People have a more positive relationship with action than with inaction, expect more favorable outcomes from it, and would rather act than refrain from acting when in doubt

Are actions better than inactions? Positivity, outcome, and intentionality biases in judgments of action and inaction. Aashna Sunderrajan, Dolores Albarracín. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 94, May 2021, 104105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104105

Rolf Degen's take: People have a more positive relationship with action than with inaction, expect more favorable outcomes from it, and would rather act than refrain from acting when in doubt. https://t.co/OeZT2EY1yN https://t.co/f33Fv4F7lv

Highlights

• Despite the adaptive value of both action and inaction, people not only evaluate actions more favorably than inactions but also prefer to engage in them as well (action positivity bias)

• Preferences for action over inaction tend to be driven by biases of outcome positivity (action outcome bias) and intentionality (action intentionality bias), however, assumed outcome positivity is most influential than assumed intentionality

• An overall preference for action could become detrimental to health, therefore, understanding the magnitude of this bias in everyday life is vital

Abstract: Behavior varies along a continuum of activity, with effortful behaviors characterizing actions and restful states characterizing inactions. Despite the adaptive value of both action and inaction, we propose three biases that, in the absence of other information, increase the probability that people like, and want to pursue, action more than inaction: An action positivity bias, an action outcome bias, and an action intentionality bias. Across four experiments, participants not only evaluated actions more favorably than inactions (Experiment 1–3) but also chose to engage in actions more than inactions (Experiment 4). This action positivity bias was driven by the two interrelated biases of outcome positivity and intentionality (Experiments 1–3), such that actions (versus inactions) were spontaneously thought of as having more positive outcomes and as being more intentional. Moreover, these outcome differences played a stronger role in the action positivity bias than did the intentionality differences (Experiment 3). As balancing action and inaction is important for healthy human functioning, it is important to understand evaluative biases in this domain. All experiments were preregistered, and one involved a nationally representative sample.

Keywords: ActionInactionBiasEvaluationOutcomeIntentionality

Individual variation in religiosity is well explained by the interaction of increased levels of social mistrust and increased needs to moralize other people’s sexual behaviors

Predictive modeling of religiosity, prosociality, and moralizing in 295,000 individuals from European and non-European populations. Pierre O. Jacquet, Farid Pazhoohi, Charles Findling, Hugo Mell, Coralie Chevallier & Nicolas Baumard. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 8, Article number: 9. Jan 21 2021. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-00691-9

Abstract: Why do moral religions exist? An influential psychological explanation is that religious beliefs in supernatural punishment is cultural group adaptation enhancing prosocial attitudes and thereby large-scale cooperation. An alternative explanation is that religiosity is an individual strategy that results from high level of mistrust and the need for individuals to control others’ behaviors through moralizing. Existing evidence is mixed but most works are limited by sample size and generalizability issues. The present study overcomes these limitations by applying k-fold cross-validation on multivariate modeling of data from >295,000 individuals in 108 countries of the World Values Surveys and the European Value Study. First, this methodology reveals no evidence that European and non-European religious people invest more in collective actions and are more trustful of unrelated conspecifics. Instead, the individuals’ level of religiosity is found to be weakly but positively associated with social mistrust and negatively associated with the production of behaviors, which benefit unrelated members of the large-scale community. Second, our models show that individual variation in religiosity is well explained by the interaction of increased levels of social mistrust and increased needs to moralize other people’s sexual behaviors. Finally, stratified k-fold cross-validation demonstrates that the structures of these association patterns are robust to sampling variability and reliable enough to generalize to out-of-sample data.

Towards a neuropsychology of political orientation: exploring ideology in patients with frontal and midbrain lesions

Hannah Nam H, Jost JT, Meager MR, Van Bavel JJ. Towards a neuropsychology of political orientation: exploring ideology in patients with frontal and midbrain lesions. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 20200137, Jan 20201. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0137

How do people form their political beliefs? In an effort to address this question, we adopt a neuropsychological approach. In a natural experiment, we explored links between neuroanatomy and ideological preferences in two samples of brain lesion patients in New York City. Specifically, we compared the political orientations of patients with frontal lobe lesions, amygdala lesions and healthy control subjects. Lesion type classification analyses revealed that people with frontal lesions held more conservative (or less liberal) beliefs than those with anterior temporal lobe lesions or no lesions. Additional analyses predicting ideology by extent of damage provided convergent evidence that greater damage in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC)—but not the amygdala—was associated with greater conservatism. These findings were robust to model specifications that adjusted for demographic, mood, and affect-related variables. Although measures of executive function failed to mediate the relationship between frontal lesions and ideology, our findings suggest that the prefrontal cortex may play a role in promoting liberalism. It is possible that the dlPFC is a critical region for the development of liberal ideology. Our approach suggests useful directions for future work to address the issue of whether biological developments precede political attitudes or vice versa—or both.

4. Discussion

We found that frontal lobe lesion patients reported more conservative (or less liberal) political orientation than patients with damage to their anterior temporal lobe and healthy control participants with no history of brain damage. ATL lesion patients were as liberal as healthy control participants. These findings were robust to various model specifications, including those that adjusted for demographic, mood and affect-related variables. Moreover, the extent of damage in the dlPFC was positively associated with self-reported conservatism, whereas the extent of damage in the amygdala attributable to ideological extremity, which was unrelated to brain damage. The results of our study suggest that the prefrontal cortex may be a region that is integral to the expression of liberal political attitudes, insofar as damage to this brain region was associated with a more conservative orientation. The results are also suggestive of the possibility that the amygdala is an important structure for the development of conservative attitudes, given that ATL lesion patients were less conservative than frontal lobe lesion patients. This would be consistent with prior work linking greater amygdala volume to conservatism [16] and system justification [46]. At the same time, ATL lesion patients were no more liberal than healthy control participants, and the degree of amygdala damage was not associated with ideology, so at least in this context, it appears that the amygdala per se is not a necessary structure for conservatism. We hope that future work will be able to assess causal pathways more directly, perhaps by obtaining information about political attitudes before and after a planned surgical resection of brain tissue. Based on research linking (a) political liberalism to cognitive flexibility and control and (b) executive functioning to frontal lobe activity, we explored the possibility that patients with frontal lobe lesions were more conservative due in part to diminished executive functioning. However, this possibility was not borne out in this study. We examined performance on three established tests of executive function; the differences we observed were in the expected direction, but they were not statistically significant, possibly because our sample was too small to provide sufficient statistical power. It is possible that specific cognition type could be useful to consider. For instance, it may be that social or identity-related cognitive functions are especially pertinent when it comes to linking frontal cortex function to political ideology (see [9]). Future research would do well to investigate these possibilities in larger samples, possibly by combining several small samples of patients with different types of lesions. Some have argued that the study of political ideology requires the measurement of multiple dimensions, such as social and economic attitudes [59]; but see [76]). We had no specific predictions regarding social versus economic dimensions of ideology (as opposed to overall liberalismconservatism), but we did administer individual items to measure them separately. We found no evidence that brain lesions were differentially linked to social versus economic attitudes, nor to ideological extremity on any of these dimensions. Nevertheless, future research based on larger (and more diverse) samples would do well to explore these possibilities. In conclusion, we have undertaken a neuropsychological investigation of political orientation by focusing on patients with different brain lesions. Our findings speak to the question of whether certain brain regions are necessary for the development of specific political beliefs, opinions and values. It may be worth noting that by exploring brain lesions we are not in any way suggesting that holding liberal or conservative attitudes is reflective of neural deficits or damage. Rather, the lesion method illuminates which neuroanatomical regions—and the cognitive functions related to them—may be necessary for understanding the development of political ideology. It is also important to keep in mind that studies of brain structure, including lesion studies, do not rule out effects of neural reorganization and malleability [77]. Accordingly, we strongly caution against deterministic or essentialized interpretations of our research (see [78]). Moreover, we theorize that the relationship between neurobiology and ideology is dynamic and reciprocal (see [4]), bearing in mind Nudo’s [77] observation that ‘behavioral experience is the most potent modulator of brain plasticity’ (p. 1). Along these lines, we look forward to future research that specifies the ways in which ideological experiences may shape the structures and functions of the human brain.

Mental Imagery of Free Fall: We do not see acceleration, but a constant speed

Mental Imagery of Free Fall: Does a Falling Apple Accelerate in Our Minds? Daniel Bratzke and Rolf Ulrich. Timing & Time Perception, Jan 27 2021. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134468-bja10022

Abstract: The present study examined whether people’s mental imagery of falling objects includes the acceleration due to the earth’s gravitational force. To investigate this question, we used two different tasks, a height estimation and a fall-time estimation task. In the height estimation task, participants were presented with different free-fall times and had to indicate the corresponding heights from which the object fell to the ground. In the fall-time estimation task, participants had to produce the fall time associated with free falls from different heights. In contrast to the law of free fall, our results are more consistent with a linear than with an accelerated relationship between height and fall time. Thus, the present results suggest that mental imagery of an object’s free fall does not represent the gravitational acceleration due to gravity.

Keywords: Intuitive physics; mental imagery; time perception

4. Discussion

In the present study, we investigated whether people’s mental imagery of free fall (of an object) represents the acceleration due to gravity. Irrespective of the estimation task (i.e., whether participants estimated heights or fall times), the results were more consistent with a linear than with an accelerated relationship between height and fall time. This suggests that the mental imagery of an object’s free fall does not represent the acceleration due to gravity and thus resembles the Aristotelian rather than the Newtonian model of kinematic phenomena.

The present results are in line with the previous results by Gravano et al. (2017), who showed that the mental imagery of throwing a ball against the ceiling and catching it on the rebound was compatible with microgravity, irrespective of whether participants imagined the ball’s motion under terrestrial or space conditions. They explained their results by assuming that participants used a visual mode of imagery, which does not represent the gravitational acceleration because visual processing of accelerating/decelerating motion is rather poor (e.g., Werkhoven et al., 1992). A related possibility why people do not represent the gravitational acceleration is that the Aristotelian model is an appropriate approximation of the largest parts of many free falls. Namely, under conditions of air resistance, falling objects rapidly attain a constant level of speed. Thus the initial phase of acceleration is too short to be carefully observed without instruments (see e.g., Rovelli, 2015). For example, the terminal velocity of an apple (m =0.15 kg, d =7 cm) would be V∞=35.70 m/s. However, 75% of this terminal velocity is attained already after 3.54 s or 53.70 m. According to this explanation, the mental representation of free fall does not include gravitational acceleration because the change of speed during the acceleration phase cannot be perceived. As a consequence, constant velocity is attributed to all phases of free fall.

As already mentioned in the Introduction, a study by Huber and Krist (2004) reported fall-time estimates that are consistent with an acceleration of imagined free fall. In their study, participants saw a ball rolling off a horizontal surface and had to estimate the time until the ball fell onto a marked landing point. Importantly, the fall of the ball was hidden from the participants’ view by an occluding curtain so that they had to imagine the fall of the ball. In a production task, participants started the motion of the ball and had to indicate the point in time when the ball hit the ground. In a judgment task, participants had to judge the flight time by using a circular rating scale. In both tasks, the height and the distance to the landing point were manipulated. The produced flight times showed a pattern that matched the normative rule very well. In the judgment task, however, the judgments deviated from the predicted pattern. The authors explained this dissociation between produced and judged flight times by arguing that only in the production task (but not in the judgment task) mental imagery was based on a timing-responsive representation (e.g., Schwartz & Black, 1999) of free fall, which helped to predict the point in time when the ball hit the ground.

One could argue that the production tasks used in Huber and Krist (2004) and the present study were comparable so that one should have expected accelerated functions also in the present study. There was, however, one possibly crucial difference between the two tasks. In the production task of Huber and Krist, the participants saw the ball moving on the horizontal surface until it was occluded, which was not the case for the apple in the current study (and also not in the judgment task of Huber and Krist). The perception of this initial movement of the ball might be crucial to activate dynamic mental imagery (see also Huber & Krist, 2004). Thus, it remains unclear whether participants would represent the acceleration in the free-fall scenario of the present study if one provided a similar initial motion cue as in the study of Huber and Krist.

A related issue regarding the present study is whether participants actually imagined the free fall. Although they were instructed to do so, they could have followed the simple rule: the higher the height the longer the fall time and vice versa. Such a strategy would be virtually indistinguishable from mental imagery of a linear relationship between the two variables. Additionally, one could argue that the height estimation task used in the present study was not optimal for inducing mental imagery because participants had to indicate the height from which the apple fell. Possibly, mental imagery would have been easier or more natural in a scenario where the apple falls from a fixed height and participants indicate the height the apple reaches at the end of the free fall (even though this scenario can also be considered somewhat unnatural as the apple would not simply stop falling before it reaches the ground). In fact, two participants were excluded from data analyses because they apparently understood the task in the latter way. We used the former scenario because we wanted to make the height estimation task as similar to the fall-time estimation task as possible. In future studies, the assessment of eye movements could potentially shed some light on the involvement of mental imagery in free-fall scenarios like the present one (for a discussion of the relationship between eye movements and mental imagery, see Huber & Krist, 2004).

In conclusion, the present study suggests that the intuitive physics of free fall as assessed by estimates of height and fall time during mental imagery of an object’s free fall does not represent the gravitational acceleration. A plausible explanation for this result is that the change of speed during the rather short acceleration phase of free fall cannot be visually detected and hence people (incorrectly) attribute constant speed to all phases of free fall. Nevertheless, future studies may provide an answer to the question of whether people are capable of imaging the acceleration of falling objects when initial motion cues are available.

When husbands are somewhat older than wives (but neither much older nor much younger), selective fitness is high, as operationalized by rates of short-term infant survival and neonatal breastfeeding

Pelham, B. W. (2021). The husband-older age gap in marriage is associated with selective fitness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Jan 20201. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000319

h/t David Schmitt "When husbands somewhat older than wives (but neither much older nor much younger)...8 cross-cultural replications w/ 225,000 mothers in low- to moderate-income nations...revealed husband-older age gap & life history tradeoff in lifetime selective fitness

Abstract: Wives are usually younger than their husbands. Although this has been replicated across time and culture, there is no previous evidence of the likely evolutionary underpinnings of this age gap. Study Set 1 replicated the marriage age gap—and its moderators—in 6.4 million American marriages that led to U.S. births between 2016 and 2018. This effect also replicated in three million unmarried unions. Study 2 directly examined the life history tradeoff that connects the marriage age gap to selective fitness. When husbands are somewhat older than wives (but neither much older nor much younger), selective fitness is high, as operationalized by rates of short-term infant survival and neonatal breastfeeding. This pattern held independent of the robust effects of maternal age. Eight cross-cultural replications involving more than 225,000 mothers in low- to moderate-income nations examined lifetime selective fitness (total number of living children) rather than single birth outcomes. In all eight nations, analyses revealed both a husband-older age gap and a life history tradeoff in lifetime selective fitness. Life history tradeoffs account well for the husband-older age gap in marriage.

Arab Countries: First large-scale multi-national survey to be conducted in Arab countries to investigate pornography viewing

MA Eljawad, H Se'eda, S Ghozy, et al. Pornography Use Prevalence and Associated Factors in Arab Countries: A Multinational Cross-Sectional Study of 15,027 Individuals. J Sex Med 2020;XX:XXX–XXX. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2020.12.011

Abstract

Background: There has been a tangible increase in pornography consumption during the past decade, with the absence of a large-scale study of Arab countries.

Aim: The present study aimed to assess the prevalence of pornography viewing and its associated risk factors in Arab countries.

Methods: A large cross-sectional online survey was carried out recruiting participants without restrictions on the age, socioeconomic level, job, or educational level. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to identify possible risk factors for viewing porn and results were expressed as odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI).

Outcomes: Main outcomes were pornography viewing (first exposure and frequency), the perceptions of this act, use of spare time, physical activity (exercising), and frequency of psychiatrist visits.

Results: The final number of participants included in the study was 15027 participants with a mean age ± standard deviation of 23.82 years ± 24.99. Most of the participants were men (84.56%), living with parents (81.71%), and 60.51% university graduates. There were statistically significant differences (P < .001) in the attitude and practice of men compared with women throughout all tested variables. Frequent pornography viewing was associated with male gender (OR [95% CI] = 7.08 [6.43 to 7.81]; P < .001) and age group ≤15 years (OR [95% CI] = 1.33 [1.01 to 1.75]; P = .044). By contrast, higher education was inversely associated with viewing rates reaching the lowest level in PhD awardees (OR [95% CI] = 0.36 [0.26 to 0.51]; P = .003). It was also noted that regular exercising (OR [95% CI] = 0.66 [0.58 to 0.74]; P < .001) was associated with a reduction in pornography viewing rates.

Clinical implications: Young age, male gender, and lower educational level are all predictors for higher pornography viewing and should be considered when designing public health intervention in a related context.

Strengths and limitations: This is the first large-scale multi-national survey to be conducted in Arab countries to investigate pornography viewing. The main limitations were the cross-sectional design (cannot indicate causality) and the self-report nature (liable to social desirability and recall bias).

Conclusion: Pornography viewing is common in Arab countries and associated with some personal and behavioral factors.

Rolf Degen summarizing... Our memory helps preserve a rosy view, wiping out inconvenient truths about ourselves

Optimistic Amnesia: How Online and Offline Processing Shape Belief Updating and Memory Biases in Immediate and Long-Term Optimism Biases. Ziqing Yao, Xuanyi Lin, Xiaoqing Hu. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, nsab011, January 27 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsab011

Rolf Degen's take: Our memory helps preserve a rosy view, wiping out inconvenient truths about ourselves. https://t.co/Xn0TYMNLZs https://t.co/OqSl8sKCdP

Abstract: When people are confronted with feedback that counters their prior beliefs, they preferentially rely on desirable rather than undesirable feedback in belief updating, i.e., an optimism bias. In two pre-registered EEG studies employing an adverse life event probability estimation task, we investigated the neurocognitive processes that support the formation and the change of optimism biases in immediate and 24-hour delayed tests. We found that optimistic belief updating biases not only emerged immediately, but also became significantly larger after 24 hours, suggesting an active role of valence-dependent offline consolidation processes in the change of optimism biases. Participants also showed optimistic memory biases: they were less accurate in remembering undesirable than desirable feedback probabilities, with inferior memories of undesirable feedback associated with lower belief updating in the delayed test. Examining event-related brain potentials (ERPs) revealed that desirability of feedback biased initial encoding: desirable feedback elicited larger P300s than undesirable feedback, with larger P300 amplitudes predicting both higher belief updating and memory accuracies. These results suggest that desirability of feedback could bias both online and offline memory-related processes such as encoding and consolidation, with both processes contributing to the formation and change of optimism biases.

Keywords: optimism bias, belief updating, offline processing, P300, motivated cognition

Discussion

Encountering feedback that challenges one’s prior beliefs, people preferentially rely on desirable

than undesirable feedback to guide belief updating, i.e., the optimism bias (Dricu et al., 2020;

Sharot & Garrett, 2016; Sharot et al., 2011). Here, we provide novel evidence that optimism

biases are partially driven by shallower encoding and inferior memories of undesirable versus

desirable feedback, i.e., an optimistic amnesia effect. Moreover, we observed that optimistic

updating biases became larger over time, with preferential retention of updating in the desirable

condition and declined updating in the undesirable condition. Desirability of feedback

consistently modulated parietal P300 brain activities that may indicate encoding depth, with

larger P300s for desirable than undesirable probability feedback.

The present research provides the first evidence that optimism biases become larger over

24 hours. This finding is noteworthy because it suggests that the desirability of feedback not only

influences online attention/encoding-related processes but also biases offline consolidation

processes. A closer inspection of our data suggested that over time, belief updating, and

memories of desirable feedback were largely preserved, whereas updating and memories

significantly declined for undesirable feedback. These findings contribute to a growing literature

suggesting that motivation (e.g., valence, reward) could bias offline consolidation processes and

then influence long-term judgments (Payne & Kensinger, 2018; Rasch & Born, 2013; Stickgold

& Walker, 2013).

Our findings that belief updating and memories changed more significantly in the

undesirable but not in the desirable condition provide additional evidence that optimism bias is

primarily driven by insufficient updating when receiving undesirable feedback (Eil & Rao, 2011;

Sharot et al., 2011). Prior research found that self-related undesirable updating was not only

lower than self-related desirable updating but also lower than other-related updating in general

(Kuzmanovic et al., 2016). Moreover, aging participants showed reduced belief updating

following undesirable feedback compared to young adults, leading to larger optimism biases

(Chowdhury et al., 2014). In contrast, patients with major depressive disorder or individuals with

high functioning autism showed enhanced belief updating toward undesirable feedback relative to

healthy controls, leading to smaller optimism biases (Garrett et al., 2014; Korn et al., 2014;

Kuzmanovic et al., 2019). These findings, together with our novel results on delayed belief

updating and memory biases, consistently suggest that insufficient updating in response to

undesirable feedback is a fundamental mechanism that drives immediate and long-term optimism

biases.

Tracking ERPs allows us to investigate how the desirability of feedback biases

information processing along millisecond temporal scale. We found that the desirability of

feedback significantly modulated P300, and to a less extent, the LPP, but not the FRN. As one of

the most investigated ERP components, P300 has been associated with a range of cognitive

processes, including context updating, motivational salience, evaluation and categorization,

encoding depth, etc. (Azizian & Polich, 2007; Polich, 2007, 2012). In the present study, enhanced

parietal P300s to desirable versus undesirable feedback suggested that participants preferentially

encoded desirable feedback, which then exerted a greater impact on subsequent belief updating

and memory performance. Regarding the LPP effect, prior research suggested that LPP may

reflect in-depth elaboration of motivationally salient stimuli (Hajcak & Foti, 2020). Indeed,

multilevel analyses with trial-level data showed that enhanced P300 and LPPs to feedback

predicted larger belief updating and more accurate memories of feedback probabilities,

substantiating the putative role of the P300/LPP in encoding and elaboration processes (Kamp et

al., 2015; Otten & Donchin, 2000; Otten & Rugg, 2001; Rigney et al., 2020). These ERPs results

also suggest that differential processing of desirable and undesirable feedback can occur rapidly

after the initial valence processing.

We hypothesized that the frontocentral FRN would encode the desirability of feedback,

with larger FRNs elicited by undesirable versus desirable feedback (Heydari & Holroyd, 2016;

Yeung & Sanfey, 2004). However, the desirability of feedback was not observed to modulate

FRN. The insensitivity of FRN to feedback valence in the belief updating task raises the

possibility that estimation errors and reward prediction errors could reflect distinctive

computational processes of error tracking (Sharot & Garrett, 2016). Specifically, FRNs are

typically observed in reward processing tasks during which feedback conveys monetary gains and

losses (Hajcak et al., 2006; Heydari & Holroyd, 2016; Proudfit, 2015), whereas feedback in our

task indicated numerical discrepancies between estimations of probabilities. Specifically,

participants in the belief updating task needed to calculate the discrepancies between feedback

probabilities and their initial estimations to guide belief updating. Such high-level inferential and

calculation processes might make FRNs insensitive to the desirability of feedback in the present

context. Moreover, FRNs have been suggested to be involved in both error tracking and

behavioral adjustment. For example, in reward tasks, FRNs elicited by undesirable feedback (e.g.,

a loss) could guide behavioral adjustment to avoid losses (Cohen et al., 2007; Holroyd & Coles,

2002; Hu et al., 2015; Walsh & Anderson, 2012). However, in our belief updating task,

participants preferentially used desirable rather than undesirable feedback to guide belief

updating. The FRNs may reflect complex motivational-cognitive processes including both error

tracking (in response to both desirable and undesirable feedback), and the signaling of behavioral

adjustment (i.e., in response to desirable feedback). A mixture of these motivational-cognitive

processes may thus lead to comparable FRNs in both desirable and undesirable conditions.

Regarding the delayed optimism biases, although our results suggest that time delay and

offline processes contributed to the enhancement of optimism biases, it remains unknown

whether sleep or wakefulness may differentially influence belief updating and memory biases. On

the one hand, enhancement of optimism biases may be time-dependent rather than sleepdependent. Alternatively, given that sleep plays an important role in memory consolidation

(Rasch & Born, 2013), sleep-based consolidation may be necessary for optimism biases to

change. Future studies shall directly link sleep, offline consolidation processes, and optimism

biases to test this novel hypothesis. 

We could thus find no link between handedness and depression

Packheiser, Julian, Judith Schmitz, Gesa Berretz, Lena S. Pfeifer, Clara C. Stein, Marietta Papadatou-Pastou, Jutta Peterburs, et al. 2021. “Handedness and Depression: A Meta-analysis Across 87 Studies.” PsyArXiv. January 28. doi:10.31234/osf.io/2hqd3

Abstract: Alterations in functional brain lateralization, often indicated by an increased prevalence of left- and/or mixed-handedness, have been demonstrated in several psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders like schizophrenia or autism spectrum disorder. For depression, however, this relationship is largely unclear. While a few studies found evidence that handedness and depression are associated, both the effect size and the direction of this association remain elusive. Here, we collected data from 87 studies totaling 35,501 individuals diagnosed with depression disorders to provide a precise estimate of differences in left-, mixed- and non-right-handedness between depressed and healthy samples. We found no differences in left- (OR = 1.04, p = .384), mixed- (OR = 1.64, p = .060) or non-right-handedness (OR = 1.05, p = .309) between the two groups. We could thus find no link between handedness and depression on the meta-analytical level.

To Avoid More Political Violence, Allow Americans To Escape Each Other's Control - Let people join with the like-minded to reject officials and laws that don’t suit them and to construct systems that do

To Avoid More Political Violence, Allow Americans To Escape Each Other's Control. J D Tuccille. Reason, Jan 19 2021. https://reason.com/2021/01/19/to-avoid-more-political-violence-allow-americans-to-escape-each-others-control/

Let people join with the like-minded to reject officials and laws that don’t suit them and to construct systems that do.

Excertps, full text and links in the original URL:

[...]

We've built toward this point for years. While the Trumpists' storming of the Capitol was an unprecedented rejection of the established procedures for transferring power, it built on trends. From the contested, but peaceful, 2000 election, to the boycotting of Trump's 2016 victory by dozens of Democratic members of Congress as other opponents rioted blocks away, Americans have moved toward belief in the legitimacy of elections only if their side wins. At some point, we were going to see an outright refusal to accept a loss, which is what occurred on January 6.

And there's no reason to expect that people will lose their distaste for political defeat in future political contests.

How could Americans be accepting of electoral losses when many view their opponents as immoral and unpatriotic and see them as enemies of the country—to the point that the major factions are defined by their hatreds? "Democrats and Republicans … have grown more contemptuous of opposing partisans for decades, and at similar rates," notes a November 2020 paper on political sectarianism. "Only recently, however, has this aversion exceeded their affection for copartisans."

To a large extent this is because politics has become combat, with election victors using their control of government agencies to torment losers.

"It is more and more dangerous to lose an election," economist John Cochrane, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution and an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute, wrote in September. "The vanishing ability to lose an election and not be crushed is the core reason for increased partisan vitriol and astounding violation of basic norms on both sides of our political divide."

No sane people would consent to a political system that works as a weapon against them; they would try to escape its power. One of the virtues of the original decentralized American republic and its federalism was that if you didn't like the laws and rulers where you lived, you could go elsewhere.

"Foot voting is still underrated as a tool for enhancing political freedom: the ability of the people to choose the political regime under which they wish to live," George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin wrote in a 2012 paper since expanded into a book. "When people are able to choose their governments, political leaders have stronger incentives to adopt policies that benefit the people, or at least avoid harming them. And the people themselves are able to select the policies they prefer."

The "people" Somin references aren't the amorphous masses discussed in Social Studies classes as marching to the polls to jam the alleged will of the winners down the throats of the losers. He means individuals turning their backs on governing systems they dislike and picking those that better suit them.

But, as Chapman University law professor Tom Bell—another advocate of political choice—points out in his 2018 book Your Next Government?, "the United States has in recent decades failed to take states' rights seriously, making federal law supreme even in minutely local matters."

Moving does little good when the laws and "vanishing ability to lose an election and not be crushed" (as Cochrane put it) follow you.

Even reviving federalism would accomplish little when many states have larger populations than the whole country did at its founding and the major political divides run not between states or regions, but between urban and rural areas. Within localities are many people who feel trapped by circumstances in "enemy territory," subject to hostile rulers and laws they despise.

How do we make more palatable a political system that functions as a death match between mutually loathing factions who believe themselves—with reason—to be in peril when their enemies win control?

"If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state—to relinquish its protection and to refuse paying toward its support," Herbert Spencer famously argued in 1851. Fundamentally, Spencer wanted the right to exit that Somin favors, but without the physical migration of foot voting, [...].

But Somin not only favors radical decentralization to minimize the costs of migration, he also discusses arrangements whereby "individual citizens can change government service-providers without a physical move." Bell, too, believes that "for the same reason that nation states should and generally do allow the unhappy residents to emigrate, more consent-rich governing services would doubtless guarantee the freedom of citizen-customers to exit to other legal systems" without moving their locations.

In 2001, Swiss economist Bruno Frey proposed what he called functional, overlapping, competing jurisdictions—basically, governments that people choose among as if picking club memberships.

Frey echoed Belgian economist Paul Emile de Puydt who, in the 1860 article "Panarchy," advocated a system of non-territorial federalism under which people could freely register their support for, or withdrawal from, any political associations that gain sufficient support. "I hope we can all go on living together wherever we are, or elsewhere, if one likes, but without discord, like brothers, each freely holding his opinions and submitting only to a power personally chosen and accepted," de Puydt wrote.

These proposals expand on Spencer's "right to ignore the state" in empowering people to join with the like-minded not just to reject officials and laws that don't suit them, but to construct systems that do.

Their advocates emphasize existing precedents for choice in government. "People choose between governments every time they choose to live in a new city, state, or country," writes Bell. "Businesses and others are often able to choose for themselves which state's law will govern their dealings with each other, even if they do not actually reside in the state in question," points out Somin.

What if Americans could choose governing systems rather than having them jammed down their throats? They could embrace rules as limited or restrictive as they please, programs and policies that suit their tastes, and officials who resist treating election to office as opportunities to punish enemies. [...]

True, American politics has been moving away from allowing exit in recent years, centralizing power so that people can't escape and even attempting to continue taxing those who flee, as California lawmakers propose. [...]

We can have a future of increasing conflict between Americans who hate each other. Or we can make it easier for people to peacefully escape each other's control.

Receptivity to casual sexual requests: The more attractive the requester, the higher the proportion of agreement; heterosexuals were most impacted by the attractiveness of the target

Receptivity to casual sexual requests. John E. Edlund ,Dailyn Q. Clark,Alissa M. Kalmus &Aquene Sausville. The Journal of Social Psychology, Jan 27 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2021.1881030

Abstract: Research has long noted that there are differences between men’s and women’s responses to casual sexual requests. In this study, we sought to replicate and extend the Clark and Hatfield paradigm while exploring the influence of requestor attractiveness, sexual orientation, and two individual difference measures: sociosexuality (which is how open to sexuality a person is) and personal mate value (which is how high quality of a mate the person is). We found that attractiveness matters in the likelihood of a request being accepted (the more attractive the requester, the higher the proportion of agreement); sexual orientation matters for the overall proportion of responses agreed to (heterosexuals were most impacted by the attractiveness of the target), and that sociosexuality moderates the likelihood of agreeing to the requests (such that participants with higher sociosexuality scores were more likely to agree to requests).

KEYWORDS: Sexual orientationcasual sexsociosexualitymate value

Secular rituals might play a similar role to religious ones in fostering feelings of social connection and boosting positive affect

Charles SJ, van Mulukom V, Brown JE, Watts F, Dunbar RIM, Farias M (2021) United on Sunday: The effects of secular rituals on social bonding and affect. PLoS ONE 16(1): e0242546. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242546

Rolf Degen's take: "A secular collective Sunday-ritual fostered social bonding and positive affect to the same degree as its Christian equivalent. https://t.co/EsWZdqQKrA https://t.co/aIAJlJBFCf"

Abstract: Religious rituals are associated with health benefits, potentially produced via social bonding. It is unknown whether secular rituals similarly increase social bonding. We conducted a field study with individuals who celebrate secular rituals at Sunday Assemblies and compared them with participants attending Christian rituals. We assessed levels of social bonding and affect before and after the rituals. Results showed the increase in social bonding taking place in secular rituals is comparable to religious rituals. We also found that both sets of rituals increased positive affect and decreased negative affect, and that the change in positive affect predicted the change in social bonding observed. Together these results suggest that secular rituals might play a similar role to religious ones in fostering feelings of social connection and boosting positive affect.

Discussion

Religious rituals occur in all human societies [77], and they seem to confer various benefits to those who take part [1]. It has been suggested that rituals are evolutionarily adaptive by helping foster social bonds [16]. This hypothesis has received some support from field research on religious rituals [30] and from a large body of research showing social bonds provide health benefits [39–41]. It has also been proposed that attending secular rituals, such as Sunday Assembly meetings, may lead to improved wellbeing (e.g. [53]). However, whether the social bonding effect reported from religious rituals is also seen in secular rituals that mimic the behaviours of religious rituals had not been tested before. This study of participants from Sunday Assemblies provides the first evidence that the fostering of social bonds occurs in a secular ritual setting. We compared this to a matched group of individuals from four Christian churches. The results showed that social bonding improvements are of a similar level at both Sunday Assembly and religious ritual settings.

Follow-up analyses found that the increase in social bonding from before to after the Sunday Assemblies was positively predicted by the change in positive affect, as has been found for churches across the UK [30], but not negative affect. These findings are in line with the ‘broaden and build’ hypothesis, which suggests that positive emotions increase the scope of one’s attention to others to allow for the formation of social connections, which themselves lead to improved mental wellbeing [19, 34, 35]. This hypothesis has also been used to suggest that link between religion and wellbeing stems from changes in positive affect [34, 35], which in turn leads to protective social benefits, such as social support [36].

Stepwise regression analysis found that neither level of spirituality nor level of religiosity played a significant role in social bonding change, despite both variables having been related to wellbeing in the past [78]. This could be the result of the methodology of previous studies, which have often used attendance of religious services as a measure for religiosity itself [1, 79], which could conflate the effect of ritual attendance with religiosity and/or spirituality. Diener and colleagues [36] have noted that the reported relationship between religiosity and wellbeing is conditional on social support and social structure. This may explain why religiosity did not directly predict social bonding change in either Sunday Assembly or church participants. Price and Launay [53] have specifically suggested that future research should account for the length of time one had been attending Sunday Assembly, to see if this could explain the wellbeing effects they reported. In the stepwise regression model, the length of attendance did not add predictive value for the change in social bonding in the Sunday Assembly participants. If, as Price and Launay [53] suggest, the improved wellbeing stems from social bonding, this may suggest that protective effects of participating in secular ritual could occur quickly. We must note, though, that we likely failed to detect this effect for Sunday Assembly participants because there were a number of people attending the ritual for the first time in the Sunday Assembly population, which was not the case with the Christian church participants, for whom we found that length of attendance predicted strength of social bonding. Future research should attempt to account for the effect of newcomers on social bonding during group rituals.

This work is the first to demonstrate that secular rituals, much like religious rituals, promote feelings of social bonding. However, we acknowledge that there are limitations to this study. Firstly, this study was not pre-registered. Given the changes suggested by those promoting Open Science methodologies since the advent of the replication crisis [80–82], the methods and analysis plans could have been registered in advance of conducting the study. Though pre-registration was not done in this case, the full anonymised dataset and the research materials are provided in supplementary materials in accordance with other Open Science practices, and a power analysis was provided to support the sample size used in this study.

Another limitation is that we only conducted research with one type of secular ritual, the Sunday Assembly meetings. Sunday Assembly meetings are not the only secular ritual that mimic religious ritual, with other examples including the Church of Positivism [50]–still active in Brazil–and the Religious Humanism movement in the United States.

One avenue for future research is to conduct studies investigating whether the positive health effects found in those who regularly attend religious rituals can also be seen in those who regularly attend Sunday Assemblies or other similar non-religious rituals that mimic the behaviours of religious rituals, compared to those who do not attend such rituals. Examples of such positive health effects are better immune function and lowering levels of all-cause mortality [3–6], depression [7–9, 83, 84] and suicidality [1]. Here, we have examined the role of ritual on social bonding. However, to better understand the mechanisms underlying the protective factors that have previously been related only to religious participation, future research could compare health outcomes from those who attend secular rituals to those who do not, while taking affect and social bonding into account. We also recommend that, much like in our research, social bonding factors be explicitly measured in future ritual and health research, as this may provide a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanism by which ritual attendance appears to improve wellbeing.

Future research can also look more widely at gatherings of secular groups, which are not intentionally ‘rituals’ but nonetheless may create a sense of connection to something bigger than oneself. A variety of gatherings may function as a form of ‘implicit religion’ [85–87], such as sporting events where one feels connected to a team spirit [88, 89], thus creating social bonds in ways similar to religious rituals. Conducting research in such settings would allow us to better understand the nature and effects of ritual-like social bonding in secular contexts.

Europe & marriage of the unequals: Authors confirm the decline of hypergamy as women gain advantage in education, with only 4 countries out of 27 showing some remnants of a male educational lead

Educational assortative mating and the decline of hypergamy in 27 European countries: An examination of trends through cohorts. Dávid Erát. Demographic Research, Vol 44, pp 157–188. Jan 28 2021, doi 10.4054/DemRes.2021.44.7

Abstract

Background: Theories of partner selection emphasize the principal role of available partners in the relationship market. As education is a common socioeconomic attribute through which individuals choose a mate, macrostructure theory highlights the importance of the asymmetric change in educational attainment seen in Europe. As women increasingly participate in tertiary education, this restructuring might result in the decline of traditional hypergamous unions.

Objective: We aim to verify previous results confirming the decline of educational hypergamy and the rise of hypogamy, which has been found to be related to women’s growing educational advantage. We also wish to provide a current picture of this process in Europe by looking at the youngest cohort available during the analysis.

Methods: We pooled nine waves of the European Social Survey and examined trends in seven cohorts. Apart from simple percentage differences in education, we reconstructed the indices of female educational advantage (F-index) and the prevalence of hypergamy (H-index), with provided correlation statistics and fitted linear trend lines.

Results: Our results corroborated the findings of previous multi-country analyses. In nearly all selected countries, women were more present in higher education than men, resulting in a uniform increase in the female educational advantage. Parallel to this, hypergamy declined through the cohorts, which correlated with women’s emerging educational lead.

Contribution: Our results verify the findings from previous years, using a newer dataset and detailed cohort perspective, and confirm the decline of hypergamy as women gain advantage in education, with only four countries out of 27 showing some remnants of a male educational lead.

KEYWORDS: assortative mating, education, hypogamy, macrostructure, partner selection, relationship formation, relationship market

People more receptive to bullshit grossly overestimate their ability to detect it and believe they are better able to detect it than others (i.e., “bullshit blind spot”)

A bullshit blind spot? Dunning-Kruger effects in bullshit detection. Shane Littrell and Jonathan Fugelsang. Waterloo Univ., Jan 2021. https://dlab.sauder.ubc.ca/sjdm/presentations/2020-Poster-Littrell-Shane-BullshitDetect-DunningKruger-Blindspot.pdf

Rolf Degen's take: "People least able to detect bullshit believe they are better at it than everyone else. https://t.co/DQhx0t4kme https://t.co/fknlV8iPgO"

Background

• People are often confident that they are not easily misled (i.e., they have good “bullshit

detectors”). However, their BS detection confidence may not relate to their actual ability.

• Past work has shown that people who engage in bullshitting more frequently are

metacognitively less able to distinguish bullshit from non-bullshit, suggesting that some

people may be unaware of their susceptibility to misleading information.

• We examined the extent to which a person’s confidence in their BS detection abilities is

related to actual accuracy on a BS detection task as well as how they feel their detection

ability compares to the ability of others.

• We also examined the associations of these variables with bullshitting frequency and

intelligence.

• We followed up in Study 2 by investigating whether one’s bullshit detection ability is

perceived to be an intuitive or reflective process.

Changes in sexual behavior during of the COVID-19 pandemic and physical distancing measures in single and partnered participants in Germany, Switzerland and Austria

The disruptive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sexual behavior of a German-speaking population. Z. Hille, U.C. Oezdemir, K.M. Beier, L. Hatzler. Sexologies, January 27 2021. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1158136020301250

Summary

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate changes in sexual behavior during of the COVID-19 pandemic and physical distancing measures in single and partnered participants in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

Material and methods: Participants were assessed in a cross-sectional online survey. Amongst others, sociodemographic data, sociosexual attitudes as well as engagement in a range of sexual activities and practices prior to and during the pandemic were collected. Additionally, for subjects in a relationship, sexual attraction to the partner (feelings of affection during partnered sexual activities, and physical sexual attraction) and relationship satisfaction were measured.

Results: Data of 1017 single and 1498 partnered participants were analyzed. Partnered participants masturbated significantly less during physical distancing measures compared to the period before, whereas single males masturbated more often. Single females masturbate less frequently but this difference was not statistically significant. For both subgroups, the frequency of most sexual activities significantly declined since the beginning of physical distancing measures with anal intercourse in partnered participants being the only exception that showed no significant decrease. In the group of participants in relationships, sociosexual variables and physical sexual attraction to one's partner showed a significant positive relationship to the number of new sexual practices added during physical distancing measures, while feelings of affection during partnered sexual activities and relationship satisfaction did not.

Conclusion: Our data support previous findings showing potential disruptive effects on sexual routines of single and partnered participants by the COVID-19 pandemic and physical distancing measures. Further studies are needed to reveal causal factors and to study long-term effects on mental health and relationships.

The Impact of the Economy on Presidential Elections Throughout US History: Voters, we find, appear to judge incumbent presidents on the economy all the way back to George Washington

The Impact of the Economy on Presidential Elections Throughout US History. Eric Guntermann, Gabriel S. Lenz & Jeffrey R. Myers. Political Behavior, Jan 27 2021. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-021-09677-y

Rolf Degen's take: "It's always been the economy, stupid, all the way back to George Washington. https://t.co/1WzdNC8FWe https://t.co/QotZuU5iXG"

Abstract: As numerous studies in the US and elsewhere document, voters often hold incumbents accountable for recent economic circumstances. However, our knowledge of the conditions that allow voters to do so remains incomplete. In particular, most findings about economic voting come from studies of modern economies (post World War II). Modern economies have a host of characteristics that seem to lend themselves to economic voting. Their governments play a large role in the economy and have the Keynesian toolset necessary to influence the economy. Their voters are educated and have access to detailed economic data from ubiquitous media. Are these and other modern conditions necessary for economic voting? Would voters still hold politicians accountable even under adverse conditions? Using economic measures now available back to the 1790s, we study economic voting from the earliest days of the US Republic when none of these conditions were met. Voters, we find, appear to judge incumbent presidents on the economy all the way back to George Washington. Consistent with this pattern, we also find that the economy appears to shape presidents' decisions to run again throughout US history. These findings support recent comparative evidence that economic voting is pervasive across a variety of contexts.

Sperm donation: Mostly altruistic, donors favored anonymity; education level, conscientiousness, empathic concern were positively correlated to donation; age, & conservative and religious values were negatively associated

Motivations and Attitudes of Men Towards Sperm Donation: Whom to Donate and Why? João Areias, Jorge Gato & Mariana Moura-Ramos. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, Jan 27 2021. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-020-00531-0

Abstract

Background: The widespread access to medically assisted reproduction (MAR) techniques for all women, regardless of any infertility diagnosis, has led to an increased, but as yet unmet, demand for sperm donors in Portugal. For this study, we deployed an online survey to explore men’s motivations for donating and their attitudes toward anonymity and donating for specific groups.

Method: The study’s sample comprised men who were eligible to donate sperm (N = 282). The relationships between these factors and participants’ psychological and sociodemographic characteristics were also explored.

Results: The results mostly indicated altruistic reasons for donating, positive attitudes toward anonymity, and a greater willingness to donate to infertile women. Overall, sexual orientation was not associated with the participants’ attitudes and motivations. Age, education level, conscientiousness, empathic concern, and conservative and religious values were associated with the participants’ motivations and attitudes toward sperm donation.

Conclusion: Recruitment campaigns should therefore consider the specific motivations, attitudes, and psychosocial characteristics of potential sperm donors. Indeed, parenthood is a universal right, so sperm donation should be encouraged, regardless of recipients’ fertility status. Clear information about the identifiability of sperm donors should also be provided.

Discussion

The main goal of this study was to highlight what drives men to donate sperm, their attitudes toward anonymity, and their attitudes toward donating for specific groups, as well as to investigate how sexual orientation, psychological traits, and sociodemographic characteristics influence these motivations and attitudes. For reasons of clarity, the results will be discussed in terms of (i) motivations to donate, (ii) attitudes toward anonymity, and (iii) attitudes toward donating for specific groups.

Motivations to Donate

Consistent with the literature, altruistic motivation seems to be the most significant motivation for donating sperm, emphasizing a desire to help childless couples have children (Ekerhovd et al., 2008; Hedrih & Hedrih, 2012; Thijssen et al., 2017; Van der Broeck et al., 2013) and diminishing the role of financial compensation in return for donation (Ekerhovd et al., 2008; Hedrih & Hedrih, 2012; Thijssen et al., 2017). Motivations to donate were generally not associated with the participants’ sexual orientation, except for the motivation of “knowing one’s fertility,” with heterosexual men assigning more importance to this than other men. Non-heterosexual men’s lack of interest in their fertility status may be because they generally show a weaker intent to parent children and anticipate stigma upon achieving parenthood (Gato, Leal, Coimbra, & Tasker, 2020). Furthermore, many non-heterosexual men seem to be unfamiliar with alternative paths to parenthood (Patterson & Riskind, 2010), and some still envisage parenting as a feminine role (Gato & Fontaine, 2017; Pelka, 2009). Nevertheless, future research should further examine the genesis of these differences.

Age was negatively associated with the motivation of “knowing one’s fertility,” with younger men assigning more importance to this motivation. According to Thijssen et al. (2017), this association is expected because younger, childless men have not yet confirmed their fertility status. Furthermore, the men with a lower level of education also valued this motivation more, so future research should explore this association.

Considering the psychological characteristics of the participants, men with higher levels of Conscientiousness assigned more importance to learning their fertility status. People with high levels of conscientiousness may be more motivated to donate based on willingness to pass on their “good genes” (Thijssen et al., 2017), because this will confirm their purpose and usefulness to society and themselves. Similarly, men with higher levels of Conservative values also ascribed more importance to learning their fertility status. This is unsurprising if we consider that more conservative individuals tend to value social order and assign more importance to traditional institutions (Schwartz, 1992, 1994), such as heteronormative families where children generally have a genetic link with their parents.

People with high levels of empathic concern donate in various contexts, and they are compassionate toward others and seem to be oriented toward alleviating the suffering of others in need (Verhaert & Van den Poel, 2011). This explains the positive association between empathic concern and the motivation to help others have a child, as was found in this study. Conversely, religious values were negatively correlated with this motivation. Even though modern Portugal is a secular country, Catholic values still exert a certain influence (Dix, 2010). In our study, the negative association between adherence to religious values and helping someone to have a child may derive from the fact that Catholicism tends to reject alternative family configurations, including the pursuit of pregnancy through MAR (Rubio, 2015).

Attitudes Toward Anonymity

Willingness to be contacted by the child was the least-indicated attitude, differing from the assertions “parents should disclose DI conception with the child” and “the institution where DI was realized can provide information about me to the child, since that information does not identify me.” This finding agrees with research that found that men tend to avoid donation if their identities may be disclosed (Bay et al., 2014; Thijssen et al., 2017). Nevertheless, a relatively positive view about non-anonymous donation was noticeable, because all participants endorsed disclosing DI conception to the child and releasing non-identifying information about the donor. No differences in attitudes toward anonymity were found as a function of sexual orientation, thus contradicting the study of Freeman et al. (2016), which verified that gay and bisexual men, when compared to their heterosexual peers, were more open minded when it came to anonymity and more willing to have contact with children conceived using their sperm. This study’s results refuted our hypotheses about differences between heterosexual and non-heterosexual men for attitudes toward sperm donation.

For sociodemographic characteristics, age was negatively associated with the attitude that “parents should disclose DI conception to the child,” with younger participants subscribing more to this attitude. According to Riggs and Russell (2011), men under the age of 26 preferred identity-release legislation, and this may reflect in the opinion that parents should disclose DI conception to the child. No psychological characteristics were associated with attitudes toward anonymity, perhaps due to the choice of psychological correlates in this study. Future research should therefore include other aspects, such as neuroticism and agreeableness.

Attitudes Toward Donating for Specific Groups

Regarding attitudes toward donating for specific groups, a positive tendency toward donating to all groups was discernible, and this is consistent with the findings of other studies (Bay et al., 2014; Ekerhovd et al., 2008; Thijssen et al., 2017). Nevertheless, donating to heterosexual women with fertility problems was the group regarded the most positively. This may come from the altruistic motivations to donate that participants reported. Indeed, altruism is based on a desire to help someone to have a child (Ekerhovd et al., 2008; Hedrih & Hedrih, 2012; Thijssen et al., 2017; Van der Broeck et al., 2013), and infertile women may be perceived, a priori, as being at a greater disadvantage.

Empathic concern was positively associated with donating to most recipient groups. This likely derives from the fact that people with high levels of empathic concern tend to focus more on alleviating the suffering of others and showing compassion (Verhaert & Van den Poel, 2011). In contrast, adherence to religious values was negatively associated with donating to all groups. As mentioned earlier, this may stem from the influence of Catholic views about family (Rubio, 2015).

Limitations, Future Directions, and Implications for Practice

Like any research endeavor, this study is not without limitations. More than half of our sample was highly educated, so it was not representative of the wider Portuguese population. Additionally, the imbalance in the number of heterosexual and non-heterosexual men may have further compromised the results and prevented us from drawing conclusions about the influence of this variable. The small magnitude of effects (except in the RM ANOVAs) also raised concerns and somewhat limited generalization of the findings.

Despite these limitations, however, our findings do have implications for practice. By shedding light on the motivations, attitudes, and characteristics of possible candidate donors, the findings of this study may inform future recruitment campaigns. Indeed, based on these findings, it could be argued that campaigns should target specific motivations, attitudes, and characteristics of potential donors. As Ferguson, Atsma, de Kort, and Veldhuizen (2012) reported in the context of blood donation, emphasizing the positive feelings that are associated with donation can increase donation rates, so a similar concept could be applied in the context of sperm donation. For example, in this study, the most frequently reported motivation to donate was to help someone have a child, which is an altruistic motivation. It may therefore be useful to highlight the altruistic nature of donation in any campaign.

This study also contributes to the view that withdrawing donation anonymity, which took place in Portugal in 2018, may not necessarily affect the number of potential donors, thus reflecting the positive trend toward non-anonymity reported by other studies (Bay et al., 2014; Thijssen et al., 2017). However, given a pattern of disengagement when the disclosed information is too personal or when there is a chance of contact with the child, the issue of anonymity should be further debated and clarified. Future recruitment campaigns should therefore stress that upon release of anonymity, the donor bears no obligation or commitment to the child. Likewise, it is crucial to emphasize that parenthood is a universal right in order to encourage sperm donation for any person or couple, regardless of fertility status or sexual orientation.