The most human bot: Female gendering increases humanness perceptions of bots and acceptance of AI

The most human bot: Female gendering increases humanness perceptions of bots and acceptance of AI. Sylvie Borau  Tobias Otterbring  Sandra Laporte  Samuel Fosso Wamba. Psychology & Marketing, March 22 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21480

Abstract: Companies have repeatedly launched Artificial Intelligence (AI) products such as intelligent chatbots and robots with female names, voices, and bodies. Previous research posits that people intuitively favor female over male bots, mainly because female bots are judged as warmer and more likely to experience emotions. We present five online studies, including four preregistered, with a total sample of over 3,000 participants that go beyond this longstanding perception of femininity. Because warmth and experience (but not competence) are seen as fundamental qualities to be a full human but are lacking in machines, we argue that people prefer female bots because they are perceived as more human than male bots. Using implicit, subtle, and blatant scales of humanness, our results consistently show that women (Studies 1A and 1B), female bots (Studies 2 and 3), and female chatbots (Study 4) are perceived as more human than their male counterparts when compared with non‐human entities (animals and machines). Study 4 investigates explicitly the acceptance of gendered algorithms operated by AI chatbots in a health context. We found that the female chatbot is preferred over the male chatbot because it is perceived as more human and more likely to consider our unique needs. These results highlight the ethical quandary faced by AI designers and policymakers: Women are said to be transformed into objects in AI, but injecting women's humanity into AI objects makes these objects seem more human and acceptable.

People tend to naturally drop their efforts to be optimistic when they expect things to go badly, especially when being evaluated; people likely know that optimism is not the most beneficial mindset to adopt at all times

Optimism: Enduring resource or miscalibrated perception? Mariah F. Purol  William J. Chopik. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, March 25 2021. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12593

Abstract: There is a general, widely‐held belief that optimism is always a good thing. While there is much previous research suggesting that optimists enjoy several health and wellness benefits, there is also a large body of research suggesting that optimism is not always advantageous. Perhaps examining how optimism develops and changes across the lifespan may give us insight into how people use optimism and allow us to determine if and when optimism is helpful or maladaptive for them. In the current review, we review evidence debating the benefits and costs of optimism, as well as examine how optimism develops across the lifespan. We discuss how life events may or may not impact the developmental trajectory of optimism. Lastly, we address currently unanswered questions and emphasize the contextual nature of optimism's advantages.

3 OPTIMISM CAN BE A BAD THING

Of course, there are situations where optimism can do more harm than good. Take, for example, what researchers have coined as unrealistic optimism. Unrealistic optimism is the belief that one is more likely to experience positive outcomes compared to others who are objectively similar to them (Weinstein, 1980). In an often‐cited example of unrealistic optimism, smokers believe that they are at less risk for developing lung cancer compared to the general population of smokers (Weinstein et al., 2005).

This mindset comes with some clearly negative implications for health behaviors. For smokers, it leads to a discounting of a very real health risk and might interfere with efforts to quit smoking. While some research has suggested that optimists may be more attentive to information about potential risks (Aspinwall & Brunhart, 1996), those who are high in unrealistic optimism may avoid this same information (Wiebe & Black, 1997), which may ultimately stop them from fully understanding their risk or acting preventatively.

Importantly and, perhaps, counterintuitively, unrealistic optimism is often assessed independently of accuracy (Weinstein & Klein, 1996). Thus, it is difficult to determine if one is truly unrealistic when they say that they have a lower risk of developing any given health condition than the average person; maybe people who make these kinds of claims do indeed have more positive outcomes and are different from others in a similar boat. However, in studies that evaluate the chances of a specific outcome (e.g., evaluate the risk of heart attack using blood pressure and cholesterol data), researchers have operationalized when optimism is considered “unrealistic” (e.g., those who misjudged their risk by greater than 10%; Radcliffe & Klein, 2002). This research has found that, while dispositional optimists have a lower risk of negative outcomes, unrealistic optimists have a higher risk of negative outcomes.

Unrealistic optimists are less worried about their risk levels for negative events (Weinstein, 1982), have less prior knowledge about risks, and remember less when provided with information about risk (Radcliffe & Klein, 2002). Some researchers have suggested that this may be because of the invulnerability sometimes felt by unrealistic optimists (Perloff & Fetzer, 1986; Schwarzer, 1994); they may feel that risk information is irrelevant to them. Weinstein and Lachendro (1982) suggest that egocentrism plays a role in our use of unrealistic optimism—we tend to think that we will be far better off than others when we are not forced to think carefully about others' circumstances. Neuroscience research on the topic has suggested that those high in unrealistic optimism fail to code for errors that should reduce optimism, making it difficult for them to accurately update their beliefs (Sharot et al., 2011). Altogether, an unrealistic sense of optimism leads people to be at higher risk for negative outcomes, seek out less information about risk, and take fewer preventative steps to mitigate risk. Of course, unrealistic optimism is not a dichotomy, and those who are very high in unrealistic optimism may be most at risk for these aversive outcomes.

In the past decade, many researchers have found that optimism, even when not unrealistic, can occasionally be associated with negative outcomes. In another often‐cited example, being optimistic about exam scores does not make students feel any less distressed or nervous before they get feedback, and being optimistic does not protect students from feeling bad when they learn they did poorly (Sweeny & Shepperd, 2010). In fact, optimism leads to greater disappointment when students receive a bad grade. Interestingly, students know that getting their hopes up, only to receive a bad grade, will be disappointing—and, yet, they continue to be optimistic (Sweeny & Shepperd, 2010). This suggests that, despite knowing the costs of optimism and experiencing no positive change in affect because of it, students continue to be optimistic. Worth noting, true pessimists—those who believe that they performed worse on the exam than they really did—report lower negative affect after the feedback (Sweeny & Shepperd, 2010).

Further, people tend to naturally drop their efforts to be optimistic when they expect things to go badly, especially when being evaluated. This suggests that people likely know that optimism is not the most beneficial mindset to adopt at all times. This tendency to shift towards pessimism in the moments before feedback is referred to as “sobering up” (Sweeny & Krizan, 2013). In general, the closer we get to an evaluation of our performance, the more pessimistic we become. There are many reasons why this may occur. For example, the closer we get to an event, the less control we have over the outcome, and the more “real” (i.e., concrete) it becomes (Sweeny & Krizan, 2013). There is an increased pressure to be accurate in our prediction of how we will fare after an event, and we are more likely to think critically about our expectations in order to counteract any unrealistic optimism (Lerner & Tetlock, 1999; Tetlock & Kim, 1987). As in the case of the student receiving their exam score, a shift toward pessimism may also be an outcome of affect management, in which we temper our expectations in order to avoid negative feelings (Sweeny & Krizan, 2013). Being pessimistic in these moments can spare us from painful emotions, like disappointment, and allow us to prepare for unfavorable outcomes (Sweeny et al., 2006). The protective functions of bracing for bad news may explain why, in some cases, pessimism might be called for—and that optimism might be a bad thing.

4 EVALUATING THE EVIDENCE

When determining the efficacy of optimism, it is important to examine the quality of evidence. How convincing is current research?

There are reasons to be skeptical—many studies on the benefits of optimism rely on correlational data, including many of those discussed above (i.e., Andersson; 1996; Carver et al., 1989; Gould et al., 2002; Nes & Segerstrom, 2006; Scheier & Carver, 1992). Anderson (1996) goes as far as to note that “practically all studies of the benefits of optimism as assessed by the LOT [the Life Orientation Test, a popular optimism measure] have been in the form of correlational designs.” However, more recent work has applied more rigorous methods of analysis.

Interventions, for example, offer an opportunity to examine if optimism can be manipulated and test its connection to specific outcomes. In a meta‐analysis of interventions, Malouff and Schutte (2017) determined that, while these programs are, overall, successful in increasing optimism, this success may be highly dependent on methodology. Timing of measurement, instrument used, intervention length, and other methodological artifacts were moderators of effect sizes yielded from the interventions (Malouff & Schutte, 2017). Of course, all interventions are not created equal. Some interventions, like the “best possible selves” exercise—in which participants imagine themselves in the best possible future and what they have done to get there—have been successful in both boosting optimism itself and in using optimism to increase positive affect (Carrillo et al., 2019; Malouff & Schutte, 2017). Other interventions, such as cognitive‐behavioral techniques, have also found success in cultivating long‐term gains in optimism (Brunwasser et al., 2009).

In a recent meta‐analysis of optimism's associations with positive health behaviors, Boehm et al. (2018) identified other common pitfalls of optimism research, including its reliance on cross‐sectional research. Indeed, much of the work discussed above, arguing both for and against optimism, is cross sectional. However, the longitudinal work that does exist, much of which examines the entire adult lifespan (Chopik et al., 2015, 2018; Daukantaite & Bergman, 2005; Daukantaitė & Zukauskiene, 2012; Kim et al., 2014), suggests these findings are likely not just an artifact of cross‐sectional analyses. In general, less longitudinal work has examined the costs of optimism; the few existing exceptions have suggested that, without intervention, unrealistically optimistic individuals may be at risk for poorer cognitive, performance, and health outcomes than their more realistic counterparts (Haynes et al., 2006; Popova & Halpern‐Felsher, 2016).

With this in mind, there are other pieces of evidence that offer insight into the efficacy of optimism. Longitudinal work on how optimism changes throughout the lifespan offers one such insight.

Why sexual coercion is so prevalent in orangutans & how this type of sexual selection may be much more common across animals than often recognized

Orangutan socio-sexual behavior and sexual conflict: Insights for human evolution. Cheryl D. Knott. European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, 15th Conference, Mar 2021. https://ehbea2021.com/

Abstract: In this talk I reveal how recent research on great ape behavior and physiology provides new insights into the similarities we share with our closest relatives. In particular, I focus on my long-term research studying wild orangutans in Gunung Palung National Park, Indonesia for over 25 years. Orangutans are known for one of the highest rates of sexual coercion, through forced copulation, of any animal. This is coupled with another intriguing phenomenon of having two male morphs, a rare type of male bi-maturism. Females share crucial features of reproductive physiology in common with humans, such as concealed ovulation and menstrual cycle length. In this talk I explore the complexity of male and female reproductive decisions in wild orangutans and the ways that these reveal insights into the evolution of human mating systems. This includes new research from my team on the development of socio-sexual behavior in adolescent females and how the threat of forced copulation, as well possible infanticide risk, impacts female behavior and ranging patterns. I also demonstrate the success of strategies employed by females to avoid undesired sires. These results reveal that, despite high rates of forced copulation, female choice is an important feature of orangutan mating patterns. I also discuss why sexual coercion is so prevalent in orangutans and how this type of sexual selection may be much more common across animals than often recognized. I point to the need for considering comparative data on sexual conflict as we consider the evolution of human mating patterns.

Our work shows that maternal childhood trauma can affect infant growth parameters; it also suggests that early maternal stress might set child’s development for faster life trajectory

Accelerated growth in infants of mothers with early childhood trauma. Apanasewicz-Grzegorczyk, A; Danel, D; Ziomkiewicz-Wichary, A. European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, 15th Conference, Mar 2021. https://ehbea2021.com/

Abstract: Early life stress has long-term programming effect on growth, development and further health. Recent experimental studies in animals demonstrated that the effect of early maternal psychological stress may extend on the offspring. The aim of the presented study is to investigate the effect of early maternal trauma on infant growth parameters. To test this effect, we studied a sample of 99 exclusively breastfeeding mothers and their healthy, born on-time, 5 months old infants. Mothers were asked to complete Early Life Stress Questionnaire (ELSQ) to assess maternal trauma during childhood. Anthropometrical measurements of infant body length, weight and head circumference were taken. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANCOVA) was used to test for the effect of maternal trauma and infant sex on infant’s growth parameters. Maternal childhood trauma and infant sex significantly predicted infant growth parameters. However, no effect of interaction between maternal trauma and infant sex was detected. The maternal childhood trauma was positively associated with infant growth parameters (λ =.90, F (3,93) = 3. 42, p = .02,η2 = .10). The separate univariate models indicated trauma and infant sex effect on body weight and head circumference and infant sex effect on body length. Our results demonstrate that maternal childhood trauma can affect infant growth parameters. They also suggest that early maternal stress might set child’s development for faster life trajectory.

Republicans have a higher within-party facial resemblance than Democrats; UK Conservative MPs are more similar looking to each other than Labour

Pahontu, Raluca L. and Poupakis, Stavros, Resemblance and Discrimination in Elections (March 22, 2021). SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3809710

Abstract: Discrimination affects hiring, mating and voting decisions. Whilst discrimination in elections mainly relates to gender or race, we introduce a novel source of discrimination: candidate resemblance. When candidates' partisanship is not known, voters select those that resemble most elected co-partisans. Using a machine learning algorithm for face comparison, we find a stronger resemblance effect for Republicans compared to Democrats in the US. This happens because Republicans have a higher within-party facial resemblance than Democrats, even when accounting for gender and race. We find a similar pattern in the UK, where Conservative MPs are more similar looking to each other than Labour. Using a survey experiment, we find that Tory voters reward resemblance, while there is no similar effect for Labour. We estimate that facial dissimilarity decreases the candidate's re-election probability by 5-14 percentage points. The results are consistent with an interpretation of this behaviour as a form of statistical discrimination.

Keywords: Voter Behaviour, Discrimination, Facial Resemblance, Low-Information Election, Partisanship

JEL Classification: D72, D83

Individuals high on Machiavellianism or psychopathy traits choose to stay single if they are low on sociosexuality

Individuals high on the Dark Triad traits choose to stay single if they are low on sociosexuality. Vlad Burtăverde, Cristina Ene. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 177, July 2021, 110843. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110843

Abstract: Even if the majority of humans desire to mate, some people decide to stay single. In this paper, we investigated (N = 270) the link between the Dark Triad traits and the reasons to remain single by choice, testing the moderating effect of sociosexuality. We showed that individuals high on Machiavellianism and psychopathy scored high on two dimensions of reasons to stay single by choice: freedom of choice and difficulties with relationships. Narcissism was not related to any dimension of reasons to stay single. Individuals high on Machiavellianism or psychopathy that were also high on sociosexuality reported lower scores on the reasons to stay single by choice, compared to individuals high on Machiavellianism or psychopathy low on sociosexuality.

Keywords: Dark triad traitsMating behaviorSinglehoodSociosexuality

Our pattern of pelvic sex differences did not evolve de novo in modern humans and must have been present in the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, and thus also in the extinct Homo species

Sex differences in the pelvis did not evolve de novo in modern humans. Barbara Fischer, Nicole D. S. Grunstra, Eva Zaffarini & Philipp Mitteroecker. Nature Ecology & Evolution, Mar 25 2021. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01425-z

Abstract: It is commonly assumed that the strong sexual dimorphism of the human pelvis evolved for delivering the relatively large human foetuses. Here we compare pelvic sex differences across modern humans and chimpanzees using a comprehensive geometric morphometric approach. Even though the magnitude of sex differences in pelvis shape was two times larger in humans than in chimpanzees, we found that the pattern is almost identical in the two species. We conclude that this pattern of pelvic sex differences did not evolve de novo in modern humans and must have been present in the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, and thus also in the extinct Homo species. We further suggest that this shared pattern was already present in early mammals and propose a hypothesis of facilitated variation as an explanation: the conserved mammalian endocrine system strongly constrains the evolution of the pattern of pelvic differences but enables rapid evolutionary change of the magnitude of sexual dimorphism, which in turn facilitated the rapid increase in hominin brain size.

Likelihood of overweight/obesity was higher among Nepalese males compared with females who used the internet frequently

Sex Differences in the Association between Internet Usage and Overweight/Obesity: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Survey in Nepal. Juwel Rana, Momin Islam, John Oldroyd, Nandeeta Samad, Rakibul Islam. Sexes 2021, 2(1), 132-143; March 18 2021. https://doi.org/10.3390/sexes2010011

Abstract

Objective: To examine the associations between internet use and overweight/obesity in people aged 15–49 years in Nepal and the extent to which these associations differ by biological sex.

Materials and methods: The study analyzed the nationally representative Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 2016 data. Multivariable ordinal logistic regression models were fitted to estimate the total effects of internet use (IU) in the last 12 months and frequency of internet use (FIU) in the last month on overweight/obesity adjusted for potential confounders.

Results: Of the 10,380 participants, the prevalence of overweight/obesity by IU was 38% (95% confidence interval (CI): 35.9%, 40.1%) for males and 44.1% (95% CI: 41.6%, 46.6%) for female. The likelihood of overweight/obesity was significantly higher (adjusted odds ratio (aOR): 1.55; 95% CI: 1.40, 1.73; p < 0.001) among those participants who used the internet compared to the participants who did not use the internet in the last 12 months. Similar associations were observed when using the augmented measure of exposure-FIU in the last month. We observed the modification effect of sex in the associations of IU (p-difference < 0.001) and FIU (p-difference < 0.002) with overweight/obesity in Nepal.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that future overweight/obesity interventions in Nepal discourage unnecessary internet use, particularly among males.

Keywords: sex; internet; obesity; overweight; sex; sex differences; Nepal

Social preference in rats: They preferred social over nonsocial options, choosing their cagemate rat over an empty chamber, and an unfamiliar over a familiar rat, choosing a non‐cagemate over their cagemate

Social preference in rats. Timothy D. Hackenberg  Lauren Vanderhooft  Jasmine Huang  Madeline Wagar  Jordan Alexander  Lavinia Tan. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, March 13 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.686

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1375443533646155781

Abstract: Rats were given repeated choices between social and nonsocial outcomes, and between familiar and unfamiliar social outcomes. Lever presses on either of 2 levers in the middle chamber of a 3‐chamber apparatus opened a door adjacent to the lever, permitting 45‐s access to social interaction with the rat in the chosen side chamber. In Experiment 1, rats preferred (a) social over nonsocial options, choosing their cagemate rat over an empty chamber, and (b) an unfamiliar over a familiar rat, choosing a non‐cagemate over their cagemate. These findings were replicated in Experiment 2 with 2 different non‐cagemate rats. Rats preferred both non‐cagemate rats to a similar degree when pitted against their cagemate, but were indifferent when the 2 non‐cagemates were pitted against each other. Similar preference for social over nonsocial and non‐cagemate over cagemate was seen in Experiment 3, with new non‐cagemate rats introduced after every third session. Response rates (for both cagemate and non‐cagemate rats) were elevated under conditions of nonsocial (isolated) housing compared to conditions of social (paired) housing, demonstrating a social deprivation effect. Together, the experiments contribute to an experimental analysis of social preference within a social reinforcement framework, drawing on methods with proven efficacy in the analysis of reinforcement more generally.

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I knew I was a rat...

Harm inflation: Concepts creep to the Left and the Right

Harper, Craig A., Harry R. M. Purser, and Thom Baguley. 2021. “Concepts Creep to the Left and the Right.” PsyArXiv. March 26. doi:10.31234/osf.io/tgjcz

Abstract: In a target article in 2017, social psychologist Nick Haslam proposed that concept creep explains how established social concepts expand to incorporate new phenomena, with such expansions fundamentally changing conceptual definitions and contributing to a loss of a shared social understanding. However, Haslam’s piece (along with several commentaries) focused on concept creep in relation to a small number of categories (e.g., prejudice, bullying, trauma) that are typically more salient for those on the political left. In this work, we examined whether concept creep is a uniquely leftist phenomenon, or whether we can observe the same conceptual expansion for categories typically salient for conservatives. We found evidence for such symmetry when considering categories such as sexual deviance, terrorism, and personal responsibility – with some nuanced exceptions. We discuss our findings in relation to growing political polarization, intergroup relations, and the study of partisan differences using a variety of politically salient stimuli.

Check also... When objective harm decreases, concepts of harm may expand to encompass new & previously innocuous phenomena, so it appears as widespread as ever; sometimes via intentional meaning changes engineered for political ends

Harm inflation: Making sense of concept creep. Nick Haslam et al. European Review of Social Psychology, Volume 31, 2020 - Issue 1, Jul 22 2020. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/07/when-objective-harm-reduces-concepts-of.html

The administration of testosterone to women caused a significant enlargement of participants’ peripersonal space, suggesting that testosterone caused participants to implicitly appropriate a larger space as their own

Testosterone administration in women increases the size of their peripersonal space. Catherine Masson, Donné van der Westhuizen, Jean-Paul Noel, Adala Prevost, Jack van Honk, Aikaterini Fotopoulou, Mark Solms & Andrea Serino. Experimental Brain Research, Mar 26 2021. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00221-021-06080-1

Abstract: Peripersonal space (PPS) is the space immediately surrounding the body, conceptualised as a sensory-motor interface between body and environment. PPS size differs between individuals and contexts, with intrapersonal traits and states, as well as social factors having a determining role on the size of PPS. Testosterone plays an important role in regulating social-motivational behaviour and is known to enhance dominance motivation in an implicit and unconscious manner. We investigated whether the dominance-enhancing effects of testosterone reflect as changes in the representation of PPS in a within-subjects testosterone administration study in women (N = 19). Participants performed a visuo-tactile integration task in a mixed-reality setup. Results indicated that the administration of testosterone caused a significant enlargement of participants’ PPS, suggesting that testosterone caused participants to implicitly appropriate a larger space as their own. These findings suggest that the dominance-enhancing effects of testosterone reflect at the level of sensory-motor processing in PPS.

STEM education: Compared with the US, students in China, India & Russia do not gain critical thinking skills over 4 years; & while students in India & Russia gain academic skills during the first 2 years, students in China do not

Skill levels and gains in university STEM education in China, India, Russia and the United States. Prashant Loyalka, Ou Lydia Liu, Guirong Li, Elena Kardanova, Igor Chirikov, Shangfeng Hu, Ningning Yu, Liping Ma, Fei Guo, Tara Beteille, Namrata Tognatta, Lin Gu, Guangming Ling, Denis Federiakin, Huan Wang, Saurabh Khanna, Ashutosh Bhuradia, Zhaolei Shi & Yanyan Li. Nature Human Behaviour, Mar 1 2021. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01062-3

Abstract: Universities contribute to economic growth and national competitiveness by equipping students with higher-order thinking and academic skills. Despite large investments in university science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, little is known about how the skills of STEM undergraduates compare across countries and by institutional selectivity. Here, we provide direct evidence on these issues by collecting and analysing longitudinal data on tens of thousands of computer science and electrical engineering students in China, India, Russia and the United States. We find stark differences in skill levels and gains among countries and by institutional selectivity. Compared with the United States, students in China, India and Russia do not gain critical thinking skills over four years. Furthermore, while students in India and Russia gain academic skills during the first two years, students in China do not. These gaps in skill levels and gains provide insights into the global competitiveness of STEM university students across nations and institutional types.

Belgian representative sample: Young adults 16 - 24 years are twice as likely to be victimized in their lifetimes & more than three times more likely in the past 12 months compared to adults aged 50 - 69 years

Schapansky, Evelyn, Joke Depraetere, Ines Keygnaert, and Christophe Vandeviver. 2020. “Prevalence and risk factors of sexual victimization: Findinds from a national representative sample of belgian adults aged 16-69.” SocArXiv. September 29. doi:10.31235/osf.io/t7ue9

Abstract

Background: Sexual victimization is a major public health, judicial and societal concern worldwide. Prevalence studies on sexual victimization have mostly focused on female and student samples. Overall, nationally representative and comparable studies are still lacking.

Methods: We applied a broad definition of sexual violence, including hands-off and hands-on victimization, and behaviorally specific questions to assess sexual victimization. Prevalence estimates were obtained after weighting the sample according to the population proportions of men and women in three age groups. The data provide nationally representative lifetime and 12-month prevalence estimates. We further conducted logistic regression to estimate adjusted odds ratios to examine the relationship between demographic, socioeconomic, and sexuality-related variables with the likelihood of being victimized.

Results: These estimates indicate that 64.1% (95% CI: 61.9-66.1) of the general population in Belgium experienced some form of sexual victimization in their lives, and 44.1% (95% CI: 41.9-46.2) experienced some form of sexual victimization in the past 12 months. Logistic regression analysis shows that women are more than five times more likely to be victimized in their lifetimes than men (aOR = 4.96, 95% CI: 4.02-6.14), with an overall prevalence estimate of 80.8% (95% CI: 78.3-83.1). Young adults between 16 and 24 years are twice as likely to be victimized in their lifetimes (aOR = 2.13, 95% CI: 1.36-3.35) and more than three times more likely in the past 12 months (aOR = 3.52, 95% CI: 2.82-4.18) compared to adults aged 50 to 69 years. Prevalence estimates for all forms of sexual victimization are presented and compared to other national and international studies on sexual victimization.

Conclusion: This comparison suggests that prevalence rates have been underestimated . The prevalence estimates obtained in this study demonstrate that all sexes and ages are affected by sexual victimization.

Women are more liberal and more conservative than men at the same time

Gender Differences in Social and Political Attitudes: It’s Protection versus Freedom, not Liberalism versus Conservatism. Gerhard Meisenberg. Mankind Quarterly, Volume 61, No. 3, Mar 1 2021. DOI 10.46469/mq.2021.61.3.10

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1375311570901864450

Abstract: Thiss study examines sex differences in socio-political attitudes in the United States using the General Social Survey (GSS). It solves the seeming paradox that women have been described as both more religious and more liberal than men. The results indicate that women are indeed more religious than men and more socially conservative in many respects as indicated by earlier research in the United States and elsewhere. However, they are also more “economically liberal” in the US sense of favoring more social expenditures by the government. The observed differences do not fit the present political alignments of the United States. They rather indicate that women more than men are concerned about protecting people from economic hardship, from threats emerging from “non-standard” beliefs and worldviews, and from the darker side of their own nature. The sex differences can be described as lying on a protection versus freedom dimension, similar to what has been described for political alignments in many non-Western countries. At the level of specific issues, most sex differences have remained quite stable from the 1970s to the 2010s.

Challenging the Link Between Early Childhood Television Exposure and Later Attention Problems

Challenging the Link Between Early Childhood Television Exposure and Later Attention Problems: A Multiverse Approach. Matthew T. McBee, Rebecca J. Brand, Wallace E. Dixon, Jr. Psychological Science, March 25, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620971650

Abstract: In 2004, Christakis and colleagues published an article in which they claimed that early childhood television exposure causes later attention problems, a claim that continues to be frequently promoted by the popular media. Using the same National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 data set (N = 2,108), we conducted two multiverse analyses to examine whether the finding reported by Christakis and colleagues was robust to different analytic choices. We evaluated 848 models, including logistic regression models, linear regression models, and two forms of propensity-score analysis. If the claim were true, we would expect most of the justifiable analyses to produce significant results in the predicted direction. However, only 166 models (19.6%) yielded a statistically significant relationship, and most of these employed questionable analytic choices. We concluded that these data do not provide compelling evidence of a harmful effect of TV exposure on attention.

Keywords: media, TV, ADHD, attention development, multiverse analysis, computational reproducibility, garden of forking paths, open data, open materials

Collectively, our results reveal spatially covarying transcriptomic and cognitive architectures, highlighting the influence that molecular mechanisms exert on psychological processes

Mapping gene transcription and neurocognition across human neocortex. Justine Y. Hansen, Ross D. Markello, Jacob W. Vogel, Jakob Seidlitz, Danilo Bzdok & Bratislav Misic. Nature Human Behaviour, Mar 25 2021. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01082-z

Abstract: Regulation of gene expression drives protein interactions that govern synaptic wiring and neuronal activity. The resulting coordinated activity among neuronal populations supports complex psychological processes, yet how gene expression shapes cognition and emotion remains unknown. Here, we directly bridge the microscale and macroscale by mapping gene expression patterns to functional activation patterns across the cortical sheet. Applying unsupervised learning to the Allen Human Brain Atlas and Neurosynth databases, we identify a ventromedial–dorsolateral gradient of gene assemblies that separate affective and perceptual domains. This topographic molecular-psychological signature reflects the hierarchical organization of the neocortex, including systematic variations in cell type, myeloarchitecture, laminar differentiation and intrinsic network affiliation. In addition, this molecular-psychological signature strengthens over neurodevelopment and can be replicated in two independent repositories. Collectively, our results reveal spatially covarying transcriptomic and cognitive architectures, highlighting the influence that molecular mechanisms exert on psychological processes.

Who Likes What Kind of News? It appears that men have higher interest in news categories characterized by competition aspects

Who Likes What Kind of News? The Relationship Between Characteristics of Media Consumers and News Interest. Kai Kaspar, Lisa Anna Marie Fuchs. SAGE Open, March 25, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211003089

Abstract: Stimulated by the uses-and-gratification approach, this study examined the joint relation of several consumer characteristics to news interest. In total, 1,546 German-speaking participants rated their interest in 15 major news categories and several personal characteristics, including gender, age, the Big Five personality traits, self-esteem, as well as general positive and negative affect. Regression analyses examined the amount of interindividual variance in news interest that can be explained by this set of consumer characteristics. Overall, the amount of explained variance differed remarkably across news categories, ranging from 4% for entertainment-related news to 25% for news about technology. The most powerful explaining variables were participants’ gender, age, openness to experiences, and their amount of general positive affect. The results suggest that news interest should be defined and operationalized as a concept with multiple facets covering a huge range of content. Also, the results are important for media producers and journalists with respect to the conflict between increased need gratification of consumers and information filtering via personalized news content.

Keywords: mass media, news interest, uses-and-gratification, Big Five, self-esteem, general affect

Discussion

We examined the relation between several consumer characteristics and people’s interest in 15 different news categories. We found that participants’ gender showed the strongest relation to their interest in many news categories (H1). Men reported more interest in news about economy, technology, science, politics, and sports. In contrast, women were more interested in news about health, nutrition, fashion, crime, accidents and disasters, entertainment, environment, traveling, and culture. Although each of these categories is very broad and covers a huge range of subthemes in general, it appears that men have higher interest in news categories characterized by competition aspects. Men’s higher propensity to enjoy competition has been extensively discussed in the literature (e.g., Gneezy & Rustichini, 2004) and it is discussed in the light of socialization, whereby this gender bias does not appear to be universal but contingent on environmental factors (e.g., Gneezy et al., 2009). In Western culture, men opt to compete more often than women (Gneezy et al., 2009). In this sense, the present results found for a sample of German-speaking participants in Europe are limited regarding their generalizability to other cultural environments. Nonetheless, gender apparently plays a central role when it comes to news preferences.

Age also showed significant relations to news interest (H2), but the direction of the relation depended on the specific news category. In accordance with the core assumption of the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (Mather & Carstensen, 2005), increasing age was associated with a positivity bias, indicated by a decreased interest in crime as well as accidents and disasters. Also, and in accordance with the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, increasing age was negatively related to participants’ interest in news that addresses the exploration of new horizons and information about new societal trends, namely fashion, traveling, and career. In addition, age was positively related to interest in economy, politics, and culture. However, and surprisingly, participants’ interest in entertainment-related news was negatively related to their age. While such news may be light and thus conducive to a positive mood, a substantial amount of this type of news is about celebrities and popular culture (cf., Gow et al., 2012). Such issues are likely to be of less interest to older people. To conclude, people do not show a generalized positivity bias with increasing age, but the configuration of their interests apparently changes with age.

The Big Five personality traits were differently influential (RQ1): While extraversion showed a relatively weak relation to news interest across all categories, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness showed more pronounced relations with varying signs across categories. Neuroticism was negatively related to news about economy, technology, and politics, but neuroticism was positively related to news about entertainment, health, nutrition, crime, as well as accidents and disasters. Hence, participants high in neuroticism reported to be less interested in news that primarily addresses societal topics on a large scale, but they were more inclined to consume news about topics that may have a more direct utility for the individual consumer. In this context, the positive relation between neuroticism and interest in news about crime as well as accidents and disasters may indicate that individuals high in neuroticism want to feel prepared to actively avert potential risks. Openness showed a negative relation to participants’ interest in news about entertainment, sports, crime, career, as well as accidents and disasters, but openness was positively related to interest in news about health, technology, politics, science, environment, nutrition, traveling, and culture. Overall, openness was the most powerful independent variable besides participants’ age, gender, and amount of general positive affect. Agreeableness was mainly negatively related to news interest. This was the case for news about economy, technology, science, and career. Only one positive relation could be observed regarding news about traveling. On a more general level, it seems that increasing agreeableness is negatively associated with the interest in domains usually characterized by competitive processes. This motivational tendency is in line with the definition of agreeableness as being trusting, sympathetic, and selfless (McCrae & Costa, 2003). Finally, conscientiousness showed a positive relation to interest in news about economy, health, sports, crime, and career, but a negative relation to news about culture. These results match well with previous findings according to which conscientiousness is positively related to different facets of health behavior (Chuah et al., 2006), job performance (Barrick & Mount, 1991), but negatively related to deviant behavior (Farhadi et al., 2012) and interest in modern art, as one part of culture (Furnham, Chamorro-Premuzic, 2004). To sum up, the present results regarding the Big Five personality traits complement previous research that has already uncovered correlations between these traits and different domains of vocational interests (Larson et al., 2002). Apparently, news interests are also strongly linked to the Big Five personality traits.

Self-esteem, in contrast, was a weak independent variable across all 15 news categories (H3). Participants with a lower (vs. higher) self-esteem reported an increased interest in news about culture only by trend and they did not report a significantly increased interest in politics. Also, the expected positive relation between self-esteem and achievement/performance-related topics, namely economy and sports, was not found. Thus, our data do not support the findings of Knobloch-Westerwick et al. (2006) and Knobloch-Westerwick and Alter (2007) who found that participants characterized by low trait self-esteem spent more time reading news stories covering social and interpersonal topics, whereas participants characterized by high self-esteem read longer about topics addressing achievement and performance aspects. This difference might be explained by methodological differences, as Knobloch-Westerwick et al. (2006) and Knobloch-Westerwick and Alter (2007) examined the real exposure time to self-selected news articles, whereas we asked participants to report their general interest in news belonging to different categories. A potential moderating role of the sample type is also conceivable: Although Knobloch-Westerwick et al. (2006) exclusively examined German university students, the link to the present online study was broadly disseminated across numerous social networking sites and German mailing lists. This procedure may have led to a more heterogeneous sample, although the mean score and standard deviation of the self-esteem ratings (same instrument) was comparable across samples (Knobloch-Westerwick et al., 2006; M = 2.21, SD = 0.46; present study: M = 2.16, SD = 0.58). Future research might address the role of self-esteem in more detail by examining potential moderators and the effect of situational factors. However, we can resume that self-esteem, when being examined in combination with further consumer characteristics, seems to be a relatively weak contributor to news interest.

In contrast, participants’ amount of general positive affect showed a strong relation to interest in many news categories (RQ2). Thereby, positive affect was always positively related to interest in news about economy, entertainment, sports, technology, science, environment, nutrition, traveling, and career. Negative affect only showed a positive relation to news about technology and a negative relation to news about the environment. In a nutshell, these results may indicate a significant role of emotion regulation effects associated with news consumption, as already suggested by studies that focused on the relationship between one’s current mood state and preferences for specific media content (e.g., Biswas et al., 1994; Kaspar, Gameiro, & König, 2015; Knobloch-Westerwick, 2007).

Limitations and Implications for Future Research and Practice

In this study, consumer characteristics explained a significant amount of interindividual variance in people’s general news interest. However, the amount of explained variance in news interest differed remarkably across categories, ranging from only 4% for entertainment-related news to 23% for news about culture and 25% for news about technology. This result suggests, on one hand, that news interest should be defined and operationalized as a concept with multiple facets that covers a huge range of qualitatively different content. On the other hand, it indicates that people’s news interest in some domains may be more susceptible to situational factors not considered here, whereas other domain-specific interests can be fairly explained by a rather small set of relatively stable and time-invariant consumer characteristics. For example, one’s interest in news about health and politics may be strongly influenced by the current global pandemic due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) (cf., Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020). It is conceivable that such a dramatic event of high personal relevance attenuates the role of other consumer characteristics. Also, the amount of health-related news in mass media has recently changed dramatically due to the global pandemic, so that salient news coverage may act as a moderator of the relationship between consumer characteristics and news interest in terms of agenda setting effects (cf., Wanta & Ghanem, 2007). Another line of research emphasizes the significant role of the framing of a news story on consumers’ news interest (Kaspar et al., 2016), the role of the motivational valence of a news article’s content and the effect of color cues on news interest (Kaspar et al., 2017), and the effect of font type on news interest (Kaspar, Wehlitz, et al., 2015). However, these studies did not consider individual differences in consumers’ characteristics. Thus, to get a more complete picture, future studies should expand the focus on potential moderators, including situational factors, consumers’ cultural background, news framing, news valence, and visual properties of news presentation.

What do the present results mean for research focusing on the U&G approach? First of all, as highlighted by Kaspar and Müller-Jensen (2019), we must recognize that U&G “is not a homogeneous theory but rather a collective term for many theoretical models varying in complexity and conceptual nuances” (p. 1). Twenty years ago, Ruggiero (2000) already provided a comprehensive overview of the historical development of the U&G approach and suggested that future models must include concepts associated with new media and forms of computer-mediated communication in the digital age, such as interactivity and asynchroneity in the communication process. Similarly, Rubin (2009) emphasized the role of changes in technology for the development of contemporary U&G models. In contrast, this study focused on a classic form of mass media (news) not characterized by high interactivity or asynchronous interpersonal communication processes. Nonetheless, the present results indicate at least three implications for theory development: First, the U&G approach stresses the notion of an active audience selecting media content to fulfill certain needs. Given that news is not a unidimensional but multifaceted concept covering very different types of content, the societal and personal needs underlying the specific news preferences may vary a lot. Hence, U&G research should not only consider technological constraints of specific media but also nuances of the media format and its content. Second, although the role of individual predispositions for media use have already been examined and discussed in the context of U&G research (cf., Rubin, 2009), the role of rather situation-invariant personality traits has been neglected so far. Indeed, U&G models usually focus on needs and motives as well as associated gratifications sought (cf., Rayburn & Palmgreen, 1984), while an elaborated link to personality is still missing; current research in the field of personality aims to address this issue (e.g., Dweck, 2017). Third, from a methodological viewpoint, research on U&G is based on the assumption that media users can provide accurate self-reports of their needs and motives driving media selection. Many studies in this field apply interview and survey techniques to detect those motives influencing media choice (e.g., Park et al., 2009). However, given that personality traits as well as affect showed relationships to news preferences in this study, the question arises to what extent users can be aware of the influence of these factors on media selection, whereby a causal influence also remains to be shown. For example, Reinecke (2017) pointed out that, while the U&G approach assumes that media selection processes are rational and consciousness, “mood management theory assumes that media users may but do not necessarily have to be cognizant of the motivational processes driving their selective exposure to media content” (p. 2). In the light of the present results, it seems fruitful to overcome this speculative distinction to broaden the perspective to all those processes and variables that may affect media selection.

Another aspect to be mentioned is the fact that this study was solely based on participants’ reports about their news interest. In general, there is a long controversy about the (in)consistency between attitudes and behavior (e.g., Gross & Niman, 1975; Liska, 1974). With respect to media use, the examination of real behavior outside the laboratory is a challenging task. Weaver et al. (1993) examined the relationship between personality and movie preferences and have already concluded that

while the data at hand demonstrate that personality and attitudes toward particular media content themes are interrelated, evidence that actual media use behaviors (e.g., medium and content selection, time spent consuming) are consistent with the observed personality-preference patterns remains a promising avenue for future research. (p. 313)

Many studies in the field are actually based on self-reports (e.g., Kraaykamp & Van Eijck, 2005), but tracking of media selection and consumption processes has already successfully applied (e.g., Knobloch-Westerwick & Alter, 2007), whereby people’s awareness of behavioral tracking usually elicit information privacy concerns and affect use motivation (e.g., Kaspar, 2020; Ketelaar & Van Balen, 2018). However, Jones-Jang et al. (2020) recently found promising results when comparing self-reported and logged data of smartphone use over 7 days. Effect sizes of correlations based on self-report data tended to be smaller compared to effect sizes based on logged data. The authors concluded that “this could mean that extant survey results have not erroneously inflated communication findings” (Jones-Jang et al., 2020, p. 1). Nonetheless, with respect to research on news preferences and selection processes, methods that allow the collection of valid data and, at the same time, preserve the privacy of media users as best as possible would be highly desirable.

Research on news interest would also benefit from a validated catalog of criteria that helps to categorize news topics. Although this study referred to categories already used in previous research as well as in current media, the typology appears to be a bit arbitrary and some of the categories are rather broad, reducing their discriminatory power. A promising avenue for future research might be a combination of an analysis of news content and an analysis of the cognitive framework consumers use to classify and process news content, similar to the methodology applied in research on framing effects (cf., Entman, 1993).

Also, it should be noted that media producers may tailor news agendas to individual consumers on the basis of few personal and demographic data. The present results indicate that this might be possible, at least for some news categories. This possibility emphasizes the need for transparency in news production and dissemination processes and indicates the critical potential of echo chambers encircling individual consumers. Although consumers’ selective exposure to specific news content is not a new phenomenon (cf., Cotton & Hieser, 1980), the emergence of so-called filter bubbles and echo chambers is a highly relevant phenomenon in the era of online news (e.g., Flaxman et al., 2016; Garrett, 2009). Kaspar and Müller-Jensen (2019) recently emphasized that with respect to Facebook as an information source, the variety of perceived information is not only reduced due to users’ own selective seeking behavior, because “prioritized information is selectively assigned to the users’ individual news feed by Facebook’s algorithms” (p. 10). In fact, this critical role of algorithms is not limited to Facebook as it is a general attribute of current search engines and social media. In offline media, the agenda of a newspaper or television program is set by human producers and journalists. This also leads to a selective arrangement of the presented news, but such rather traditional media do not adjust content to each individual consumer but only to a larger group of potential recipients sharing similar interests and characteristics. Hence, the risk of creating filter bubbles is omnipresent but appears to be higher in the context of computer-mediated news. However, in more positive terms, a better knowledge about information preferences of individual consumers may also help to create more interesting news offers and, as a consequence, to better satisfy personal needs and to increase perceived gratification in terms of the U&G approach. In this sense, producers and journalists should be very sensitive toward this conflict between need gratification and information filtering by means of agenda setting processes.