty in each of the components of ΔAPOOBS, in the way that Resplandy et al.'s Methods description appears to indicate,13 so my simple initial method of trend estimation does not explain the discrepancy.

[...]

I wanted to make sure that I had not overlooked something in my calculations, so later on November 1st I emailed Laure Resplandy querying the ΔAPOClimate trend figure in her paper and asking for her to look into the difference in our trend estimates as a matter of urgency, explaining that in view of the media coverage of the paper I was contemplating web-publishing a comment on it within a matter of days. To date I have had no substantive response from her, despite subsequently sending a further email containing the key analysis sections from a draft of this article.

[...]

Uncertainty analysis

I now turn to the uncertainty analysis in the paper.16 Strangely, the Resplandy et al. paper has two different values for the uncertainty in the results. On page 1 they give the ΔAPOClimate trend (in per meg per year) as 1.16 ± 0.15. But on page 2 they say it is 1.16 ± 0.18. In the Methods section they go back to 1.16 ± 0.15. Probably the ± 0.18 figure is a typographical error. 17

It is amazing, uncertainty in page 1 is 0.15, then in page two is 0.18.

And 23.20/26 = 1.16 (?!?!?!).

Ten authors and at least two reviewers see nothing... Is there not a single journalist able to read the first page of a paper?


---
Notes:

1 Examples are: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46046067 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/climate/ocean-temperatures-hotter.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/31/startling-new-research-finds-large-buildup-heat-oceans-suggesting-faster-rate-global-warming/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-oceans-are-heating-up-faster-than-expected/ https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/01/australia/ocean-warming-report-intl/index.html http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-oceans-study-climate-change-20181031-story.html https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/11/01/oceans-more-heat-study-global-warming-climate-change-nature/1843074002/ https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-global-warming-ocean-temperature-heat-fossil-fuels-science-research-a8612796.html
2 Examples are: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/11/unforced-variations-nov-2018/ https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/02/friday-funny-at-long-last-kevin-trenberths-missing-heat-may-have-been-found-repeat-may-have-been/ https://bskiesresearch.wordpress.com/2018/11/01/that-new-ocean-heat-content-estimate/ https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2018/11/03/new-ocean-heat-content-analysis/ https://twitter.com/Knutti_ETH/status/1057960390502608901
3 L. Resplandy, R. F. Keeling, Y. Eddebbar, M. K. Brooks, R. Wang, L. Bopp, M. C. Long, J. P. Dunne, W. Koeve & A. Oschlies, 2018: Quantification of ocean heat uptake from changes in atmospheric O2 and CO2 composition. Nature, 563, 105-108. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0651-8 ("Resplandy et al.")
4 A value of 13.3 zetta Joules (ZJ) per year, or 0.83 Watts per square metre of the Earth's surface. ZJ is the symbol for zetta Joules; 1 ZJ = 1021 J. 1 ZJ per year = 0.0621 Watts per square metre (W/m2 or Wm–2) of the Earth's surface.
5 http://web.archive.org/web/20181103021900/https://www.princeton.edu/news/2018/11/01/earths-oceans-have-absorbed-60-percent-more-heat-year-previously-thought
6 However that is in comparison with an IPCC estimate for 1993–2010; estimates for 1991–2016 are higher.
7 ΔAPO is the change in 'atmospheric potential oxygen', the overall level of which has been observationally measured since 1991 (ΔAPOOBS). It is the sum of the atmospheric concentrations of O2 and of CO2 weighted respectively 1⤬ and 1.1⤬.
8 The authors break the observed change in ΔAPOOBS into four components, ΔAPOFF, ΔAPOCant, ΔAPOAtmD and ΔAPOClimate, deriving the last component (which is related to ocean warming) by deducting estimates of the other three components from ΔAPOOBS. ΔAPOFF is the decrease in APO caused by industrial processes (fossil-fuel burning and cement production). ΔAPOCant accounts for the oceanic uptake of excess anthropogenic atmospheric CO2. ΔAPOAtmD accounts for air–sea exchanges driven by ocean fertilization from anthropogenic aerosol deposition.
9 1 per meg literally means 1 part per million (1 ppm), however 'per meg' and 'ppm' are defined differently in relation to atmospheric concentrations and are not identical units.
10 The same data is available in Excel format from a link on Nature's website, as "Source Data Fig. 2".
11 Dividing by their conversion factor of 0.087 ± 0.003 per meg per ZJ. ZJ is the symbol for zetta Joules; 1 ZJ = 1021 Joules.
12 I used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with an intercept. That is the standard form of least squares regression for estimating a trend. Resplandy et al. show all APO variables as changes from a baseline of zero in 1991, but that is an arbitrary choice and would not justify forcing the regression fit to be zero in 1991 (by not using an intercept term). Doing so would not in any event raise the ΔAPOClimate estimated trend to the level given by Resplandy et al.
13 I took a large number of sets of samples for each of the years 1991 to 2016 from the applicable error distributions of ΔAPOOBS, ΔAPOFF, ΔAPOCant, and ΔAPOAtmD given in Extended Data Table 4, and calculated all the corresponding sample values of ΔAPOClimate using equation (1). I then computed the ordinary least squares linear trend for each set of 1991–2016 sampled values of ΔAPOClimate, and calculated the mean and standard deviation of the trends.
14 Laure Resplandy was responsible for directing the analysis of the datasets and models.
15 This fact was spotted by Frank Bosse, with whom I discussed the apparent error in the Resplandy et al. ΔAPOClimate trend.
16 All uncertainty values in the paper are ± 1 sigma (1 standard deviation). Errors are presumably assumed to be Normally distributed, as no other distributions are specified.
17 The statement in their Methods that "ΔCant′ cannot be derived from observations and was estimated at 0.05 Pg C yr−1, equivalent to a trend of +0.2 per meg−1, using model simulations" is presumably also a typographical error. The correct value appears to be +0.12 per meg yr−1, as stated elsewhere in Methods and in Extended Data Table 3.
18 On that basis , I can replicate the Extended Data Table 4 ΔAPOOBS uncertainty time series values within ±0.1. Note that all the values in that table, although given to two decimal places, appear to be rounded to one decimal place.
19 The overall uncertainties given in Table 3 in Resplandy et al.'s source paper for its errors in ΔAPOOBS support my analysis.
20 When using the Resplandy et al. Extended Data Table 4 ΔAPOClimate total uncertainty time series and assuming that each year's errors are independent, despite the trend and scale systematic errors being their largest component, the estimated ΔAPOClimate uncertainty reduces to between ± 0.20 and ± 0.21 per meg yr−1. That is still slightly higher than the ± 0.15 and ± 0.18 per meg yr−1 values given in the paper. The reason for the small remaining difference is unclear.
21 It seems likely that the same non-independence over time issue largely or wholly applies to errors in ΔAPOCant, ΔAPOAtmD and probably ΔAPOFF. If the errors in ΔAPOCant and ΔAPOAtmD (but not in ΔAPOFF)
were also treated as perfectly correlated between years, the ΔAPOClimate trend uncertainty would be ± 0.60 per meg yr−1.
22 Lewis, N., and Curry, J., 2018: The impact of recent forcing and ocean heat uptake data on estimates of climate sensitivity. J. Climate, 31(15), 6051-6071.
23 Even if the 2007–2016 ocean heat uptake estimate used in Lewis and Curry (2018) were increased by 3 ZJ yr−1 to match Resplandy et al.'s (incorrect) estimate for 1991–2016, the 1.05°C 5% lower bound of its HadCRUT4v5-based estimate of effective/equilibrium climate sensitivity would only increase to 1.15°C. Moreover, Resplandy et al.'s ΔAPOClimate data imply have a lower ocean heat uptake estimate for 2007–2016 than they do for 1991–2016.
24 See the IPCC's 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C


---
Update Sep 26 2019: Paper was retracted at the journal's request.

Retraction Note: Quantification of ocean heat uptake from changes in atmospheric O2 and CO2 composition. L. Resplandy et al. Nature 573, 614 (2019). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1585-5

State AGs for Rent: Privately funded litigators wield state police power

State AGs for Rent: Privately funded litigators wield state police power. Wall Street Journal, Nov 7 2018. https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-ags-for-rent-1541549567

With the courts and Trump Administration rolling back federal climate regulation, green activists have turned to the states. But there’s a troubling ethical twist: Instead of merely lobbying, activists are placing employees in Attorneys General offices in dubious private-public condominiums.

Consider a remarkable arrangement brokered by the NYU Law School’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center to fund legal services for state AGs. The group was launched in August 2017 to advance a liberal climate and energy agenda, courtesy of a $6 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which also financed the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.

In August 2017 the NYU outfit emailed then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office, offering to cover the salary and benefits of “special assistant attorneys general,” pending an application from the office that demonstrated how the new attorneys would be used. These privately funded staffers would work out of an AG’s office for two years and deliver quarterly progress reports to the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center.

Those progress reports would explain “the contribution that the legal fellow has made to the clean energy, climate change, and environmental initiatives” within the attorney general’s office, according to a December 2017 draft of an agreement between the Center and the New York AG obtained by Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Attorneys General do sometimes bring on legal fellows or outside help to handle unique cases. But subject-matter experts aren’t in-house or chosen with specific intent to promote specific policies, according to Randy Pepple, who was chief of staff for former Washington Republican AG Rob McKenna. In the New York case, a special interest is funding staffers who could wield state law-enforcement power to punish opponents.

The State Energy and Environmental Impact Center made clear that state AG offices would only qualify for special assistant AGs if they “demonstrate a need and commitment to defending environmental values and advancing progressive clean energy, climate change, and environmental legal positions,” according to the August 2017 email to numerous AGs. Mr. Schneiderman’s office suggested in its application for the fellows that it “needs additional attorney resources to assist” in extracting compensation from fossil-fuel emitters.

That’s exactly what’s happening. The New York AG currently has two NYU fellows on staff, according to the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center.

One of the fellows, Gavin McCabe, signed off as “special assistant attorney general” on an amicus brief in June in support of New York City’s suit for damages against BP, Chevron , ConocoPhillips , Exxon Mobil , and Royal Dutch Shell for alleged climate sins. That case was thrown out in July by federal Judge John Kennan on grounds that problems arising from climate change “are not for the judiciary to ameliorate.”

The other, Matthew Eisenson, signed New York state’s suit filed last month against Exxon for allegedly misleading investors about the risks that climate-change regulations pose to its business. The free help will also make for welcome reinforcements in New York-led litigation against the Trump Administration, including a suit against the EPA for its methane regulation.

A lack of government transparency makes this arrangement especially troubling. The New York AG’s office, now run by Acting AG Barbara Underwood, declined to comment. Mr. McCabe and Mr. Eisenson could not be reached for comment by our deadline.

The State Energy and Environmental Impact Center said in a statement that the state offices it works with “has the authority consistent with applicable law and regulations to accept a Legal Fellow whose salary and benefits are provided by an outside funding source.” It added that it places workers with AGs who already have a long history of advancing the center’s energy priorities. “The work that NYU law fellows perform is directed by those AGs and not by the Center,” the Center said.

At least six state AG offices have already brought on board a special assistant attorney general, according to an August report by Mr. Horner. Besides New York, the jurisdictions include Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia. In September, Mr. Horner learned that Illinois and New Mexico have brought on special assistant AGs as well, which was confirmed by the NYU outfit.

The ethical problems here should be obvious. Private interests are leveraging the police powers of the state to pursue their political agenda, while a government official is letting private interests appear to influence enforcement decisions. None of this is reassuring about the fair administration of justice.

Successful social interaction is critically dependent on a core set of highly connected hubs that dynamically accumulate & integrate complex social information & facilitate social tuning

How Dynamic Brain Networks Tune Social Behavior in Real Time. Brian Silston, Danielle S. Bassett, Dean Mobbs. Current Directions in Psychological Science, https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721418773362

Abstract: During social interaction, the brain has the enormous task of interpreting signals that are fleeting, subtle, contextual, abstract, and often ambiguous. Despite the signal complexity, the human brain has evolved to be highly successful in the social landscape. Here, we propose that the human brain makes sense of noisy dynamic signals through accumulation, integration, and prediction, resulting in a coherent representation of the social world. We propose that successful social interaction is critically dependent on a core set of highly connected hubs that dynamically accumulate and integrate complex social information and, in doing so, facilitate social tuning during moment-to-moment social discourse. Successful interactions, therefore, require adaptive flexibility generated by neural circuits composed of highly integrated hubs that coordinate context-appropriate responses. Adaptive properties of the neural substrate, including predictive and adaptive coding, and neural reuse, along with perceptual, inferential, and motivational inputs, provide the ingredients for pliable, hierarchical predictive models that guide our social interactions.

Keywords: dynamic-integration theory, adaptive flexibility, temporal dynamics, social interaction, prediction

Uncovering the Neuroanatomy of Core Language Systems Using Lesion-Symptom Mapping

Uncovering the Neuroanatomy of Core Language Systems Using Lesion-Symptom Mapping. Daniel Mirman, Melissa Thye. Current Directions in Psychological Science, https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721418787486

Abstract: Recent studies have integrated noninvasive brain-imaging methods and advanced analysis techniques to study associations between the location of brain damage and cognitive deficits. By applying data-driven analysis methods to large sets of data on language deficits after stroke (aphasia), these studies have identified the cognitive systems that support language processing—phonology, semantics, fluency, and executive functioning—and their neural basis. Phonological processing is supported by dual pathways around the Sylvian fissure, a ventral speech-recognition component and a dorsal speech-production component; fluent sentence-level speech production relies on a more anterior frontal component, and the semantic system relies on a hub in the anterior temporal lobe and frontotemporal white-matter tracts. The executive function system was less consistently localized, possibly because of the kinds of brain damage tested in these studies. This review synthesizes the results of these studies, showing how they converge with contemporary models of primary systems that support perception, action, and conceptual knowledge across domains, and highlights some divergent findings and directions for future research.

Keywords: language, speech, aphasia, neuroimaging, neuropsychology

We are now looking more closely at the conditions in which we fail to judge time accurately & why, with the aim of testing the limits of a potential internal clock & time distortions (i.e., caused by emotion)

Intertwined Facets of Subjective Time. Sylvie Droit-Volet. Current Directions in Psychological Science, https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721418779978

Abstract: For decades, researchers in the behavioral sciences have studied how humans judge time accurately. Now they are looking more closely at the conditions in which they fail to do so and why, with the aim of testing the limits of a potential internal timing system (i.e., an internal clock). Recent behavioral studies have thus focused on time distortions, in particular those caused by emotion. They have also begun to examine the awareness of the passage of time and its relation with the perception of durations in different temporal ranges, from a few seconds to several minutes.

Keywords: timing, time, emotion, self, awareness

Children's drawing ability is more strongly determined by genes than by the family environment or deliberate practice

Drawing as a Window Onto Expertise. Rebecca Chamberlain. Current Directions in Psychological Science, https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721418797301

Abstract: The ability to draw is a uniquely human activity, ubiquitous in childhood but seldom performed at expert levels in adulthood. Relative to other domains of expertise (chess, music, sport), drawing is understudied, and yet because it is a universal developmental ability mastered by so few, it provides an ideal test bed for competing theories of expertise. In this review, three strands of active research and debate in the field of expertise will be considered in relation to representational drawing ability: (a) the characterization of expertise in relation to altered visual attention and memory, (b) the relative roles of personality traits and cognitive abilities, and (c) the interaction between genes and environment in the development of expertise. The study of representational drawing sheds new light on these three strands and provides rich avenues for further research in this domain.

Keywords: expertise, drawing, individual differences, attention, visual memory

Memory experts’ beliefs about repressed memory: Significantly more sceptical about repressed memory compared to practitioners, students and the public

Memory experts’ beliefs about repressed memory. Lawrence Patihis, Lavina Y. Ho, Elizabeth F. Loftus & Mario E. Herrera. Memory, https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2018.1532521

ABSTRACT: What we believe about how memory works affects the decisions we make in many aspects of life. In Patihis, Ho et al. [Patihis, L., Ho, L. Y., Tingen, I. W., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Loftus, E. F. (2014). Are the “memory wars” over? A scientist–practitioner gap in beliefs about repressed memory. Psychological Science, 25, 519–530.], we documented several group's beliefs on repressed memories and other aspects of how memory works. Here, we present previously unreported data on the beliefs of perhaps the most credible minority in our dataset: memory experts. We provide the statistics and written responses of the beliefs for 17 memory experts. Although memory experts held similarly sceptical beliefs about repressed memory as other research-focused groups, they were significantly more sceptical about repressed memory compared to practitioners, students and the public. Although a minority of memory experts wrote that they maintained an open mind about repressed memories – citing research such as retrieval inhibition – all of the memory experts emphasised the dangers of memory distortion.

KEYWORDS: Memory beliefs, repressed memory, memory experts, clinical psychology, law

In a mobbing game, subjects frequently coordinate on selecting a victim, even for modest gains; higher gains make mobbing more likely; no evidence that fear of becoming the victim explains mobbing; ingroup members are less likely to be victims

How To Choose Your Victim. Klaus Abbink, Gönül Doğan. Games and Economic Behavior, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2018.10.006

Abstract: We introduce the experimental mobbing game. Each player in a group has the option to nominate one of the other players or to nominate no one. If the same person is nominated by all other players, he loses his payoff and the mob gains. We conduct three sets of experiments to study the effects of monetary gains, fear of being mobbed, and different types of focality. In the repeated mobbing game, we find that subjects frequently coordinate on selecting a victim, even for modest gains. Higher gains make mobbing more likely. We find no evidence that fear of becoming the victim explains mobbing. Richer and poorer players are equally focal. Pity plays no role in mobbing decisions. Ingroup members – introduced by colours – are less likely to be victims, and both payoff difference and colour difference serve as strong coordination devices. Commonly employed social preference theories do not explain our findings.


---
The labels [M,T, G, P] are also a hidden homage to the inmates Mather, Travers, Greenhill and Pearce, who escaped from a Tasmanian prison camp in a group of eight in 1822, only to get lost in the forest. When food ran out, the four conspired to apply the Custom of the Sea to the others. When no-one else was left, they turned to killing and eating one another, until only Pearce survived. All victims were chosen in decidedly non-random ways. This story is one of the great Australian foundation myths, and it was an inspiration for this study (for a dramatic reconstruction, see Van Diemen’s Land (2009)). We are confident that none of our Northern European subjects made that connection.

Trait of appreciation of beauty: Many networks of the brain are involved in mental acts of appreciating beauty, but the medial orbital front cortex is implicated across all four channels; & women may appreciate beauty somewhat more than men in many cultures & nations

Diessner, R., Pohling, R., Stacy, S., & Güsewell, A. (2018). Trait appreciation of beauty: A story of love, transcendence, and inquiry. Review of General Psychology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000166

Abstract: This review of the trait of appreciation of beauty (AoB) draws from the literature in personality psychology, philosophy, religion, neuroscience, neuro-aesthetics, evolutionary psychology, and the psychology of morality. We demonstrate that AoB can be mapped onto a definition of appreciation that includes perceptual, cognitive, emotional, trait, virtue, and valuing elements. A classic component of defining beauty, unity-in-diversity, is described based on the works of a variety of major philosophers. We next describe that there are at least four channels of appreciation of beauty: natural beauty, artistic beauty, moral beauty, and beautiful ideas. Examining the neuro-aesthetics research indicates that many networks of the brain are involved in mental acts of appreciating beauty, but the medial orbital front cortex (mOFC) is implicated across all four channels of beauty. We then explain how the trait of AoB is a member of three different families of traits: traits of love, traits of transcendence, and traits of inquiry. Next we briefly explain why Kant may have been more correct than Hegel concerning beauty and the good soul. We then present evidence that women may appreciate beauty somewhat more than men. Data from many cultures and nations consistently indicate this. After that we claim AoB leads to individual and collective flourishing. We examine and summarize studies that indicate appreciation of natural beauty leads to a wide variety of positive outcomes; we focus on the importance of open-mindedness that accompanies engagement with artistic beauty; and we summarize studies regarding the moral emotion of elevation and appreciation of moral beauty. Suggested future directions for research are embedded in each subsection of the paper.

Browsing social media: Little evidence of robust positive or negative effects, suggesting instead that the primary effect is a lessening of arousal; people tend to wind down - feel more relaxed, sleepy, bored and so on - not wind up

People Tend to Wind Down, Not Up, When They Browse Social Media. Galen Panger. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction - CSCW archive, Volume 2 Issue CSCW, November 2018, Article No. 133, doi 10.1145/3274402

Abstract: Researchers have focused intensively on the emotional effects of browsing social media, with many emphasizing possible negative effects and others suggesting the positive emotions in status updates are contagious. Despite this focus, however, very few studies have investigated the actual emotional experience of browsing social media in the moment, and none with more than a few emotions, making it difficult to understand the effects research should endeavor to explain. To address this gap, I use experience sampling with diverse samples of Facebook (N = 362) and Twitter (N = 416) users, assessing the browsing experience across a wide range of emotions. Surprisingly, results provide little evidence of robust positive or negative effects, suggesting instead that the primary effect of browsing social media is a lessening of arousal. That is, contrary to stereotype, people tend to wind down - feel more relaxed, sleepy, bored and so on - not wind up.

No evidence that inbreeding avoidance is up-regulated during the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle

No evidence that inbreeding avoidance is up-regulated during the ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle. Iris J Holzleitner et al. bioRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/192054

Abstract: Mate preferences and mating-related behaviors are hypothesized to change over the menstrual cycle in ways that function to increase reproductive fitness. Results of recent large-scale studies suggest that many of these hormone-linked behavioral changes are less robust than was previously thought. One hypothesis that has not yet been subject to a large-scale test is the proposal that women′s preference for associating with male kin is down-regulated during the ovulatory (high-fertility) phase of the menstrual cycle. Consequently, we used a longitudinal design to investigate the relationship between changes in women's steroid hormone levels and their perceptions of faces experimentally manipulated to possess kinship cues. Analyses suggested that women viewed men's faces displaying kinship cues more positively (i.e., more attractive and trustworthy) when estradiol-to-progesterone ratio was high. Since estradiol-to-progesterone ratio is positively associated with conception risk during the menstrual cycle, these results directly contradict the hypothesis that women's preference for associating with male kin is down-regulated during the ovulatory (high-fertility) phase of the menstrual cycle. Data and code are publicly available at https://osf.io/wnhma

Early Experiences of Threat, but Not Deprivation, Are Associated With Accelerated Biological Aging in Children and Adolescents

Early Experiences of Threat, but Not Deprivation, Are Associated With Accelerated Biological Aging in Children and Adolescents. Jennifer A. Sumner, Natalie L. Colich, Monica Uddin, Don Armstrong, Katie A. McLaughlin. Biological Psychiatry, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.09.008

Abstract

Background: Recent conceptual models argue that early life adversity (ELA) accelerates development, which may contribute to poor mental and physical health outcomes. Evidence for accelerated development in youths comes from studies of telomere shortening or advanced pubertal development following circumscribed ELA experiences and neuroimaging studies of circuits involved in emotional processing. It is unclear whether all ELA is associated with accelerated development across global metrics of biological aging or whether this pattern emerges following specific adversity types.

Methods: In 247 children and adolescents 8 to 16 years of age with wide variability in ELA exposure, we evaluated the hypothesis that early environments characterized by threat, but not deprivation, would be associated with accelerated development across two global biological aging metrics: DNA methylation (DNAm) age and pubertal stage relative to chronological age. We also examined whether accelerated development explained associations of ELA with depressive symptoms and externalizing problems.

Results: Exposure to threat-related ELA (e.g., violence) was associated with accelerated DNAm age and advanced pubertal stage, but exposure to deprivation (e.g., neglect, food insecurity) was not. In models including both ELA types, threat-related ELA was uniquely associated with accelerated DNAm age (β = .18) and advanced pubertal stage (β = .28), whereas deprivation was uniquely associated with delayed pubertal stage (β = −.21). Older DNAm age was related to greater depressive symptoms, and a significant indirect effect of threat exposure on depressive symptoms was observed through DNAm age.

Conclusions: Early threat-related experiences are particularly associated with accelerated biological aging in youths, which may be a mechanism linking ELA with depressive symptoms.

A prolonged growing season due to increased temperatures, combined with the natural cooling effects of large fields of plants, have had a major contribution to improved corn production in the US

Changing temperatures are helping corn production in U.S. — for now. By Leah Burrows. November 5, 2018. https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2018/11/changing-temperatures-are-helping-corn-production-in-us-for-now

    Research links warming temperatures and localized cooling to increased maize production
    New research shows that increased temperatures, combined with the natural cooling effects of large fields of plants, have had a major contribution to improved corn production in the U.S.

The past 70 years have been good for corn production in the midwestern United States, with yields increasing fivefold since the 1940s. Much of this improvement has been credited to advances in farming technology but researchers at Harvard University are asking if changes in climate and local temperature may be playing a bigger role than previously thought.

In a new paper, researchers found that a prolonged growing season due to increased temperatures, combined with the natural cooling effects of large fields of plants, have had a major contribution to improved corn production in the U.S.

“Our research shows that improvements in crop yield depend, in part, on improvements in climate,” said Peter Huybers https://www.seas.harvard.edu/directory/phuybers, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS, https://eps.harvard.edu/) and of Environmental Science and Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS, http://seas.harvard.edu/). “In this case, changing temperatures have had a beneficial impact on agricultural production, but there is no guarantee that benefit will last as the climate continues to change. Understanding the detailed relationships between climate and crop yield is important as we move towards feeding a growing population on a changing planet.”

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The researchers modeled the relationship between temperature and crop yield from 1981 to 2017 across the so-called Corn Belt: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. They found that as temperatures increased due to global climate change, planting days got earlier and earlier, shifting by about three days per decade.

“One of farmers' biggest decisions is what they plant and when they plant it,” said Ethan Butler, first author of the paper and former graduate student in EPS. “We are seeing that farmers are planting earlier – not only because they have hardier seeds and better planting equipment — but also because it’s getting warmer sooner.”

Butler is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota.

Early planting means the corn has more time mature before the end of the growing season.

There is also a second, more surprising trend that has benefited corn yields. Whereas the vast majority of temperatures have warmed over the last century, the hottest days during the Midwestern growing season have actually cooled.

“Increasingly productive and densely-planted crops can evaporate more water from leaves and soils during hot days,” said Nathaniel Mueller, a former postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment and co-author of the paper.  “Widespread increases in rates of evaporation apparently helps shield maize from extreme heat, cooling the surrounding area and helping to boost yields.”

Mueller is currently an Assistant Professor of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine.

The researchers estimate that more than one-quarter of the increase in crop yield since 1981 can be attributed to the twin effects of a longer growing season and less exposure to high temperatures, suggesting that crop yield is more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought.

The researchers also show that the planting and harvest dates farmers currently use is significantly better adapted to the present climate than it would be to climates in earlier decades.

“Farmers are incredibly proactive and we’re seeing them take advantage of changes in temperature to improve their yield. The question is, how well can they continue to adapt in response to future changes in climate," said Huybers.

This research was supported in part by the Packard Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

Sadism and Aggressive Behavior: Inflicting Pain to Feel Pleasure

Chester, David S., C. N. DeWall, and Brian Enjaiain. 2018. “Sadism and Aggressive Behavior: Inflicting Pain to Feel Pleasure.” PsyArXiv. November 5. doi:10.31234/osf.io/cvgkb

Abstract: Sadism is a ‘dark’ trait that involves the experience of pleasure from others’ pain, yet much is unknown about its link to aggression. Across eight studies (total N=2,255), sadism predicted greater aggression against both innocent targets and provocateurs. These associations occurred above-and-beyond general aggressiveness, impulsivity, and other ‘dark’ traits. Sadism was associated with greater positive affect during aggression, which accounted for much of the variance in the sadism-aggression link. This aggressive pleasure was contingent on sadists’ perceptions that their target suffered due to their aggressive act. After aggression, sadism was associated with increases in negative affect. Sadism thus appears to be a potent predictor of aggression that is motivated by the pleasure of causing pain. Such sadistic aggression ultimately backfires, resulting in greater negative affect. More generally, our results support the crucial role of anticipated and positive forms of affect in motivating aggression.

Displacement in the Criminal Labor Market: Evidence from Drug Legalizations

Displacement in the Criminal Labor Market: Evidence from Drug Legalizations. Heyu Xiong. Job Market Paper, Oct 2018. https://sites.northwestern.edu/hxl642/

It is widely hypothesized that legalization disrupts illicit markets and displaces illegal suppliers,  but the consequences for those who are displaced remain poorly understood. In this paper, I use comprehensive administrative data from three states that legalized marijuana covering all individuals released from prison in the years immediately before and after the policy change to estimate the effect of legalization on the subsequent criminality of convicted dealers. I find that marijuana legalization increased the 9-month recidivism rate of marijuana offenders by 6 percentage points relative to a baseline rate of 10 percent. The increased recidivism is largely driven by a substitution to the trafficking of other drugs, which is consistent with a Becker-style model where individuals develop human capital specific to the drug industry. To learn about potential mechanism behind these results, I use detailed drug transaction price data to estimate the effect of legalization on average prices and price dispersion, and I find suggestive evidence that both the average level and residual variance decline following legalization, which is consistent with legalization eroding rents earned in the illicit marijuana market. Lastly, I explore the generalizability of my findings in a distinct legalization experiment from history: the end of National Prohibition. I replicate the main insights at an organizational level and show that, in response to the repeal of Prohibition, the Italian-American Mafia shifted personnel from bootlegging to narcotics. Overall, the results in this paper suggest that an unintended consequence of drug legalization is a re-allocation of drug criminals to other illicit activity

Against stereotype, older people are more strongly attuned to the bright side of life than younger ones; & the more so, the better their brain functions

Integrating cognitive and emotion paradigms to address the paradox of aging. Laura L. Carstensen. Cognition and Emotion, https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2018.1543181

ABSTRACT: Thirty years ago, the subfields of emotion and cognition operated relatively independently and the associated science reflected the tacit view that they were distinct constructs. Today, questions about the integration of cognition and emotion are among the most interesting questions in the field. I offer a personal view of the key changes that fuelled this shift over time and describe research from my group that unfolded in parallel and led to the identification of the positivity effect.

KEYWORDS: Aging, positivity effect, socioemotional selectivity theory, history psychology

The relationship between inequality perceptions & preferences towards redistribution is conditional on the subjective position of respondents (is bigger for those perceived to be at the top of the social ladder)

Inequality Perceptions, Preferences Conducive to Redistribution, and the Conditioning Role of Social Position. Matthias Fatke. Societies 2018, 8(4), 99; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc8040099

Abstract: Inequality poses one of the biggest challenges of our time. It is not self-correcting in the sense that citizens demand more redistributive measures in light of rising inequality, which recent studies suggest may be due to the fact that citizens’ perceptions of inequality diverge from objective levels. Moreover, it is not the latter, but the former, which are related to preferences conducive to redistribution. However, the nascent literature on inequality perceptions has, so far, not accounted for the role of subjective position in society. The paper advances the argument that the relationship between inequality perceptions and preferences towards redistribution is conditional on the subjective position of respondents. To that end, I analyze comprehensive survey data on inequality perceptions from the social inequality module of the International Social Survey Programme (1992, 1999, and 2009). Results show that inequality perceptions are associated with preferences conducive to redistribution particularly among those perceived to be at the top of the social ladder. Gaining a better understanding of inequality perceptions contributes to comprehending the absence self-correcting inequality.

Keywords: inequality; perceptions; redistribution; social rank; system justification

Check also: Fatke, Matthias, Inequality and Political Behavior: Objective Levels Versus Subjective Perceptions (March 8, 2018). https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/06/again-those-in-lower-economic-level-ask.html