Roughly one-third of men disliked their nude appearance, compared to approximately half of women

Demographic and sociocultural predictors of sexuality-related body image and sexual frequency: The U.S. Body Project I. David A. Frederick et al. Body Image, Volume 41, June 2022, Pages 109-127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2022.01.010

Highlights

• We examined sexuality-related body image in a national sample of men and women.

• Women reported higher sexuality-related body image on three of four measures.

• Sexual orientation was tied to sexuality-related body image among men.

• Body mass and ethnicity were linked to sexuality-related body image.

• Appearance surveillance was associated with sexuality-related body image.

Abstract: Body image is a critical component of an individual’s sexual experiences. This makes it critical to identify demographic and sociocultural correlates of sexuality-related body image: the subjective feelings, cognitions, and evaluations related to one’s body in the context of sexual experience. We examined how sexuality-related body image differed by gender, sexual orientation, race, age, and BMI. Four items assessing sexuality-related body image were completed by 11,620 U.S. adults: self-perceived sex appeal of their body, nude appearance satisfaction, and the extent to which they believed that body image positively or negatively affected their sexual enjoyment and feelings of sexual acceptability as a partner. Men reported slightly less nude appearance dissatisfaction and fewer negative effects of body image on sexual enjoyment and sexual acceptability than women, but did not differ in reported sex appeal. Poorer sexuality-related body image was reported by people with higher BMIs, not in relationships, who had sex less frequently, among White compared to Black women and men, and among gay compared to heterosexual men. Data also revealed a subgroup of respondents who reported that their body image had a positive impact on their sex lives. The findings highlight a need for interventions addressing sexuality-related body image.

Keywords: Body ImagePositive Body ImageSexual SatisfactionGenderSexual AttitudesSexual Orientation

Boring People: Stereotype Characteristics, Interpersonal Attributions, and Social Reactions... Being seen as a bore may come with substantial negative consequences

Boring People: Stereotype Characteristics, Interpersonal Attributions, and Social Reactions. Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg, Eric R. Igou, Mehr Panjwani. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, March 8, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221079104

Abstract: Unfortunately, some people are perceived as boring. Despite the potential relevance that these perceptions might have in everyday life, the underlying psychological processes and consequences of perceiving a person as “boring” have been largely unexplored. We examined the stereotypical features of boring others by having people generate (Study 1) and then rate (Study 2) these. We focused on occupations (e.g., data analytics, taxation, and accounting), hobbies (e.g., sleeping, religion, and watching TV), and personal characteristics (e.g., lacking humor and opinions, being negative) that people ascribed to stereotypically boring others. Experiments then showed that those who were ascribed boring characteristics were seen as lacking interpersonal warmth and competence (Study 3), were socially avoided (Study 4), and enduring their company required compensation (Study 5). These results suggest that being stereotyped as a bore may come with substantially negative interpersonal consequences.

Keywords: boredom, warmth, competence, stereotype, person perception

General Discussion

Being a bore is hardly a crime; yet, our studies suggest that those who are stereotypically boring incur negative attributions of warmth and competence, face social disapproval, and test the endurance of people’s company. Study 1 explored the occupations, hobbies, and personal characteristics that people stereotypically associate with boring others. Participants generated these features freely and we grouped this stereotype content into categories. We tested, in Study 2, how well they describe stereotypically boring others. Together, these studies suggested that people with occupations in data analysis, accounting, and taxation seemed particularly boring to our participants. Those whose “hobbies” included sleeping, religion, and watching TV were also considered particularly boring, as were those who lacked humor, expressed no opinions, and came across as negative. Boring people stereotypically congregate in small cities and towns as opposed to villages and large cities.

Studies 3 to 5 examined attributions and reactions that those who possess these features may incur. Participants reacted to persons described in vignettes embedded with features that characterized stereotypically boring others to various degrees. This method allowed us to examine social perceptions of boring others without the need to refer to boredom in their descriptions explicitly, reducing demand effects. Results confirmed that more boredom was attributed to those described using more, versus less, stereotypically boring features. Furthermore, Study 3 showed that possessing stereotypically boring features comes with less perceived interpersonal warmth and less competence. Study 4 further indicated that conforming to the boring person stereotype came with increased social avoidance. Consistently, Study 5 showed that keeping company with a stereotypical bore is psychologically costly, evident from the suggested compensation that participants asked for. Finally, in a supplementary study (S1; Research Supplement), we explored if stereotypically boring people are perceived in a more positive light when they occupy a job that requires a stereotypically boring person relative to the same job performed by a less stereotypically boring person. We did not find evidence for this potential moderation, suggesting that even when a stereotypically boring person is the best fit for a job, people still prefer a stereotypically less boring alternative.

Overall, our results fit well within research on the stereotype content model (Fiske et al., 2002) and the behavior from intergroup affect and stereotypes map (Cuddy et al., 2008). As with other group stereotypes, the stereotype of boring people could be helpfully described based on warmth and competence dimensions and corresponding responses (avoidance). The stereotype of boring people, different from many other stereotypes, is characterized by both low warmth and low competence.

Contributions

Our research shows that being perceived as boring likely conveys low competence and low warmth, being a social burden, thus causing avoidance by others. Rather than innocuous, such social reactions can lead to social isolation, for example, in the form of loneliness or ostracism (Weiss, 1973; Williams, 2002) with profound psychological consequences (Cacioppo et al., 2003; Williams, 2012). Those perceived as boring may thus be at greater risk of harm. Furthermore, despite the negative stereotype that those who perform jobs in, for example, accounting, taxation, and data analysis may accordingly face, society needs people to perform those roles. Rather than perceiving them as performing a social “crime,” as Cecil Beaton may have joked, perhaps those seen as boring should receive some sympathy and support instead.

The stereotype content model (Fiske et al., 2002) characterizes groups within a space characterized by low or high warmth and competence. Group stereotypes are most typically located in areas where one quality is relatively low while the other is relatively high. (Fiske et al., 2002). Low attributed competence and warmth rarely occur in conjunction (Kervyn et al., 2009; Swencionis et al., 2017). These perceptions apply to most marginalized and disenfranchised groups in society (e.g., immigrants, the poor, the homeless; Fiske, 2018), including stereotypically boring people. This positioning is theoretically intriguing: groups perceived as low in warmth and competence are often characterized as having relatively low power in society (Fiske & Cuddy, 2006). Yet, various features of the stereotype associated with boring people seem at odds with a low power position (e.g., high education/income occupations, such as banking and finance). While people might, unfortunately, get away with the avoidance or poor treatment of relatively low power groups such as the homeless, the same seems unlikely to apply when dealing with stereotypically boring people in positions of financial or social power. Their potential marginalization offers an intriguing avenue for theoretical refinement of relevant theory. At the same time, the boring people stereotype seems distinct concerning its characteristics and the social consequences it could evoke.

Most models of boredom seem to converge on the important role that the adverse experience plays in guiding cognition and behavior (Elpidorou, 2014, 2018a, 2018b; Moynihan et al., 2020; Struk et al., 2016; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2012, 2019; Velasco, 2019). For example, Eastwood and Gorelik’s (2019) unused cognitive potential model (see also Eastwood et al., 2012) proposes that boredom can be understood as “the feeling associated with a failure to engage our cognitive capacity (desire bind) such that cognitive capacity remains under-utilized (unoccupied mind)” (p. 57). Van Tilburg and Igou’s (2011, 2019) pragmatic meaning-regulation approach characterized boredom as an emotion that signals a lack of meaning in the task at hand and encourages an active search for more meaningful alternatives or a withdrawal from the situations (see also Moynihan et al., 2021). Combining these ideas, Westgate and Wilson’s (2018) MAC model proposed that boredom is characterized by low attention or a lack of meaning and that these two factors contribute to boredom independently. Further integrating these models, Tam and colleagues (2021) suggest that a range of cognitive appraisals—meaning, control, and challenge—help to understand attentional engagement. What all these approaches share, however, is the notion that boredom is key to understanding cognition and behavior: It casts boredom in the reactionary role of causing aversion to, disengagement from, or avoidance of, the cause of boredom, consistent with the social reactions that stereotypically boring persons seem to incur.

Our research portrays boredom as a protagonist in person perceptions and interactions. This treatment is consistent with work on boredom in other disciplines, such as sociology. For example, Brissett and Snow (1993) argue that boredom is an interactional phenomenon characterized by people feeling “being out of synch with the ongoing rhythms of social life” (p. 239). Boredom marks the perception that one’s contribution to the future is insignificant, casting one’s life as a rather meaningless part of society at large. In this sense, boredom may be the product of a consumer-oriented and affluent society. Brissett and Snow further highlight that expressions of boredom can serve dedicated communication purposes. For example, stating that one is bored, as opposed to depressed, may portray the self as more superior or to save face.

Ohlmeier and colleagues (2020) likewise emphasize the socially constructed side of this emotion. They highlight that, historically, scholars have suggested that modernity has caused failures to find meaning in life, work, or other activities, which in turn renders people bored. Schopenhauer (1851) even suggested that achieving all we aspire to in life merely renders us bored. In a similar vein, Ohlmeier and colleagues propose that “The easier and more predictable modern life becomes, the more boring it seems.” (p. 212). The notion that boredom is an indicator of an “easy” life might, at the surface, seem to suggest that expressing boredom ought to signal one’s success or status in life. However, Ohlmeier and colleagues (2020) note that the construct of boredom may be associated with marginalized groups as well; they propose that social inequalities within a particular society can play an important role in how people understand boredom.

Consistently, Ohlmeier and colleagues note that social norms currently discourage expressing boredom (Hochschild, 1983) in interactional settings and that the term is considered a sign of social disapproval (see also Conrad, 1997). Boredom, in this sense, signals a disjunction from one’s social role (Goffman, 1956, 1982), such as talking excessively in a context that requires one to be a careful listener (e.g., Leary et al., 1986). In work settings, expressions of boredom may be suppressed or discouraged if cultural norms emphasize achievement-orientation, where boredom may be taken as an indication of poor person-situation fit.

Limitations and Future Directions

We examined the stereotypical features of boring people in United States (Studies 1–3 and 5) and United Kingdom (Study 4) samples recruited online. Readers may legitimately question whether these stereotype content features generalize to other populations. We suspect that there are cultural variations in these stereotype features (see also Henrich et al., 2010). For example, societies likely differ in the degree to which religious activities—in our current samples typically siding with being perceived as “boring”—are seen like that elsewhere, given the substantial variation in religious beliefs and practices worldwide and the links that religiosity has with boredom (Van Tilburg et al., 2019). Furthermore, it is possible that some stereotype features have limited temporal generalizability, with technological and broader societal developments likely altering the content of hobbies and occupations. As a case in point, perceptions of jobs in computing and IT—currently ranked mid-boring among our occupations—may change over time, with activities such as coding and gaming perhaps gradually becoming more mainstream (see Kowert & Oldmeadow, 2012).

Thus, the specific stereotype content will likely apply increasingly less as the degree of deviations from these specific settings increases. We assure the reader, however, that this is not necessarily a limiting factor. While the content of the boring person stereotype likely varies somewhat across societies and time, it might well be that the (negative) social perceptions generalize much better. For example, we replicated the lack of perceived warmth that Leary and colleagues’ (1986) study found, conducted more than 30 years ago. While generalizability across societies, not to mention time, requires further empirical verification, we are cautiously optimistic that the negative social implications of being perceived as a bore are found in other settings.

By examining the content of the boring people stereotype, we focused on the stereotype content model (Fiske et al., 2002). Yet, our research also has implications for models that highlight the importance of agency and communion (e.g., Abele & Wojciszke, 2014; Koch et al., 2016). We reason that boring people are unlikely to be seen as agentic given the centrality of the laziness trait within the stereotype. Furthermore, given the perceived lack of social skills and not being liked, boring people are unlikely to be perceived as communal. Research would benefit from examining the fit of the boring people across the content models that highlight alternative dimensions (e.g., agency/communion; e.g., Abele & Wojciszke, 2014; Koch et al., 2016). We assume that the boring people stereotype will occupy a salient and distinct place across the various stereotype content dimensions.

We examined boredom using vignettes that described people with features that were rated differently in how stereotypically boring they were. There was considerable variation in the level of boredom that these features signaled, and we could hence examine responses to people who appeared as highly, intermediately, or a little boring. However, we did not have a truly “nonboring” control, and results should hence be interpreted as reflecting reactions to others who differ in degree of boredom rather than presence versus absence of boring features. Furthermore, we did not assess whether or to what degree features ascribed to stereotypically boring people overlap with those of other stereotyped groups, or if, perhaps, other labels (e.g., stereotypically unfriendly people, stereotypically unsociable people) fit as well. These are limitations that could be addressed in future research.

Studies 4 and 5 examined the tentative avoidance of stereotypically boring persons. Is this avoidance primarily associated with a corresponding lack of warmth or competence attributed to stereotypically boring individuals? Perhaps the relative roles of warmth versus competence in interpersonal avoidance may be context-dependent. In a context where people prioritize affiliation with others (e.g., a party), it might well be that avoidance is primarily predicted by (lack of) perceived warmth. In a context where, on the other hand, people seek out others with competency skills (e.g., expert advice and tech support), avoidance may be predicted primarily by (lack of) perceived competence instead. Future research should examine the roles that warmth and competence may independently, or perhaps interactively, play in avoidance.

Our research confirms that the boring people stereotype exists, and it creates clarity about the typical features of the stereotype and the social consequences of being perceived as boring. We assume that this stereotype is more likely to affect impression formation under conditions of low capacity and low accuracy motivation (e.g., Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). That said, given the negativity of its content across features of competence and interpersonal warmth, we speculate that the stereotype is especially likely to be applied when people are negatively biased toward targets, whether they be individuals or groups, for example, in situations of psychological threat and conflict (e.g., Brown, 2000; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). Work on stereotypes and motivated reasoning shows that the activation and use of stereotypes when forming impressions of others is in part shaped by the goals that people have (Kundra & Sinclair, 1999). A particularly interesting case emerges in situations where the use or inhibition of a particular stereotype may serve to boost some aspect of the self. For example, research shows that the application of negative out-group stereotypes helps improve one’s own self-worth (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1990). Perhaps the application of the boring people stereotype offers people an opportunity to flatter their self-perceived, or socially communicated, creativity or uniqueness. Interestingly, if such strategic use of stereotyping others occurs especially under self-threat, it is possible that precisely those individuals who are suspect of being bores themselves will stereotype others. If true, such compensatory stereotyping gives new meaning to the popular belief that “only boring people get bored”: only (or especially) boring people get bored with others. Relatedly, it is plausible that in some contexts the boring people stereotype is more relevant than in others, especially when being boring is highly inconsistent with the contextual demands (e.g., book clubs, dating, and entertainment). Future research should examine more closely the conditions under which the boring people stereotype comes into play.

These results suggest that 2-year-old children have an intrinsic concern that individuals be helped whereas 5-year-old children have an additional, strategic motivation to improve their reputation by helping

Evidence for a developmental shift in the motivation underlying helping in early childhood. Robert Hepach, Jan M. Engelmann, Esther Herrmann, Stella Gerdemann, Michael Tomasello. Developmental Science, February 21 2022. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13253

Abstract: We investigated children's positive emotions as an indicator of their underlying prosocial motivation. In Study 1, 2- and 5-year-old children (N = 64) could either help an individual or watch as another person provided help. Following the helping event and using depth sensor imaging, we measured children's positive emotions through changes in postural elevation. For 2-year-olds, helping the individual and watching another person help was equally rewarding; 5-year-olds showed greater postural elevation after actively helping. In Study 2, 5-year-olds’ (N = 59) positive emotions following helping were greater when an audience was watching. Together, these results suggest that 2-year-old children have an intrinsic concern that individuals be helped whereas 5-year-old children have an additional, strategic motivation to improve their reputation by helping.

A higher level of economic development is strongly associated with a greater incidence of love in narrative fiction; these authors think the relationship is causal

The cultural evolution of love in literary history. Nicolas Baumard, Elise Huillery, Alexandre Hyafil & Lou Safra. Nature Human Behaviour, Mar 7 2022. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01292-z

Abstract: Since the late nineteenth century, cultural historians have noted that the importance of love increased during the Medieval and Early Modern European period (a phenomenon that was once referred to as the emergence of ‘courtly love’). However, more recent works have shown a similar increase in Chinese, Arabic, Persian, Indian and Japanese cultures. Why such a convergent evolution in very different cultures? Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, we leverage literary history and build a database of ancient literary fiction for 19 geographical areas and 77 historical periods covering 3,800 years, from the Middle Bronze Age to the Early Modern period. We first confirm that romantic elements have increased in Eurasian literary fiction over the past millennium, and that similar increases also occurred earlier, in Ancient Greece, Rome and Classical India. We then explore the ecological determinants of this increase. Consistent with hypotheses from cultural history and behavioural ecology, we show that a higher level of economic development is strongly associated with a greater incidence of love in narrative fiction (our proxy for the importance of love in a culture). To further test the causal role of economic development, we used a difference-in-difference method that exploits exogenous regional variations in economic development resulting from the adoption of the heavy plough in medieval Europe. Finally, we used probabilistic generative models to reconstruct the latent evolution of love and to assess the respective role of cultural diffusion and economic development.

We Don't Know When We Are Good at Spotting Liars

Said, Nadia, Sarah Volz, Marc-André Reinhard, Patrick Müller, and Markus Huff. 2022. “Do People Know When They Are Good at Spotting Liars? – Metacognitive Efficiency in Lie Detection.” PsyArXiv. March 8. doi:10.31234/osf.io/v6nbd

Abstract

We investigated whether the confidence in lie detection judgments is a signal for the accuracy of judgments. We argue that previous methods in tackling this question are inadequate as the assessment of judgment accuracy and confidence is confounded with response bias and lie detection performance. We addressed this confidence-accuracy puzzle by applying a hierarchical Bayesian approach based on Signal-Detection Theory to estimate metacognitive efficiency.

Metacognitive efficiency describes individuals' insight into the accuracy of their judgments about truth and deception, but unlike previous measures, it is free of bias and independent of lie detection performance. In re-analyses of 12 studies (N=2817 participants in total), metacognitive efficiency was on average only about 23% of what would have been expected given participants’ discrimination performance. Hence, individuals largely lack metacognitive insight into the quality of their judgments, which is particularly problematic because they cannot reliably discriminate between lies and truths.

Affective polarization increases over time, but also as people age; age-related increases in affective polarization occur as a function of increases in partisan strength, and for Republicans, social sorting

Affective Polarization: Over Time, Through the Generations, and During the Lifespan. Joseph Phillips. Political Behavior, Mar 7 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-022-09784-4

Abstract: The continual rise of affective polarization in the United States harms trust in democratic institutions. Scholars cite processes of ideological and social sorting of the partisan coalitions in the electorate as contributing to the rise of affective polarization, but how do these processes relate to one another? Most scholarship implicitly assumes period effects—that people change their feelings toward the parties uniformly and contemporaneously as they sort. However, it is also possible that sorting and affective polarization link with one another as a function of age or cohort effects. In this paper, I estimate age, period and cohort effects on affective polarization, partisan strength, and ideological sorting. I find that affective polarization increases over time, but also as people age. Age-related increases in affective polarization occur as a function of increases in partisan strength, and for Republicans, social sorting. Meanwhile, sorting only partially explains period effects. These effects combine such that each cohort enters the electorate more affectively polarized than the last.

Conclusion

The study of affective polarization has long recognized the weight of historical forces in shaping contemporary attitudes toward the opposing party. However, the way researchers have modeled these historical effects implicitly assume that partisans’ attitudes reflect the immediate political environment. This paper provides strong evidence that such an understanding is incomplete.

To be clear, there are strong period effects. Net of other considerations, affective polarization increases over time, and with important implications. People enter the electorate not as blank slates but as increasingly polarized products of their pre-adult environment. This increase is only slightly explained by over-time increases in ideological and social sorting in the electorate. Furthermore, least some of what we may have considered period effects are actually the result of aging-related increases in affective polarization. These aging effects, in turn, can be contextualized as increases in in-party warmth concomitant with increases in partisan strength over the lifespan.

These aging effects have important implications for the study of affective polarization. The finding that affective polarization changes throughout the lifespan suggests that interventions designed to reduce affective polarization may work among partisans in a variety of age groups. However, given their disproportionately high turnout rates (Leighley & Nagler, 2013) and increasing share of the population, making sure interventions to reduce affective polarization work among older partisans is crucial to reducing affective polarization in the American partisan population.

Sorting-based theories of affective polarization are meant to explain the rise of affective polarization among the electorate over time. However, the inclusion of individual-level measures of sorting, despite predicting individual-level affective polarization, largely fails to account for period effects among Democrats. This suggests that sorting-based theories of affective polarization need to be adjusted in scope. One possibility is that individual-level sorting does not explain aggregate patterns of affective polarization, but is still able to condition individual identity centrality and feelings towards partisan outgroups (Brewer & Pierce, 2005; Roccas & Brewer, 2002). Hence, sorting can still explain age-related changes in affective polarization among Republicans. This leaves aggregate-level features of the party system related to sorting (e.g. ideological polarization and demographic distinctiveness) as viable. Another possibility is that similar types of citizens (e.g. political sophisticates) are both well-sorted into parties and affectively polarized. Future work should tease apart these possibilities.

There are important limitations to this type of analysis. Intra-cohort trajectories are no substitute for intrapersonal variation. One cannot definitively conclude from this analysis that individuals are uniformly susceptible to age- and period-related changes in affective polarization, though individual-level panel data are consistent with what the APC models find. APC models can simulate the life span, but ultimately do so from aggregate data. Additionally, though mediation is useful to explain effects found in age-period-cohort analyses, mediation analyses using repeated cross-sectional data should be treated with caution. While reverse causality is not a threat to inferences (i.e. partisan strength cannot cause people to become 50 years old), one cannot make a definitive claim that that aging causes increases in affective polarization because it causes increases in partisan strength.

Despite these limitations, these analyses have important implications for understandings of affective polarization. Partisan prejudice is just as important to examine through the lens of the life-span as it is through history. Both are intertwined—age-related changes in attitudes occur contextually, through the social roles people inhabit, through the people they interact with, and through the historical events that unfold during their lives. Similarly, historical changes give shape to aggregate-level changes in the aggregate through affecting the attitudes of at least a subset of partisans. Future work would profit greatly from incorporating the lifespan in more nuanced ways, and with greater use of panel data.

Furthermore, despite a lack of robust cohort differences in affective polarization, aging and period effects have combined to produce a trend where citizens enter the electorate more and more affectively polarized over time. These results are consistent with Boxell et al. (2017), who, despite finding that younger cohorts are rising less quickly in affective polarization over time, find nonetheless younger people are more polarized than in the past. In other words, younger cohorts are experiencing higher levels of affective polarization in their impressionable years. Growing up in a more polarized landscape can leave an as-yet-unknown imprint on younger generations in the future such that cohort effects emerge in the future. This suggests that there is still a potential impressionable years effect with polarization among younger cohorts. These findings also suggest a need for studying political group attitudes in adolescence or earlier. National election studies only observe people over the voting age, but youth panels can be a powerful supplemental tool.

These results also draw attention to the often-overlooked role of age in public opinion beyond its use as a demographic covariate. Historically, isolating the role of age in public opinion has been difficult due to the difficulty of separating the effect of age from period and cohort. Nevertheless, it is important work. Changes in cognition and social role are widely-experienced, meaning their effects on political life are wide-ranging. Furthermore, estimating and explaining the effect of age can be done with more confidence than in the past. The social sciences have accumulated a number of high-quality repeated cross-sectional datasets that can leverage unprecedented temporal variation, which increases precision in estimates of period and cohort effects (Yang et al., 2004, 2008). Additionally, innovations in APC analysis continue to accumulate that researchers can leverage for more robust conclusions on the role of age in politics. 

One in three men believe feminism does more harm than good: Global survey

Ipsos Poll... One in three men believe feminism does more harm than good: Global survey. Mar 4 2022. https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/international-womens-day-2022-us-release

A new global study conducted by Ipsos in collaboration with the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London for International Women’s Day shows that, on average, across 30 countries:

.  Only two in 10 adults deny the existence of gender inequality, but views are split on the benefits of feminism;

.  Concerns about online abuse remain, with nearly one in 10 men saying it’s acceptable to send someone unrequested explicit images;

.  Four in 10 adults have experienced online abuse or seen sexist content but one in three believe many women overreact; and

.  Victim-blaming attitudes are found in a minority across the countries asked.

A majority of adults both globally (55% on average across the various countries surveyed) and in the United States (57%) disagree gender inequality doesn’t really exist. However, despite evidence that gender inequality globally has only increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic[1], just under one-fifth agree, both globally (18%) and in the U.S. (17%).

Men are more likely to agree that gender inequality doesn’t really exist than women (21% vs. 14% globally, 22% vs. 13% in the U.S.). In several countries, the proportion of men who agree is double the proportion of women (including Australia, 30% vs. 14%; Romania, 27% vs. 13%; and Russia, 30% vs. 12%).

Men are also more likely to be skeptical about the benefits of feminism and to question the existence of gender inequality today:

.  On average globally, one-third of men agree feminism does more harm than good (32%) and that traditional masculinity is under threat (33%).

.  Compared with their brethren across the world, American men are slightly less likely to agree feminism does more harm than good (28%), but they are significantly more likely to view traditional masculinity as being under threat (45% do so, the second-highest percentage across all countries surveyed, trailing only Hungary).

Women are less likely to share these views:

.  One in five (20% globally, 22% in the U.S.) agree feminism does more harm than good and about one in four (25% globally, 28% in the U.S.) agree traditional masculinity is under threat today.

.  One-fifth of all adults think that feminism has resulted in men losing out in terms of economic or political power or socially (19% globally, 17% in the U.S.)

           Again, men are more likely to agree than are women (23% vs. 15% globally, 20% vs. 15% in the U.S.).

Adolescents born in the year 2000 reported lower levels of political efficacy and volunteering than those born in 1991

Cohort differences in the development of civic engagement during adolescence. Jeanine Grütter,Marlis Buchmann. Child Development, February 26 2022. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13743

Abstract

Investigating whether changing societal circumstances have altered the development of civic engagement, this study compared developmental changes from mid- to late adolescence (i.e., age 15–18) across two cohorts of representative Swiss samples (born in1991, N = 1258, Mage T1 = 15.30, 54% female, 33% migration background representing diverse ethnicities; born in 2000, N = 930, Mage T1 = 15.32, 51% female; 33% migration background).

Findings from latent multigroup models revealed similar levels in attitudes about social justice in both cohorts, remaining stable over time. Adolescents reported lower levels of political efficacy and informal helping in the cohort born in 2000. Both aspects slightly increased during adolescence. Informal helping had a steeper increase in the 1991 compared to the 2000 cohort, suggesting developmental differences between cohorts.

DISCUSSION

The findings of this study contribute to developmental theory of civic engagement by disentangling developmental changes in various components of civic engagement from changes across historical time. The study not only provides further evidence to the limited longitudinal work on civic development during adolescence, but also allowed for a comparison of development in civic engagement from mid- to late adolescence in two cohorts. It thus contributes to the scarce body of longitudinal cohort studies in this field. Finally, this study was conducted for Switzerland, thus providing rare evidence of cohort differences in the development of civic engagement components during adolescence for a societal context other than the United States.

Cross-cohort consistence in the conceptualization of civic engagement

Based on previous work that included some of the civic components used here (e.g., Grütter & Buchmann, 2021; Metzger et al., 2018; Wray-Lake et al., 2017a), this study assumed that the three components, attitudes toward social justice, informal helping, and political efficacy beliefs, would form a multifaceted construct of civic engagement. Extending this prior work, the findings suggest that civic engagement can be assessed reliably as a multidimensional construct during mid- and late adolescence, even across two cohorts born nearly 10 years apart. The aim was to provide a systematic comparison across multiple components, acknowledging that adolescents born in different time periods might not have the same opportunities to become civically active. Being one of the first studies comparing civic developmental change between different cohorts of adolescents, it was essential to have a measure that captures aspects relevant to adolescents growing up in different time periods (Barber & Ross, 2018). The study established measurement invariance for all components of the multidimensional model of civic engagement, not only across development (i.e., from age 15 to 18) but also across cohorts (i.e., historical time). Thus, observed differences in mean-levels were unlikely to emerge because of changes in how specific items related to the underlying construct, nor because of a different understanding of the item content, nor due to assigning different meaning to the rating scale. Importantly, this allowed for a fine-grained analysis of differences in civic engagement between mid- and late adolescence, between adolescents who experienced different historical times, and between developmental change from mid-to late adolescence in two cohorts born 10 years apart.

Although such a multidimensional approach has the advantage of studying different developmental trends in different components of adolescents’ civic engagement, it must be noted that the conceptualization of civic engagement of this study is limited to the three components. To date, there is not yet a consensus for the specific components of civic engagement (e.g., Amnå, 2012; Wray-Lake et al., 2017a) and for each study, there would be more ways to express civic engagement that a single study could capture. Hence, the current findings must be interpreted with regard to the three components under investigation.

Differences in the development of civic engagement: the role of social change and normative developmental change

This study longitudinally examined two adolescent cohorts of the same age range in Switzerland, arguing that they were exposed to different societal environments (i.e., historical time; Twenge et al., 2012). This design helps disentangle developmental change from changes due to cohort effects (i.e., social change). When age is held constant, differences can be ascribed to differences between cohorts (Neundorf & Niemi, 2014). Our findings attest to both, the role of social change and normative developmental trends in the development of civic engagement from mid- to late adolescence.

Normative developmental change in civic engagement

The normative growth hypothesis (Wray-Lake et al., 2014) assumes that, as adolescents show gains in abstract thinking, reasoning skills, perspective taking, autonomy, and identity exploration when growing older, adolescent civic engagement and their precursors exhibit continuous, gradual upward change. Based on this assumption and limited previous findings of a normative developmental increase in civic engagement (e.g., Grütter & Buchmann, 2021; Wray-Lake et al., 2014, 2017a; Zaff et al., 2011), we expected growth in all three components of civic engagement. The results only partially supported this assumption: While informal helping and political efficacy beliefs significantly increased in both cohorts from age 15 to 18, there was no developmental increase in attitudes about social justice. For informal helping and political efficacy beliefs, our findings provide additional evidence from a new context (i.e., Switzerland) that increases in these two components of civic engagement may increase in concert with normative developmental changes in other areas (see above) across adolescence. Concerning such normative precursors, more longitudinal research capturing a wider age range and focusing on specific developmental competencies of civic engagement could provide additional insights.

Regarding developmental changes in attitudes about social justice, findings have been inconsistent and may differ depending on the specific aspect under consideration, such as adolescents’ understanding or reasoning about social inequalities. Across adolescence, individuals increasingly consider structural obstacles as barriers to social justice and develop a more complex understanding of poverty (Flanagan et al., 2014); however, important developmental steps may already occur at earlier phases of adolescence. For example, recent research shows that early adolescents perceived lower social inequalities and were less likely to prefer egalitarian societies as compared to mid- and late adolescents (Barreiro et al., 2019). As the current study was limited to adolescents’ perceived importance of social justice, future work would benefit from a more systematic investigation of adolescents’ developing understanding and evaluation of social justice from early to late adolescence.

Cohort differences in civic engagement in mid-adolescence

Based on an extensive literature review on changes in the social context from the 1990s to 2018, we derived specific assumptions on how these changes might be reflected in cohort differences in civic engagement. Regarding mid-adolescence, we assumed higher levels of attitudes about social justice, lower levels of informal helping, and either lower or higher levels of political efficacy beliefs in the more recent as compared to the earlier cohort.

Contrary to our expectations, there were no cohort differences with regard to attitudes about social justice. Youth were equally concerned with issues of social justice in 1991 and 2000, whereby this finding is in line with previous work pointing to stable political attitudes across generations of young adults (Jennings & Stoker, 2004). However, it contrasts recent work, showing that adolescents in Switzerland increased their support for racial and ethnic diversity (Barber & Ross, 2018). It must be noted that, although the measure of the current study included fair and equal treatment of others, it also focused on a fair distribution of wealth. As previously explained, attitudes about social justice are itself a multifaceted construct (e.g., Ruck et al., 2019), whereby different aspects may show different patterns of change (Barber & Ross, 2018). Moreover, on the basis of low general inequality in Switzerland, recent changes in income distributions may be less salient to youth and may not result in changes of perceived inequality. Compared to other European countries, Swiss adults were less skeptical of inequalities (Niehues, 2014).

For informal helping, the mean levels were significantly lower in the more recent cohort. This finding aligned with our assumptions that social change toward postponement of adult roles and an increasingly individualized culture may have deflected adolescents in the more recent cohort from communal values, such as helping others (Golder et al., 2020). The changing developmental context for civic engagement in Switzerland has been pronounced in the realm of the changing structure of the life course with the postponement of adult roles in the private sphere of life in particular (i.e., marriage and childbirth) (Federal Statistical Office, 2020; Rausa, 2016).

Lastly, the significantly lower mean level of political efficacy beliefs in the more recent cohort supports the competing hypothesis stating that online disinformation due to the strong increase in social media consumption and concomitant decrease in information gathering from the classic and more credible media would undercut political transparency and thus erode political efficacy beliefs. Findings for media consumption trends (2010 to 2020) among 12- to 19-year-old adolescents in Switzerland confirm this pattern of media usage (Bernath et al., 2020). The alternative hypothesis that growing opportunities for participatory politics empowered by social media would give a boost to political efficacy beliefs of adolescents in the recent cohort is thus eclipsed.

Social change in the development of civic engagement during adolescence

A key element of the present study was to test whether developmental change in the three components of civic engagement from mid- to late adolescence was significantly different across cohorts. Thus, an important contribution of this study was to investigate whether social change would be associated with change patterns across later adolescence. Importantly, we assumed that the increase for attitudes about social justice would be steeper in the more recent cohort, while it would be flatter for informal helping. Concerning political efficacy beliefs, the competing hypotheses assumed either steeper or flatter increase. While there were no significant differences for attitudes about social justice and not enough evidence for significant developmental differences in political efficacy beliefs, the findings supported the assumption of a flatter increase in informal helping in the more recent cohort.

Previous cohort comparisons on similar components like informal helping focused on the transition to adulthood, studying historical changes in the development of community service (Wray-Lake et al., 2017b) or membership in voluntary organizations and volunteer work (Jennings & Stoker, 2004). The findings of these two studies showed developmental declines for all cohorts from late adolescence to early adulthood, explaining this decline by opportunity structures provided by educational institutions, which no longer hold after completing education (Jennings & Stoker, 2004). Additionally, the findings were embedded in explanations of delayed transition into adulthood (Wray-Lake et al., 2017b).

The current study extends these scarce previous findings by focusing on an earlier developmental phase and by examining a form of volunteering more readily available to adolescents (i.e., informal helping). Focusing on adolescents, we assumed that anticipated changes in the timing of adult life roles would be associated with developmental changes in civic engagement. A potential explanation for the flatter increase in informal helping in the more recent cohort may thus stem from adolescents’ anticipation of the prolonged period of adolescence when issues related to educational attainment or romantic relationships could be more salient in the more recent compared to the earlier cohort. In addition, a more individualized culture may promote increasing concern for the self, likely to manifest itself in a propensity toward self-centeredness. Such a shift may have lowered the importance of communal engagement during adolescence, thus resulting in a flatter increase in informal helping from mid- to late adolescence in the more recent cohort.

Taken together, these results suggest that developmental change in civic components across cohorts may be partly related to social change. However, developmental differences between cohorts applied to informal helping only. Future research may thus compare longer periods between cohorts to provide an integral picture on social change in civic development that contributes to developmental changes above and beyond normative age effects.

Demographic differences in civic engagement between cohorts

The covariates revealed some interesting differences between the two cohorts. First, while boys at age 15 expressed lower levels of informal helping in the earlier cohort than girls, there was no such difference in the more recent cohort. Previous work (e.g., van der Graaff et al., 2018) pointed to gender differences in prosocial behavior and discussed gender-specific socialization processes that may foster prosocial development in girls (e.g., showing nurturance and caring). Thus, prosocial actions may be more consistent with gender stereotypes for girls than for boys. With regard to differences between cohorts, this trend may have become weaker as a consequence of increasing considerations for gender equality in European countries, including Switzerland (Barber & Ross, 2018).

In addition, adolescents with a migration background expressed higher levels in attitudes about social justice in the more recent cohort at age 15, while this was not the case for the earlier cohort. As these attitudes reflected desire for egalitarian treatment in this study, this finding aligns with recent work on critical consciousness, assuming that this component may be higher for marginalized adolescents (Heberle et al., 2020). As some groups with migration background face higher educational disadvantages in Switzerland (OECD, 2019a) and as the discourse on social justice has become more salient in Swiss schools (Biedermann et al., 2009), these adolescents’ desire for social justice may have become more salient. Future research may shed more light on specific mechanisms that could explain these findings.

Limitations

As noted, this study cannot make any causal assumptions about how differences in the three civic engagement components relate to facets of social change; instead, we describe changes that might correlate with these differences. To pinpoint the role of social change aspects for cohort differences in the development of civic engagement across adolescence, future studies could travel the challenging avenue of cross-national comparison. This requires cross-country availability of reliable and valid measures of the social change features of interest. Selecting countries differing in these features and including appropriate controls for confounders, such studies would help understand how societal circumstances are related to civic engagement development in adolescence. They would be demanding, as comparable measures of civic engagement components across countries were required as well.

In addition to the macro-level changes, there may also be more proximal influences on adolescent civic development, not discussed in this work (e.g., peers, parents, teachers; e.g., Wray-Lake & Sloper, 2016). Thus, future work could investigate whether societal changes would be reflected in changes in the more proximal social context, ultimately affecting civic development. For example, changes in the political discourse and parent initiatives could influence whether schools adopt more democratic and participatory school climates, positively predicting civic engagement (Torney-Purta et al., 2008). As outlined in the ecological theory by Bronfenbrenner (2005) and the relational developmental systems metatheory (Lerner et al., 2014), adolescents are not simply exposed to their social context, but also seek different contexts and contribute to their changes. To analyze such complex dynamic systems and generalize findings across contexts, longitudinal data on civic development from multiple social contexts and cohorts are needed with assumptions on broad indicators of civic engagement in order to capture specific developments and changes.

Regarding the developmental change investigated, we only focused on mean-differences and thus cannot make assumptions about variation in civic development, whereby recent work highlighted different trajectories in civic development during adolescence (e.g., Wray-Lake & Shubert, 2019; Zaff et al., 2011). For testing such assumptions, we would need more than two measurements in each cohort, which would also enable us to look at different patterns of change in different cohorts. Relatedly, more cohorts would help control for potential confounders between cohort and period effects (i.e., specific events that may have transpired in these particular years and shaped adolescents’ civic engagement). Lastly, our measure of informal helping only consisted of two items that were based on adolescents’ self-reports. Here, our findings would need to be replicated with a more comprehensive measure, which ideally also included additional assessments from peers, parents, or teachers.