Claim: Like other creative workds, computer programs have aesthetic value, computer programming is a form of art

Kershaw, T. C., Clifford, R. D., Khatib, F., & El-Nasan, A. (2022). An initial examination of computer programs as creative works. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Jan 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000457

Abstract: Products from many domains (art, music, engineering design, literature, etc.) are considered to be creative works, but there is a misconception that computer programs are limited by set expressions and thus have no room for creativity. To determine whether computer programs are creative works, we collected programs from 23 advanced graduate students that were written to solve simple and complex bioinformatics problems. These programs were assessed for their variability of expression using a new measurement that we designed. They were also evaluated on several elements of their creativity using a version of Cropley and Kaufman’s (2012) Creative Solution Diagnosis Scale that was modified to refer to programming. We found a high degree of variation in the programs that were produced, with 11 unique solutions for the simple problem and 20 unique solutions for the complex problem. We also found higher ratings of propulsion-genesis and problematization for the complex problem than for the simple problem. This combination of variation in expression and differences in level of creativity based on program complexity suggests that computer programs, like many other products, count as creative works. Implications for the creativity literature, computer science education, and intellectual property law, particularly copyright, are discussed.

From 2014... For both males and females, mathematical precocity early in life predicts later creative contributions and leadership in critical occupational roles

Life Paths and Accomplishments of Mathematically Precocious Males and Females Four Decades Later David Lubinski, Camilla P. Benbow, and Harrison J. Ke. Psychological Science, 2014, Vol. 25(12) 2217–2232.  https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/smpy/2014-lubinski.pdf

Abstract: Two cohorts of intellectually talented 13-year-olds were identified in the 1970s (1972–1974 and 1976–1978) as being in the top 1% of mathematical reasoning ability (1,037 males, 613 females). About four decades later, data on their careers, accomplishments, psychological well-being, families, and life preferences and priorities were collected. Their accomplishments far exceeded base-rate expectations: Across the two cohorts, 4.1% had earned tenure at a major research university, 2.3% were top executives at “name brand” or Fortune 500 companies, and 2.4% were attorneys at major firms or organizations; participants had published 85 books and 7,572 refereed articles, secured 681 patents, and amassed $358 million in grants. For both males and females, mathematical precocity early in life predicts later creative contributions and leadership in critical occupational roles. On average, males had incomes much greater than their spouses’, whereas females had incomes slightly lower than their spouses’. Salient sex differences that paralleled the differential career outcomes of the male and female participants were found in lifestyle preferences and priorities and in time allocation.

Men say "I love you" before women do... and it happens across the globe

Men say "I love you" before women do: Robust across several countries. Christopher Watkins et al. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, January 27, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075221075264

Abstract: Feeling and expressing love is at the core of romantic relationships, but individuals differ in their proclivity to worry about their relationships and/or avoid intimacy. Saying ‘I love you’ signals a commitment to a future with our romantic partner. Contrary to gender stereotypes, research in the US demonstrates that men are more likely to confess love first. We aimed to replicate this sex difference in an online cross-national sample (seven countries, three continents), while testing for variation according to attachment style and environment (the national sex ratio). Men were more likely to confess love first in a relationship, with preliminary evidence that this was more likely when men had more choice (more female-biased sex ratio). Independent of biological sex, highly avoidant respondents were less happy to hear ‘I love you’ than less avoidant respondents, and highly anxious respondents were happier to hear ‘I love you’ than less anxious respondents. Our findings suggest that prior observations generalize beyond an ethnically homogenous sample, and incorporate attachment theory into the study of love confessions. Our research suggests a dissociation between initial declarations of love (moderated by biological sex) and emotional responses to love confessions, moderated by attachment style but not by biological sex.

Keywords: Affectionate communication, Attachment, Close relationships, Error Management Theory, Sex differences, Sex ratio, Speech acts

Chimps have more interests toward strange body parts, compared to typical parts, suggesting that they might have a body representation that is sufficiently sensitive to detect these aspects of strangeness

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) detect strange body parts: an eye-tracking study. Jie Gao, Ikuma Adachi & Masaki Tomonaga. Animal Cognition, Jan 28 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-021-01593-2

Abstract: This study investigated chimpanzee body representation by testing whether chimpanzees detect strangeness in body parts. We tested six chimpanzees with edited chimpanzee body pictures in eye-tracking tasks. The target body parts were arms or legs. For either target, there were four conditions: “normal” condition as control, where all bodies were normal; “misplaced” condition, where one arm or one leg was misplaced to an incorrect body location in each picture; “replaced by a chimpanzee part” condition, where one arm or one leg was replaced by a chimpanzee leg or arm, respectively, in its original place in each picture; and “replaced by a human part” condition, where one arm or one leg was replaced by a human arm or leg in each picture. Compared to the looking times toward the normal parts, chimpanzees had significantly longer looking times toward the human arms or legs. The looking times toward the misplaced parts were also longer than the normal parts, but the difference just failed to meet significance. These results indicate more interests toward strange body parts, compared to typical parts, suggesting that chimpanzees might have a body representation that is sufficiently sensitive to detect these aspects of strangeness.

Discussion

In this study, we tested six chimpanzees in eye-tracking tasks to examine whether they specifically attended to strange arms or legs of chimpanzee pictures, compared to normal arms or legs, to determine whether they possessed visual body representation. Compared with looking durations toward the normal body parts, the chimpanzees had significantly longer looking times toward the human arms and legs in place of the original chimpanzee arms and legs. This suggests that the chimpanzees noticed that the human parts were strange. They also showed longer looking times towards the misplaced parts than towards the normal parts, but the difference just failed to meet significance.

The “misplaced” condition and “replaced by a human part” condition showed different contrasts against the control condition: the former did not reach significance, although close, while the latter showed significance. The longest attention to the human parts is probably due to the inconsistency of the shapes, or their interests on human parts. Chimpanzees are able to detect an odd stimulus out of uniform distractors (Tomonaga 1998). Human arms and legs are hairless, and look differently from chimpanzee arms and legs, although the overall shapes are similar. In the other two experimental conditions, the manipulation was done with the body parts of the same chimpanzee body. Therefore, the special look of human body parts may have grabbed more attention. The chimpanzees we tested were very familiar with humans. They see and interact with multiple humans every day, and they could see humans in the institute and on the street. Therefore, they had been exposed to human body parts. That said, it is unlikely that they have seen the whole naked arms and legs of humans as were shown in the task; but the experience of exposure to partial human arms and legs may have triggered them to pay more attention to the human parts appearing on chimpanzee bodies and replacing chimpanzee body parts. Therefore, for the results in the “replaced by a human part” condition alone, the longer looking time could be attributed to their body representation, visual inconsistency, or interests to human bodies. To rule out the possibility that they showed longer looking time in this condition solely because of visual inconsistency or interests to humans, more control conditions could be added, or chimpanzees who have less exposure of partially naked humans could be tested. Nevertheless, when we combine all the results, we still tend to think chimpanzees may be able to detect strangeness in terms of body representation, because of the strong tendency of longer looking times towards the misplaced body parts than the normal parts and the tendency of shorter time to first fixation in the “misplaced” leg condition than the “normal” leg condition.

In the analyses of time-to-first-fixation data, we found that there was a significant interaction between condition and body part. The pairwise comparison showed significant differences in three pairs in leg data: the “misplaced” condition had shorter time to first fixation on AOIs than those in all three other conditions. It is possible that the misplaced legs make the whole body configuration look much stranger than a normal body as well as a body with its leg replaced by another part in the original typical position, leading to a much quicker detection. This was not the case for arm manipulation, and this is where the difference of the effect of condition lies for arm and leg manipulations.

The difference of results between arm and leg manipulations was not found in fixation duration, but time to first fixation, as mentioned above. In this specific case, the quicker detection to misplaced legs than legs in other conditions, but not in arms, may come from the fact that legs do not move in the same amplitude as arms. When chimpanzees move in a quadrupedal posture on the ground or in a bipedal posture when climbing, their arms and legs move in similar ranges. However, when manipulating objects on the ground, they reach for objects in places that are a bit far from them using arms not legs, and it could be seen as if the arms were “misplaced” from a distance (e.g., Hayashi and Matsuzawa 2003; Hayashi et al. 2005); chimpanzees also often raise their arms for social communications (Hobaiter and Byrne 2011), but they seldom “raise” their legs. The different function and use of arms and legs could cause chimpanzees detect misplaced legs more quickly.

In this study, we did not manipulate other body parts, such as head and torso. It will be interesting to further examine how their representation differ across various body parts. In a broader comparison counting all body parts, the difference between arms and legs may not be as large as that between head and limbs, or other contrasts. Studies asking children to recognize, name, and point at body parts do not demonstrate large differences between arms and legs, but the performances for eyes was much earlier in the development (MacWhinney et al. 1987; Waugh and Brownell 2015; Witt et al. 1990). Atypical body parts may suggest injury and care, so it is meaningful to examine whether and how knowledge for body parts differ, and which factors are related to this, such as function of the parts. Also, it will be interesting to examine the body representation of other species, too, e.g., preys. Do chimpanzees (and humans) have certain body representation and anatomy knowledge about their preys’ bodies, and do the knowledge help with efficient foraging and feeding?

All the manipulations in this study created strange images that will not occur in real life, yet the chimpanzees did not show significant differences in all manipulated conditions compared to control. One of the reasons could be due to the limited sample size. The significance of the random effect participant ID in both analyses of time-to-first-fixation data and fixation-duration data also indicates individual difference (Figs. 4, 5, 6, 7). If more individuals were tested, the results might have been more consistent. Because of the limited sample size, the conclusions should be generalized with caution, and data from more chimpanzee individuals or populations will be helpful to understand chimpanzees’ perception for atypical body parts.

The participants in this study were captive chimpanzees with a lot of exposure of humans. As discussed above, these individuals might be more sensitive to human body parts on chimpanzee bodies, compared to captive chimpanzees with limited human exposure or wild chimpanzees. However, the experience with humans may not affect chimpanzees’ body representation too much, according to our previous findings (Gao et al. 2020; Gao and Tomonaga 2020b). We tested the same chimpanzees, who were very familiar with humans, to see if they show the inversion effect for human bodies. We used humans in bipedal postures doing Tai chi, but the chimpanzees did not show any inversion effect. We then used bipedal humans showing daily postures (waving hands, walking, etc.), and the chimpanzees showed the inversion effect to these bodies, suggesting that visual experience is important to them. We also used images of crawling humans and horses in quadrupedal postures, which the chimpanzees had never seen previously, but they showed the inversion effect. Their limited inversion effects to humans, a familiar species, and the inversion effects to the quadrupedal animals that they had no visual experience about, suggest a strong tendency to refer to embodied cues, i.e., cues from their own bodies, in their body perception. Therefore, experience with humans may not affect chimpanzees’ body representation for conspecific bodies too much.

The random effect, picture ID, was significant in fixation-duration analysis (Fig. 8). This suggests that the results vary across the pictures. There are several outlier points, but not many. It is possible that the significance is related to the limited data we have: not every picture in each condition received a lot of fixations. As will be discussed below, it is inevitable to have many trials without any fixations in a chimpanzee experiment, and future studies could use more trials for more useful data points. Nevertheless, because the 20 pictures (with different kinds of manipulations) were used across conditions, this significant effect of picture ID does not interfere with the significance of condition, the main effect in the analysis.

There were several other limitations in this study. The number of trials in which the chimpanzees showed fixations to AOIs was less than half of the total trial numbers. Chimpanzees do not consistently look at the screen during a task. When they do, they typically view face and genital areas of a chimpanzee picture, while they allocate less attention to other body parts (Kano et al. 2015). More importantly, because the AOIs in this study were arms or legs (i.e., a small proportion of the whole picture), it is reasonable to have many trials without fixations on AOIs. Nevertheless, future studies in a similar setting could use a larger stimulus set to ensure more data points.

When we prepared the stimuli, the pictures were chosen randomly, and the body parts for manipulations were chosen based on picture editing convenience; we hoped to minimize editing to avoid any effects of unnatural picture manipulations. Overall, we edited 10 left arms, 10 right arms, 5 left legs, and 15 right legs. This should not fundamentally affect the experiment, because chimpanzees were in various positions (e.g., sitting, walking to the left, walking to the right, and bipedal standing), and left/right discrimination was less prominent than in a situation involving only bipedal animals. Nonetheless, future studies should carefully consider left/right bias to ensure a more balanced experimental design.

In summary, our results showed a significant longer looking time towards human body parts on chimpanzee bodies, and two non-significant tendencies: (1) shorter latencies for fixating misplaced legs, and (2) longer looking times towards misplaced parts, compared to normal body parts. These detections of strange body parts indicate that chimpanzees might have a body representation of the typical chimpanzee body. Conspecific body representation has ecological value. For example, it helps animals discriminate among conspecific individuals and individuals of other species (and then they can decide whether to fight them, socially interact with them, prey and feed on them, or ignore them). Strangeness on body parts of living individuals can indicate injury, and body representation can help trigger emotional and behavioral changes to facilitate care for these individuals (Hirata et al. 2017; Matsumoto et al. 2016; Sato et al. 2019). From an evolutionary perspective, evidence of body representation among chimpanzees indicates that the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans might also have this type of visual representation. Of course, this conclusion needs to be supported by more data from more participants and from studies with further examinations besides arm and leg manipulations. Nevertheless, if this is true, it will lead to many interesting questions. Because both chimpanzees and humans are highly social species, and both encounter many other individuals, it is important to investigate whether body representation originates from the accumulated visual experience of conspecifics’ bodies. Investigation of this point requires examination of more solitary species, such as orangutans, as well as examination of body representation development. If the representation is present in solitary species or develops before intensive social interactions with other individuals, body representation may have more fundamental functions in animals’ life as follows: apart from aiding interactions with other individuals, body representation may be involved in many self-centered activities (Shapiro 2019). Further investigations of body representation and its interactions with other psychological processes are important for understanding how animals coordinate themselves with the outside world.

Individuals who described themselves as "victims" in their dating profiles received considerably fewer matches

To date a “victim”: testing the stigma of the victim label through an experimental audit of dating apps. Douglas N. Evans, Chunrye Kim & Nicole M. Sachs. Journal of Experimental Criminology, Jan 27 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11292-022-09500-6

Abstract

Objectives: Publicly revealing prior victimization could produce negative reactions and could affect a self-identified victim’s initiation of romantic relationships.

Methods: To measure victim stigma, an experimental audit design used six study profiles, each with pictures of a Black, Latinx, or White cisgender female or cis-male and bio text that in the experimental condition included a briefstatement of prior victimization, to compare match rates of profiles disclosing prior victimization with identical profiles not disclosing victimization.

Results: Disclosing victimization reduced total matches for all profiles regardless of sex or race. Racial congruence analyses of matches indicated that relative to the White control profile, all other study profiles were more likely to match with dating app users of a different race/ethnicity, except for the White male victim profile.

Conclusions: The stigma of the victim label may discourage people from disclosing their prior victimization. Racial congruence findings suggests that victim stigma may differ across different racial and ethnic groups.

Replicated successfully: When an ostensibly prosocial action also serves some private goal, the action is viewed as less virtuous than a purely selfish act

The tainted altruism effect: a successful pre-registered replication. Valerie Alcala, Kendra Johnson, Caroline Steele, Juanshu Wu, Donglai Zhang and Harold Pashler. Royal Society Open Science, January 26 2022. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211152

Abstract: Newman and Cain (Newman, Cain 2014 Psychol. Sci.25, 648–655 (doi:10.1177/0956797613504785)) reported that observers view a person's choices as less ethical when that person has acted in response to both altruistic and selfish (commercial) motivations, as compared with purely selfish interests. The altruistic component reduces the observers' approval rather than raising it. This puzzling phenomenon termed the ‘tainted altruism’ effect, has attracted considerable interest but no direct replications in prior research. We report direct replications of Newman and Cain's Experiments 2 and 3, using a larger sample (n = 501) intended to be fairly representative of the US population. The results confirm the original findings in considerable detail.

4. General discussion

The replication crisis has generated concern and worry across the field of psychology for the last decade. Too few replications have been conducted to provide a broad sense of the validity of the psychological literature as a whole, but the results to date have not been terribly encouraging. Canny observers have long noted that even in the presence of the usual bias toward publishing positive effects, there can also be a ‘reverse publication bias' that might favour the publication of failures to replicate more than successful replications like the current paper. This can potentially distort the literature in the opposite direction from the classic publication bias effect [8–10]. Clearly, in order to see reality accurately, careful direct replications need to be conducted frequently (at least for influential findings) and published without regard to their outcome.

To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first direct replication of any of the experiments in Newman & Cain's [1] study on tainted altruism. Using a larger sample size and a US sample intended to be fairly representative of the US population at least with respect to age, sex and ethnicity, we readily reproduced the main results in the original studies quite closely.

The evidence of state pre-K effectiveness has gotten worse over the last 50 years: Either pre-K is getting worse, or we're getting better at measuring how ineffective it is at raising achievement

Durkin, K., Lipsey, M. W., Farran, D. C., & Wiesen, S. E. (2022). Effects of a statewide pre-kindergarten program on children’s achievement and behavior through sixth grade. Developmental Psychology, Jan 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001301

As state-funded pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programs expand, it is critical to investigate their short- and long-term effects. This article presents the results through sixth grade of a longitudinal randomized control study of the effects of a scaled-up, state-supported pre-K program. The analytic sample includes 2,990 children from low-income families who applied to oversubscribed pre-K program sites across the state and were randomly assigned to offers of admission or a wait list control. Data through sixth grade from state education records showed that the children randomly assigned to attend pre-K had lower state achievement test scores in third through sixth grades than control children, with the strongest negative effects in sixth grade. A negative effect was also found for disciplinary infractions, attendance, and receipt of special education services, with null effects on retention. The implications of these findings for pre-K policies and practices are discussed.

Comments by Derek Thompson on Twitter: (16) Derek Thompson on Twitter: https://t.co/Qc4Hi6AtfH

Love in the Time of COVID-19: A Multi-Wave Study Examining the Salience of Sexual and Relationship Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Love in the Time of COVID-19: A Multi-Wave Study Examining the Salience of Sexual and Relationship Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Agnieszka E. Pollard & Ronald D. Rogge. Archives of Sexual Behavior Jan 27 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-021-02208-0

Abstract: The current study used Family Systems Theory as a framework to clarify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sexual, romantic, and individual functioning. Specifically, sexual and romantic functioning were modeled as key mechanisms linking COVID-19 related stressors (as predictors) to aspects of individual functioning over time (as outcomes). A sample of 1,241 sexually active adults in relationships (47% married/engaged) was recruited from March 5 to May 5, 2020: 82% White, 66% women, M = 34 years old, 58% heterosexual. All participants completed a baseline survey and 642 participants completed at least one of the six, monthly, follow-up surveys. Multilevel SEM models evaluated the model both at the level of stable between-person differences (i.e., level 2) and at the level of within-person change across time (i.e., level 1). The findings suggested that COVID-19 related stress was predictive of lower sexual, romantic, and individual functioning in both levels of the model. Significant indirect paths supported the proposed mediation at the level of within-person change across time: elevations in COVID-19 stress within specific months predicted corresponding drops in sexual functioning, which in turn predicted corresponding drops in romantic functioning, which in turn predicted corresponding drops in individual well-being (highlighting points of intervention). In contrast, at the level of between-person differences, stable levels of sexual and relationship satisfaction across the 6 months of the study were not associated with stable levels of COVID-19 stressors (representing sources of resilience that promoted well-being) and stable levels of stress from social isolation predicted stably higher amounts of communicating affection to one’s loved ones (suggesting a need for affiliation in the face of chronic stress) whereas stable difficulties with orgasms were linked to stable irritability toward partners and depressive symptoms. Multigroup analyses suggested that the findings generalized across gender, age, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, relationship stage, and cohabitation groups. Spillover effects within a Family Systems Theory framework clarify how upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic could have impacted sexual, romantic, and individual functioning in a process-oriented framework, highlighting sources of resilience (sexual satisfaction, communicating affection) and risk (orgasm difficulties).

Discussion

The current study sought to integrate key findings from the fields of individual psychopathology, research on sexual health, marital and couples research, and positive psychology by drawing key indicators from each of those fields into a large and comprehensive model. The primary goal of the study was therefore to draw upon those rich empirical traditions to develop a more nuanced understanding of precisely how the pandemic might have impacted sexual health, relationship health, and individual distress and well-being. The study applied Family Systems Theory (Broderick, 1993; Minuchin, 1985) as a conceptual framework to enrich our understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated public health measures employed to flatten the curve (e.g., lockdowns, school and business closures, social distancing measures) might have impacted the lives of individuals in the US. Multilevel analyses in multi-wave data collected from a large online sample during the first 7–8 months of the pandemic in the US supported the proposed mediation at the level of within-person change across time. Thus, elevations in COVID-19 stress within specific months predicted corresponding drops in sexual functioning, which in turn predicted corresponding drops in romantic functioning, which in turn predicted corresponding drops in individual well-being. These findings highlight how the individual, sexual, and relationship systems are interconnected across time, such that disruptions in one system from an external stress (like a global health crisis) will likely spill over into other systems. In contrast, at the level of between-person differences, stable levels of sexual and relationship satisfaction across the 6 months of the study were unassociated with stable levels of COVID-19 stressors, representing sources of resilience that promoted well-being across the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. Extending those positive results, stable levels of stress from social isolation predicted stably higher amounts of communicating affection to one’s loved ones, suggesting that individuals tend to reach out to those they love and strengthen those connections in the face of a massive world-wide crisis. Finally, stable difficulties with orgasms were linked to stably higher levels of irritability with partners and depressive symptoms, representing a key risk factor. Multigroup analyses suggested that the findings generalized across gender, age, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, relationship stage, and cohabitation groups. Taken as a set, these findings underscored the critical nature of sexual and romantic functioning in the lives of individuals, highlighting potential sources of resilience/risk at the level of stable between-subject differences (e.g., stable levels of sexual and relationship satisfaction, and stable difficulties with orgasms), and potential warning signs and treatment targets on a monthly basis (e.g., sudden spikes in the stress of social isolation, sudden drops in current sexual and/or relationship functioning). Thus, these findings offer relevant insights for clinicians and therapists working with individuals and couples during periods of acute stress like the global health crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Implications

Family Systems Theory Offers an Effective Conceptual Framework The current study represents an early attempt to apply the broader family systems framework to romantic relationships which may or may not include children. As the romantic dyad is already recognized as a key system within the larger family unit, we would posit that this application of family systems theory is simply focusing in on aspects of that theory that are relevant to childfree family units, as well as to romantic dyads before they start having children. Even without a child in the home, romantic couples can be conceptualized as business partners, roommates, lovers, close friends and confidants. We would argue that from a family systems lens, each of those represent potentially distinct systems within the larger relationship. Consistent with the current findings and previous work supporting the spillover hypothesis (e.g., Sturge-Apple et al., 2006), disruptions or conflict within one of those systems can rapidly influence couples’ functioning in other systems. For example, conflict in the bedroom (i.e., poorer sexual functioning) could spillover into conflict over chores (affecting the roommate system), and drops in the support a couple provides one another (affecting the friendship system). The current study applied Family Systems Theory by examining sexual, romantic, and individual functioning as key systems within primary relationships. Consistent with Family Systems theory, the results suggested that external stressors from the COVID-19 pandemic indeed impacted all three of those systems across time, and suggested possible mechanistic paths for how those systems were interrelated. Future work in couples could therefore extend the current findings by using Family Systems theory as a conceptual framework for modeling the inter-relatedness of various dyadic processes.

There are Different Forms of COVID-19 Related Stress Although the two forms of COVID-19 related stress examined in the current study (i.e., COVID-19 concerns and social isolation stress) are by no means the only forms of stress individuals experienced during the pandemic, distinct patterns of results emerged for these two forms of stress. Specifically, COVID-19 related health concerns were significantly predictive at a between-person level across the 6 months. Greater overall levels of COVID-19 concerns across the 6 months predicted poorer sexual functioning (i.e., more orgasmic difficulties), poorer romantic functioning (i.e., greater irritability with partner), and poorer individual functioning (i.e., more depressive symptoms, lower vitality) across the 6 months. These findings are consistent with previous research indicating chronic health stress to be linked to greater depressive symptoms (e.g., Dalton et al., 2016) even 2 to 5 years later (e.g., Raposa et al., 2014), highlighting the broader links between external stress and lowered relationship functioning (see Randall & Bodenmann, 2017 for a review) and suggesting that higher COVID-19 related stress is linked to lower vitality (e.g., Peltz et al., 2020), less frequent sexual activity and affection (e.g., Luetke et al., 2020), and lower sexual satisfaction (e.g., Schmid et al., 2021). It is notable that after controlling for stable levels of COVID-19 related stress across the 6 months of the study, shifts in COVID-19 concerns within individuals within specific months failed to emerge as a significant predictor of corresponding shifts in sexual, romantic, or individual functioning. This begins to suggest that the COVID-19 health concerns assessed in the current study might reflect more chronic and stable concerns (e.g., COPD, diabetes, or some other comorbidity in oneself or in a loved one) which would be likely to impact an individual’s reactions to the pandemic in a more global manner, raising the personal relevance of the pandemic throughout the 6 months.

In contrast, current findings suggested that the stress associated with the social isolation impacted individuals both in its stable between-person differences across the 6 months, as well as through within-person fluctuations in specific months of the pandemic. Thus, this form of COVID-19 related stress demonstrated both stable trait-like properties (i.e., predictive between-person differences), as well as dynamic state-like properties (i.e., predictive within-person change across time), highlighting how both forms of differences helped to shape sexual, romantic, and individual functioning across the first 6–7 months of the pandemic in the US. These findings are consistent with previous research suggesting that greater social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic is linked to lower vitality and psychological adjustment (e.g., Arslan, 2021), and greater strain on family relationships (e.g., Evans et al., 2020).

Extending these patterns beyond the context of the current pandemic, previous work has linked social isolation and social disconnectedness to poorer individual and relationship health, specifically demonstrating social isolation to predict not only greater depressive symptoms or diagnoses (e.g., Ge et al., 2017; Matthews et al., 2016; Suwinyattichaiporn & Johnson, 2020) and lower vitality (e.g., van Steenbergen et al., 2015), but also greater physical and verbal aggression towards a romantic partner (e.g., Stets, 1991). To that effect, a randomized clinical trial investigating the effectiveness of a social isolation prevention program for older adults has indicated a significant increase in life satisfaction 1 and 6 months post-program among those who received treatment, whereas those within the control group saw no change (Saito et al., 2012). The current study therefore builds on previous findings not only by demonstrating the impact of COVID-19 related social isolation on sexual and romantic functioning, and by highlighting sexual and romantic functioning as possible mechanisms, but also by distinguishing the between-person and within-person associations of social isolation.

Exploring Other Forms of COVID-19 Related Stress. Although the two forms of COVID-19 related stress examined in the current study yielded distinct and meaningful results, future work could extend the current findings by examining additional forms of stress that individuals might experience during a pandemic. For example, it could also be useful to examine how financial/employment instability or the stress of new parenting demands impacted various forms of interpersonal and individual functioning during the pandemic. The current results begin to suggest that those alternative forms of stress could very likely offer their own predictive patterns within the Family Systems Theory framework.

Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction Emerged as Key Mechanisms. At the within-person level, sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction significantly mediated the association between social isolation stress and individual functioning. Spikes in social isolation stress shaped corresponding decreases in sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction, which then let to more depressive symptoms and lower vitality. Thus, the adverse impact of social isolation on sexual and romantic functioning served to intensify the direct associations between social isolation stress and poorer individual functioning. These findings are consistent with spillover effects (e.g., Sturge-Apple et al., 2006) as conceptualized within Family Systems Theory (Broderick, 1993; Minuchin, 1985) as well as other research indicating links between greater sexual functioning and mental health (e.g., Costa & Brody, 2012; Levin, 2007; Palmore, 1982). The current findings build on previous research by examining associations between acute stress, sexual functioning, relationship functioning, and individual well-being within a broader multivariate, conceptual framework evaluated across time. This allowed us to directly model modeling how pandemic-related stress adversely impacted individual well-being through a cascade of lower sexual satisfaction and correspondingly lower relationship satisfaction. These findings may illuminate possible points of intervention, as the results suggested that partnered individuals with robust levels of sexual and relationship satisfaction would have experienced some protection from the adverse impact of social isolation stress across time via the direct and indirect links from those mechanisms to individual outcomes.

Stable Difficulties with Orgasms as a Mechanism. Higher chronic levels of COVID-19 stress across the 6 months of the study were directly linked to higher chronic levels of irritability within relationships. That association was also strengthened by chronic COVID-19 stress predicting chronic difficulties with orgasms, which in turn predicted greater irritability across the 6 months of the study. Thus, stable between-person differences in orgasm difficulties served as a potential mechanism more tightly linking those variables. These findings are consistent with previous work indicating that sexual dysfunctions have been linked to negative conflict in relationships (e.g., Metz & Epstein, 2002). Extending these quantitative findings, qualitative analyses of interviews of 20 Iranian women highlighted conflict and annoyance with a partner as key obstacles to reaching orgasm during sexual activity (Nekoolaltak et al., 2017). Those qualitative findings dovetail the current findings, suggesting that the links between orgasm difficulties and irritability within relationships might be transactional in nature, reciprocally influencing one another across time. The current findings further suggested that chronic levels of orgasm difficulties across the 6 months served to intensify the direct association between higher chronic COVID-19 stress and greater depressive symptoms across the 6 months of the study. This is consistent with previous findings linking orgasm difficulties to greater depressive symptoms (e.g., Castellini et al., 2010; Forbes et al., 2016; Shifren et al., 2008). The current study contextualizes those previous findings within the Family Systems Theory, helping to highlight the potential mediating roles of difficulties with orgasms.

Sexual Satisfaction as a Source of Resilience. One of the strongest indirect paths to emerge in the model was at level 2 (the level of stable between-person differences on average levels of each construct across the 6 months of the study) and involved sexual satisfaction as a predictor. Contrary to our expectations, stable levels of COVID-19 related stress across the first 6 months of the pandemic in the United States were not significantly predictive of corresponding stable levels of sexual satisfaction. This would suggest that at an aggregate level (i.e., across all partnered participants) individuals’ overall levels of sexual satisfaction were on average unaffected by COVID-19 related stress. These results are consistent with the mixed findings concerning the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sexual health (e.g., Panzeri et al., 2020). They suggest that for individuals in relationships with high levels of sexual functioning, their sexual health could serve as a source of resilience whereas for individuals in relationships with low levels of sexual functioning, their sexual difficulties could serve as a source of risk. Consistent with this, stably high levels of sexual satisfaction across the six months of the study were not only directly predictive of higher stable levels of vitality, but were also strongly linked to higher stable levels of relationship satisfaction, which in turn predicted even higher vitality across the first six months of the pandemic. Thus, sexual satisfaction emerged as a key factor fueling well-being in the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting its key roles in individual health and well-being (e.g., Costa & Brody, 2012; Levin, 2007; Palmore, 1982).

Communicating Affection as a Source of Resilience. An unexpected finding emerged suggesting that stable between-person differences in COVID-19 health concern stress across the 6 months predicted greater stable levels of communicating affection to loved ones across those 6 months. Thus, fears over contracting COVID-19 and potentially getting sick themselves or losing loved ones seemed to help individuals prioritize their close relationships, spurring them on to share their love and affection with the people around them. These findings are consistent with the literature suggesting that connection with others is a fundamental human need (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995) and that individuals are driven to affiliate (i.e., tend and befriend others) under conditions of stress (e.g., Taylor, 2002, 2006). In fact, the communication of affection has been shown to be an effective coping mechanism as it has been shown to help buffer couples from the strain of a new child on their romantic relationships (Shapiro et al., 2000). The current findings are also consistent with recent theoretical assertions (based on applying the Family Systems Theory to the pandemic) that adaptive relationship processes could likely buffer the link between pandemic stress and well-being (Pietromonaco & Overall, 2021). The current study therefore builds on previous work by demonstrating affiliation (via the communication of affection) as an effective coping mechanism during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Limitations and Future Directions

The current study builds on a body of predominantly cross-sectional work by analyzing longitudinal data collected from a robust sample during a critical time in history, while the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread through the United States. By drawing key constructs from multiple fields of study (individual psychopathology, positive psychology, sexual health, and couples and marital research) and integrating them within a Family Systems Theory framework, the current study also sought to provide a more nuanced understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of individuals in the US. The results underscored the importance of sexual and romantic functioning as potential mechanisms linking COVID-19 related stress to individual well-being, thereby highlighting potential sources of resilience and risk.

Despite these strengths, a number of issues limit the current findings. First, the current data was analyzed in a sample predominantly made up of white individuals and women. Although our large sample size provided 419 men and 231 non-white individuals, future studies with more diverse samples are needed to explore the generalizability of the current findings. Second, the study relied solely on self-report data, raising concerns of responses being limited by: possible lack of insight (i.e., being unaware or out of touch with one’s own behavior and/or internal experiences and therefore having a difficult time accurately completing self-report scales), potential reporting biases, and social desirability. To address this, future studies could collect data from multiple informants (i.e., including data from participants’ friends, family members, and/or romantic partners), collect observational data, and assess possible response biases to ensure the results remain consistent when such limitations are addressed. Extending this point, although social desirability has been shown to be somewhat less of a problem for survey data collected online (Richman et al., 1999), the current study did not specifically assess levels of socially desirable responding. Thus, future studies could examine this as a possible source of additional variance in models of functioning during pandemics. Third, the current sample consisted of data from only one partner from each couple, providing a one-sided perspective on each relationship. Future research would benefit from collecting data from both romantic partners, providing a more balanced view of the relationships and enabling dyadic analyses. Fourth, although this study examined two specific forms of COVID-19 related stress, the pandemic and associated public health measures created a wide range of chaos and upheaval to daily life across the globe. Thus, future work could extend these findings and the Family Systems Theory by examining other sources of stress and upheaval as potential predictors. Fifth, recruitment for the current study just as the pandemic was beginning to draw national attention in the United States and as a result, the study did not include a truly pre-pandemic baseline for a majority of the participants and the baseline survey did not include measures of COVID-19 related stress. Thus, although the current findings speak to how the constructs examined fluctuated in response to one another across time during a pandemic, they do not provide insights on how those dynamics might have changed in comparison to pre-pandemic functioning. Future work could seek to examine components of this same model once the pandemic has largely resolved to determine the degree to which the associations between various relationship systems (i.e., sexual, romantic, and individual functioning) were specific to the context of the pandemic or were more broadly representative of relationship dynamics. Sixth, although the study title, “The Finding Pleasure in Sex Study” effectively communicated to prospective participants the contents of the survey, that title could have inadvertently encouraged the participation of people with more sex-positive attitudes and with greater comfort discussing sexuality and sexual behavior. Balancing this concern, for a majority of the respondents (i.e., those recruited after the mid-March 2020 modification of the study), the bulleted list presenting the details of the study immediately following that title included a bullet referring to tracking the effects of COVID-19 across time: “Track the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of individuals” thereby increasing the relevance of the study to a broader range of individuals. Future work could explore the current model using a less sexualized title to help reduce the risk of biasing the sample. Extending that concern, the study made use of a convenience sample, thereby introducing possible selection bias. Future work could use random sampling techniques to help ensure the representativeness of the final sample. Seventh, several of the measures used in the current study were developed by the authors given the tight timeframe for starting a COVID-19 focused project. Future work could therefore extend research on this model and these hypotheses by examining them using existing measures that are well validated within the current literature. Eighth, although the analyses demonstrated reasonable model invariance across multiple demographic groups and controlled for parent and employment status as possible confounds, it is still likely that factors not included in the current model might have also helped to shape the sexual, romantic, and individual functioning of individuals during the first six months of the pandemic. Thus, future work could extend the current findings by examining a broader set of potential confounds. Extending that point, despite highlighting sexual functioning and romantic functioning as key factors influencing the impact of the pandemic on people in relationships, those are not the only possible sources of risk and resilience for individuals. Thus, future work could extend the current work by examining a broader set of risk/resilience factors including: (1) background factors and traits (e.g., sex positivity/erotophilia, trait negativity, optimism, grit, mindfulness, psychological flexibility, adult attachment), (2) other relationship subsystems (e.g., friendship/support/intimacy, business/financial, roommate/chores/distribution of labor), and (3) other external factors (e.g., work stress, conflict or stress within individuals’ extended family/friend network). Ninth, although over 600 respondents provided follow-up data, roughly 40% of our baseline parents did not complete any follow-up surveys. This level of attrition is not uncommon for online studies involving no monetary compensation (e.g., Daks et al., 2021) and was likely due in part to the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of individuals. Strengthening this concern, although attrition analyses failed to find differences on levels of income or vitality at baseline, those analyses suggested that the respondents providing follow-up data were somewhat more likely to be white, heterosexual, women, engaged/married, have graduate degrees, and who were slightly older with slightly fewer depressive symptoms. Thus, despite having roughly 1800 distinct longitudinal assessments from over 600 respondents supporting our models (above and beyond the baseline assessments from all respondents), future longitudinal studies could extend the current study by seeking funding to help reduce attrition, thereby ensuring that the subtle attrition differences within the current study are not unduly influencing the results. Tenth, although a majority of the sample were in fairly long-term relationships (63% together for 3 + years, 71% together for 2 + years), 18% of the individuals had been in their relationships for less than a year and 10% had been with their partners less than 6 months, suggesting fairly high levels of heterogeneity in the relationships represented in the sample. Fortunately, the model results remained invariant across relationship stages and across cohabiting vs non-cohabiting couples, suggesting that the results generalized across the wide range of relationship stages included in the study, thereby reducing concerns about relationship heterogeneity. Future work could serve to replicate the current findings by examining similar models within more specific stages of romantic relationships. Despite these limitations, the results offer compelling evidence suggesting sexual and romantic functioning as buffering mediators between COVID-19 related stress and poor individual functioning.

Those who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours (spatial distance, hygiene) & support for public health policies (closing bars/restaurants), at least Apr-May 2020

National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic. Jay J. Van Bavel et al. Nature Communications volume 13, Article number: 517. Jan 27 2022. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27668-9

Abstract: Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = −0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics.

Discussion

Our research suggests that national identities might play an important role in the fight against a global pandemic. Following World War II, early work in social psychology had a tendency to focus on the negative side of nationalism and leadership persuasion, such as destructive obedience to authority54 and group conformity to incorrect beliefs held by others55. In the decades since then, research on social identity10 and a “social cure” approach to mental health56 has revealed that there is also a pro-social side to group identity. Based on this latter perspective we predicted, and found, that NI was positively associated with support for and engagement with public health behaviours around the globe.

In two global studies combining person-level and country-level analyses, the strength of national identity robustly predicted public health support, operationalized as behavioural health intentions (i.e., physical distance and physical hygiene), support for COVID-19 policy interventions, and reduced physical movement patterns during the pandemic. We found this pattern with self-report measures at the person-level and using measures of actual mobility at the country level. The fact that national identity is associated with large-scale behaviour in real life provides ecologically valid evidence for our main hypothesis. Taken together, these results are consistent with our hypothesis that NI is related to greater behaviour change in compliance with public health policies. We note that the results showing a decline in mobility should be treated with caution, as in the mobility report location accuracy and the categorization of places can vary between countries. In short, people who identified more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement with critical public health measures around the globe.

These results are consistent with the social psychological literature on the benefits of identifying with one’s social groups. They also underscore a potential benefit of NI, which might be salient during a national or global health crisis23. Our research provides evidence that this form of identification might help to understand public health behaviours. However, work in the United States has found that threats to national identity can lead to less support for public health initiatives57. As such, mobilizing people around a shared national identity might require considerable nuance. Future work should examine the impact of different types of identity appeals during a pandemic and isolate the causal influence of national identity on real behaviour.

There is reason to believe that other forms of group identification can undercut public health. For instance, partisanship within countries (i.e., when people strongly identify with a specific political party) is associated with risky behaviour25,26,58. For example, one study that used geo-tracking data from 15 million smartphones in the US found that counties that voted for a Republican (Donald Trump) over a Democrat (Hillary Clinton) exhibited 14% less spatial distancing during the early stages of the pandemic26. These partisan gaps in distancing predicted subsequent increases in infections and mortality in counties that voted for Donald Trump. Moreover, partisanship was a stronger predictor of distancing than many other economic or social factors (e.g., county-level income, population density, religion, age, and state policy). This may be due to leadership, social norms, and media consumed by people from different identity groups. As such, stronger group identification is not always associated with engagement in public-health behaviour.

It is tempting to conclude that PI might account for these relationships. However, we found that right-wing PI had a positive, moderate correlation with both NI and NN, but very weak correlations with support with public health measures in our multi-country sample. Specifically, right-wing political beliefs were associated with less support for COVID-19 public health policies, compared to left-wing political beliefs. This relationship between political beliefs and compliance has been observed in several countries (e.g., refs. 48,49,59). Similarly, while NI and NN were associated positively with support for public health measures, right-wing PI was negatively associated with these outcomes. This suggests that a collective identity might be associated with valuing the protection of the entire group during a pandemic, even after adjusting for their ideological differences.

It is also important to note that the relationship between national identity and public health support was distinct from NN. In past research, NN has predominantly been linked to problematic attitudes towards both out-group and in-group members38,40,60. However, we found that NN was positively associated with self-reported physical hygiene and support for COVID-19 preventative policies (cf. ref. 42). Still, these effects were much smaller than those for national identity and depended on the context. Future work should thus carefully consider cross-national differences in human development as well as social norms associated with national identity.

Our evidence suggests that national identity may have modest predictive value for people’s endorsement of and adherence to public health measures in the context of a pandemic. This information may be leveraged to create a sense of inclusive nation-based in-groups, potentially increasing engagement with recommended policies. Political and public health leaders might develop effective communication strategies to appeal to a sense of NI. Indeed, this might be particularly helpful in highly polarized countries where adherence to public health recommendations has become a partisan issue (see ref. 26). For instance, Canadian leaders across the political spectrum adopted similar messaging about the serious risks of the current pandemic which resulted in a rare moment of cross-partisan consensus among the public61. Such recategorizations to overarching inclusive national groups (e.g., ref. 62) may be effective for preventing unhealthy behaviours. As such, leaders who wish to inspire public health behaviour might benefit from connecting the issue to feelings of national identity. Framing these messages at the level of the nation rather than, for instance, a partisan group, region, or municipality also makes sense when the response requires national coordination22,63.

However, the effective application of these appeals requires future research as national identity is also implicated in intergroup conflict. This is more likely in the case of NN36,60, which tends to be associated with lower solidarity with other groups in crisis (e.g., ref. 64). In the absence of collective narcissism, national identity could reflect not only concerns about protecting one’s own country, but also into concern for other nations. Indeed, prior research has found that NI is associated with more positive attitudes towards other nations—especially when adjusting for NN37,45. Thus, the nature of national identity might be an important determinant of the effectiveness of identity and the potential for international cooperation. In addition, it could turn out that a commitment to cosmopolitanism or other supranational identities and ideologies may play a role that bolsters what we have seen in the case of national identity65.

One major strength of our paper is the scope of nations we included in our samples. The first study included data from 67 nations and the second study included data from 42 countries. The vast majority of published research in psychology and social sciences has been conducted in so-called WEIRD cultures66, typically restricted to the narrow western and educational setting of American or European university students, and non-representative participants from industrialized, rich and democratic countries. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, is a truly global issue underscoring the importance of gathering samples outside these WEIRD cultures. Moreover, it was striking to see that the same person-level association between NI and our public health measures was in the same direction in almost every country we studied. Although we managed to collect data from a wide variety of countries and territories, we were unable to obtain samples from every nation (especially in Africa and the middle east). As such, we encourage future research in these countries to see if the same dynamics are at play.

Another element of our paper was an attempt to collect representative or stratified samples in Study 1. While most studies in psychology focus on convenience samples (e.g., undergraduate or MTurk participants), it is important to gather samples that are more diverse with regards to gender, age, and other key risk factors during a pandemic. Collecting representative samples affords the opportunity to help make better generalizations to the wider population within each country as well as the broader sample of countries around the globe. Due to funding constraints, we were not able to obtain representative samples from most nations. As such, we are unable to make strong generalizations about the populations in those countries. But note that we did directly compare the findings in more vs. less representative samples and found no significant difference in the overall relationship between NI and all three public health measures (see Supplementary Information for details).

This research was correlational and conducted during the early phase of the pandemic. Although a causal relation between NI and public health behaviour makes sense from a theoretical perspective, we cannot rule out the possibility that public health behaviour causes NI, or that both are caused by a third variable (e.g., ref. 23). Moreover, we have no evidence whether this pattern would apply during later stages of the current or future pandemics. Indeed, national identity may increase during times of crisis as people recognize their duty as citizens to help respond to this issue. We encourage future work to experimentally manipulate the salience of NI or frame health messages in a way that highlights the link between identification and the public health measures. Another limitation is the exclusive focus on national groups rather than, for instance, identification with a city, region, religion, or ethnic group—or, for that matter, all of humanity. Some research suggests that local leaders may be ineffective if their advice contradicts a national leader (see ref. 26). In the current pandemic, nations have been among the most important actors for implementing policy or promoting national health guidelines, but sub-national units and international organizations such as the World Health Organization also play an important role.

The COVID-19 pandemic spreading across the world is one of the most devastating global health crises of the past century. Until a verifiably safe and effective vaccine or therapeutic treatment is universally administered, efforts to inspire collective action for greater compliance with public health measures remain a central challenge when mitigating the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (e.g., spatial distancing, physical hygiene, and support for health policies). Moreover, understanding social identity and collective behaviour likely plays a key role in vaccination efforts67. Our large-scale studies suggest that identification with one’s nation is positively associated with support for and engagement in critical behavioural public health measures. Understanding the role of social identity appears to be an important issue when addressing public health crises.