No definite conclusions may currently be drawn about the effects of music listening on the short-term stress recovery process of healthy individuals

Music listening and stress recovery in healthy individuals: A systematic review with meta-analysis of experimental studies. Krisna Adiasto et al. PLoS One, June 17, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270031

Abstract: Effective stress recovery is crucial to prevent the long-term consequences of stress exposure. Studies have suggested that listening to music may be beneficial for stress reduction. Thus, music listening stands to be a promising method to promote effective recovery from exposure to daily stressors. Despite this, empirical support for this opinion has been largely equivocal. As such, to clarify the current literature, we conducted a systematic review with meta-analysis of randomized, controlled experimental studies investigating the effects of music listening on stress recovery in healthy individuals. In fourteen experimental studies, participants (N = 706) were first exposed to an acute laboratory stressor, following which they were either exposed to music or a control condition. A random-effects meta-regression with robust variance estimation demonstrated a non-significant cumulative effect of music listening on stress recovery g = 0.15, 95% CI [-0.21, 0.52], t(13) = 0.92, p = 0.374. In healthy individuals, the effects of music listening on stress recovery seemed to vary depending on musical genre, who selects the music, musical tempo, and type of stress recovery outcome. However, considering the significant heterogeneity between the modest number of included studies, no definite conclusions may currently be drawn about the effects of music listening on the short-term stress recovery process of healthy individuals. Suggestions for future research are discussed.

Discussion

Music listening has the potential to fulfill the promise of effective stress recovery in healthy individuals. However, cumulative evidence from 17 experimental studies suggests that support for the beneficial effect of music listening on stress recovery is currently lacking: for healthy individuals, the effect of music listening on stress recovery may be equivalent to that of other auditory stimuli, or even merely sitting in silence. Furthermore, the effect of music listening on stress recovery is heterogeneous, and moderator analyses suggest the effect may differ in magnitude according to musical genre, whether music is self-selected, musical tempo, and type of stress recovery outcome. Despite this, the limited number of available studies makes it difficult to draw further conclusions from these analyses.

Overall effects of music listening on stress recovery

The results of our review contrast those of previous meta-analyses, which underscore the relevance of music-based interventions for stress-reduction [10, 11]. While previous reviews suggest that music-based interventions may be moderately beneficial for stress-related outcomes, particularly in medical and therapeutic settings, our results suggest that the magnitude of this effect outside of these settings, particularly for healthy individuals under acute, experimentally induced stress, may be more modest. We presume that one of the principal reasons for this difference was our decision to exclude studies conducted in medical and therapeutic settings. In previous reviews, randomized controlled trials of the effects of music-based interventions within medical and therapeutic settings constituted a large portion of included studies: 67 of 79 (85%) studies in de Witte et al. [10], and 15 of 22 (68%) studies in Pelletier [11], making it more likely that overall effect sizes were derived from studies conducted within these settings. Tentatively, the effects of music listening may be more prominent for the stress recovery of individuals in medical or therapeutic contexts, compared to that of individuals under acute stress in an experimental context. Whereas the time course of stress responses and stress recovery in experimental settings can be considered relatively brief [24, 26, 40, 83], the time course of stress responses and stress recovery within medical and therapeutic settings may be significantly more protracted [12, 13]. Thus, within medical and therapeutic settings, music may be exerting its influence on neuroendocrine, physiological, and psychological processes that have been subjected to longer periods of strain [27, 99].

Furthermore, the difference in overall estimated effect sizes may be attributed to differences in the breadth of music activities encompassed by our review and that of de Witte et al. [10]: whereas we included studies in which participants merely listened to music following a stressor, de Witte et al. [10] also included music therapy, along with other unspecified music activities. We speculate that the effect of music on stress recovery may differ depending on whether music is merely listened to, performed, or used within a music therapy setting. However, studies comparing the stress recovery effects of these various music activities are rare [15, 58]. Thus, future investigations into the differential effect of these music activities may therefore provide a more comprehensive picture of the effects of music on stress recovery.

Potential moderating effects

Our review highlights the considerable methodological variety between studies investigating the effects of music listening on stress recovery. This is particularly concerning given the modest number of experimental studies on music listening and stress recovery in current literature. Although we investigated the impact of these methodological differences through moderator analyses, many of the estimated effects at each level of each moderator were either non-significant or originated from single studies. Taken together, meaningful interpretations for these moderating effects are difficult to make. Therefore, for each significant moderator, we instead provide several recommendations for future research, which we believe may help delineate the effects of these potential moderators.

Musical genre.

Although comparisons between musical genres seem relatively straightforward, investigating the differential effects of musical genres may be particularly challenging: the conceptualization of musical genres, along with the songs they encompass, tends to be somewhat arbitrary [69, 75, 100, 101]. Indeed, studies display considerable variation in musical stimuli, even within the same genre (Table 4). A notable example of this is the study by Sandstrom and Russo [53], which utilized four ‘classical’ songs, each at different extremes of valence and arousal. It should also be considered that new music is continuously being released which may not completely fit with the definition of any existing genre [9].

As such, an alternative approach to the investigation of musical genre involves describing these genres according to their musical features, such as tempo, timbre, and loudness, and subsequently investigating the effects of these individual musical features on stress recovery [9, 101]. For example, classical music may be described as rhythmically complex, with mellow timbre and fluctuating loudness. Comparatively, though equally rhythmically complex, heavy metal possesses sharper timbre and more pronounced loudness. Investigating the differential effects of these musical features on stress recovery may provide relevant insight into the differential effects of listening to various musical genres on stress recovery.

Self- versus experimenter selection.

In investigating the effects of self- versus experimenter selected music on stress recovery in healthy individuals, studies typically request participants to select music they consider ‘relaxing’ prior to an experiment [3, 17, 18]. Although this approach is viable, it precludes the potential role of perceived control in the relationship between music listening and stress recovery, since allowing participants to self-select their own music may already be helpful for stress recovery due to a restoration of perceived control [15]. Our results were not able to provide a significant contribution to this discussion, as hardly any experimental studies in our review have attempted to account for the potential effects of perceived control. As such, when contrasting the effects of self- and experimenter selected music on stress recovery, future studies may benefit from the inclusion of perceived control as an additional variable in their theoretical models.

It should also be noted that allowing participants to self-select their own music will result in a considerable variety of musical stimuli. Given that each of these musical stimuli may possess a different combination of musical features, the use of self-selected music may generate confounding effects that should preferably be accounted for. Arguably, self-selected music may produce consistent effects on stress-recovery regardless of underlying musical features, given that individuals tend to select music in service of personal self-regulatory goals [64, 75, 76]. However, given that variations in specific musical features, such as tempo, pitch, and loudness have been related to various physiological (e.g., heart rate) [73] and psychological stress recovery outcomes (e.g., positive and negative affect) [100–102], future studies may benefit from ensuring that musical features are consistent between self- and experimenter selected musical stimuli. This may be done, for instance, by comparing expert ratings of musical features [18]. Alternatively, there may be value in allowing participants to self-select music from a list provided by experimenters [21], as this would allow experimenters to standardize musical features a-priori, which may further help disentangle the effects of music listening from that of perceived control.

The comparison of musical features between self-selected and experimenter selected music may also offer a more nuanced perspective on the role of preference and familiarity. Specifically, preferences and familiarity towards certain songs could be described in terms of specific (combinations of) musical features. For example, an individual may prefer music with slow tempo, mellow timbre, and moderate loudness. This approach is often leveraged by music recommender systems, such as those implemented by music streaming platforms (e.g., Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, etc.), with the goal of recommending songs that listeners are likely to engage with. Future studies could investigate the extent to which preference and familiarity might differ between self-selected and experimenter selected music with similar combinations of musical features, to further clarify the role of selection in the relationship between music listening and stress recovery.

Musical tempo.

The systematic review portion of our results demonstrates that no studies have directly compared the effect of different musical tempi on stress recovery in healthy individuals. As such, the most straightforward approach to delineate the effects of musical tempo on stress recovery would be to adopt procedures in which participants listen to the same musical stimulus post-stressor, which is then varied in tempo across experimental conditions. Furthermore, even when the goal of a particular study on music listening and stress recovery is not to clarify the effects of musical tempo, we suggest that tempo values for each musical stimulus should be noted down and reported, as this would facilitate the comparison of the differential effects of musical tempo on stress recovery in future meta-synthesis of the literature.

Alternatively, the notion that music with slow tempo is more beneficial for stress recovery compared to music with fast tempo is supported by the assumption that physiological parameters will entrain to musical rhythms [63, 68]. As such, a more accurate approach to investigate the effects of musical tempo on stress recovery would be to leverage the dynamic, temporal nature of both music and physiological parameters through use of non-linear analyses of continuous data [52, 103]. For example, cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA) [104, 105] may enable future studies to quantify the magnitude and duration of rhythmic entrainment for each participant. These indexes of magnitude and duration could then be compared between different musical tempi. Studies have utilized CRQA to investigate cardiac entrainment between participants of collective rituals [106] and the entrainment of an audience’s heart rate to a live musical performance [107]. This analytical approach may therefore yield a more nuanced understanding of the effect of musical tempo on the recovery of autonomic parameters.

Stress recovery outcomes.

During short-term stress responses, catecholamine- and cortisol-mediated stress responses follow temporally specific patterns: catecholamines rapidly exert their influence on ANS activity, and these changes tend to normalize within 30–60 minutes [26]. Meanwhile, decreases in cortisol that may be attributed to stress recovery will only become noticeable after recovery-related changes in autonomic activity have begun to occur [24]. As such, to further clarify the effect of music listening on various stress recovery outcomes, we recommend future studies to be more sensitive towards the innate, intricate, and temporally specific changes of each stress recovery outcome.

Furthermore, multiple studies included in our review have opted to analyze continuous data by means of multivariate analyses of variance, after averaging participants’ observed stress recovery outcomes at multiple time points (e.g., pre-stress, post-stress, post-recovery). Although this approach is practical, doing so may over-simplify the complex changes that may occur during the stress response and subsequent stress recovery, such as the temporal dynamics of different physiological responses [52] and emotion regulation strategies [108]. As such, we again suggest future studies to utilize non-linear analyses of data when appropriate, particularly when investigating the effects of music listening on the recovery of autonomic activity post-stressor. The idea of using non-linear analyses, such as time-series analysis, to investigate the stress recovery process is not new [5]. However, few studies on music listening and stress recovery have utilized this analytical approach.

Additional recommendations

Two studies with unreported stress induction procedures were still included in the review [17, 84], as reported means for certain recovery outcomes still suggested an increase from baseline that participants could recover from. For example, with the information reported in Gan et al. [84], assuming a correlation of 0.5 between baseline and post-stressor measures of state anxiety, we estimated that their stress induction procedure elicited a significant increase in state anxiety in their sedative music (t(34) = 5.87, p < .001, mdiff = 8.17, SDdiff = 8.24), stimulative music (t(34) = 8.21, p < .001, mdiff = 12.42, SDdiff = 8.95), and control (t(34) = 13.15, p < .001, mdiff = 15.83, SDdiff = 7.12) conditions. As the overall estimated effect of music listening on the recovery process of healthy individuals following laboratory stressors may be relatively modest, it becomes particularly important to ensure that a sufficient stress response is elicited, to provide a larger window of opportunity in which the effect of music listening may be exerted on participants’ recovery processes. We thus encourage future studies to adopt validated, (variations of) well-known stress tasks, such as the TSST [109], SECPT [110], or CO2 stress task [111], which have been demonstrated to consistently elicit marked physiological and psychological stress-related responses in laboratory settings. Furthermore, we remind future studies to candidly report the results of their stress induction procedures to facilitate subsequent meta-syntheses of the effects of music listening on stress recovery.

As the current review focused on the effects of music listening after a stressor, studies where music was played before or during a stressor were omitted from our analyses. However, several studies suggest that the timing at which music is played (i.e., before, during, or after a stressor) may influence its effects on stress recovery. For example, in Burns et al. [48], participants who listened to classical music while anticipating a stressful task exhibited lower post-music heart rate compared to participants who anticipated the stressor in silence. Similarly, concentrations of salivary cortisol were lower for participants who watched a stressful visual stimulus while listening to music compared to those who watched the same stimulus without music [112]. Together, these findings hint that, when listened during a stressor, music may attenuate cortisol responses [9, 113], thus reducing the subsequent need for recovery. On the other hand, Thoma et al. [9] reported that participants who listened to music prior to a stressor exhibited higher post-stressor cortisol compared to participants who listened to an audio control. Interestingly, despite the stronger stress response, Thoma et al. [9] noted a trend for quicker ANS recovery among participants who listened to music, particularly with regards to salivary alpha-amylase activity. This pattern of findings is consistent with the notion forwarded by Koelsch et al. [61], in that music listening may promote a more adaptive stress response, thus facilitating subsequent stress recovery processes. To date, research on timing differences in the context of music listening and stress recovery is scarce. Thus, future studies could further examine the influence of such timing differences to better understand their role in the relationship between music listening and stress recovery.

Given the pervasiveness of stress, Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) studies may provide a more intimate outlook on the dynamics of daily music listening behaviour, particularly for the purpose of stress recovery. For example, through an ambulatory assessment study, Linnemann et al. [38] revealed that music produced the most notable reductions in physiological and psychological stress outcomes when it was listened to for the purpose of ‘relaxation’, compared to other reasons such as ‘distraction’, ‘activation’, and ‘reducing boredom’. Indeed, given their high ecological validity, EMA studies may provide further insight into important contextual variables in the relationship between music listening and stress recovery. For example, in an EMA study, listening to music in the presence of others was related to decreased subjective stress, attenuated cortisol secretion, and higher activity of salivary alpha-amylase [55]. Furthermore, physiological responses to music may co-vary between members of a dyad when music is listened to by couples [114]. Thus, given the benefits of EMA studies, we invite future studies to continue exploring the dynamics and contextual factors of music listening behaviour for stress recovery in daily life.

Lastly, we encourage studies to support open science research practices, and to clearly report statistical information that may be relevant for meta-syntheses (e.g., means and standard deviations per time point, per experimental condition, etc.). Additionally, based on our assessment of study quality using the RoB 2, pre-registration of analysis plans can be helpful to ensure that the conducted study is of overall high quality. Next, we encourage studies to note down which specific musical stimuli were used, particularly those self-selected by participants [69, 99], as this enables future exploratory analyses of structural commonalities between different musical stimuli. Musical features from individual songs may be extracted by means of audio information extraction packages, such as MIRtoolbox [115]. Alternatively, individual song titles may be used to query related meta-data from online databases of various music streaming platforms. This meta-data can subsequently be used to obtain additional insight into the effects of music listening on stress recovery.

Limitations of the current review

To our knowledge, our review is the first to comprehensively investigate the effect of music listening on stress recovery within healthy individuals. Given the explicit focus of our review, our meta-analytic data set excluded the more prominent effects of music listening in both medical and therapeutic settings [12, 13], allowing us to obtain results that are tentatively more representative of daily stress recovery processes. Despite this, the present review is not without its limitations:

First, although the specific focus of our review has allowed us to obtain a portrait of the effects of music listening on stress recovery in well-controlled experimental settings, the results of our review may be difficult to generalize to situations in which individuals experience prolonged stress responses. Stress induction procedures in experimental studies are designed to elicit acute stress responses that are meant to subside upon conclusion of an experiment [83]. Although we believe these procedures provide a suitable approximation of typical stressors in daily life, certain stressors in daily life may also persist for a longer time. The manner and magnitude in which music listening influences prolonged stress responses may potentially differ from the way music influences acute, laboratory-induced stress responses [18, 45]. However, studies investigating the effect of music listening on stress recovery in the long-term are particularly rare.

Next, despite our best efforts to obtain relevant meta-analytic information from all studies selected for our review, our meta-analytic data set was ultimately constructed from a subset of fourteen studies. Although the subset allowed us to extract sufficient information to estimate an overall effect of music listening on stress recovery, several estimated effects at moderator level were derived from merely one or two studies (see Table 3). This precluded us from drawing further, meaningful conclusions about the results of our moderator analyses.

Finally, despite our clear focus on the effects of music listening on stress recovery within healthy individuals, there was substantial heterogeneity in our meta-analytic data set that could not be fully explained by the inclusion of moderators. Although the systematic review portion of our results highlighted potential additional sources of between-study heterogeneity, these additional sources could not be evaluated in our meta-analytic data set. We note, for example, that all studies utilized different musical stimuli to investigate the effect of music listening on stress recovery (see Table 4). The differential effects of these musical stimuli were difficult to account for in our meta-analysis, given the limited number of included studies. Overall, the significant heterogeneity in our meta-analytic data set suggests that our moderator analyses should be interpreted with caution.

Enjoyment of Horror Media Is Not Related to Reduced Empathy or Compassion

Scrivner, Coltan. 2022. “Bleeding-heart Horror Fans: Enjoyment of Horror Media Is Not Related to Reduced Empathy or Compassion.” PsyArXiv. June 20. doi:10.31234/osf.io/rhc23

Abstract: The horror genre portrays some of the most graphic and violent scenes in media. Because of this, those who enjoy horror may be perceived to be deficient in prosocial traits. In Study 1, I found empirical evidence for the anecdotal observation that people perceive horror fans to be low in empathy, compassion, and kindness. In Study 2, I found that enjoyment of horror movies is either unrelated or positively related to measures of empathy and compassion. In Study 3, participants who had previously reported how much they enjoyed five horror subgenres played a dictator game. Enjoyment of horror and the five subgenres was unrelated to how much money a participant decided to donate to a less fortunate participant. These findings contradict long-held beliefs from the public about horror fans possessing lower levels of empathy and compassion. They also question older findings about the relationship between empathy and horror fandom, suggesting that the relationship has little to do with how much one enjoys horror or the type of horror they enjoy.

Grade non-disclosure in MBA programs at highly ranked business schools reduces students' academic effort within courses; students participate in more extracurricular activities and enroll in more difficult courses

Floyd, Eric and Tomar, Sorabh and Lee, Daniel, Making the Grade (But Not Disclosing It): How Withholding Grades Affects Student Behavior and Employment (April 30, 2022). SMU Cox School of Business Research Paper No. 22-13. SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4097763

Abstract: We study the effects of grade non-disclosure (GND) policies implemented within MBA programs at highly ranked business schools. GND precludes students from revealing their grades and grade point averages (GPAs) to employers. In the labor market, we find that GND weakens the positive relation between GPA and employer desirability. During the MBA program, we find that GND reduces students' academic effort within courses by approximately 4.9%, relative to comparable students not subject to the policy. Consistent with our model, in which abilities are potentially correlated and students can substitute effort towards other activities in order to signal GPA-related ability, students participate in more extracurricular activities and enroll in more difficult courses under GND. Finally, we show that students' tenure with their first employers after graduation decreases following GND.

JEL Classification: D70, D82, J24, M51

In their work, they found many participants high in well-being and low in wisdom and no participants high in wisdom and low in well-being

Looking Beyond Linear: A Closer Examination of the Relationship Between Wisdom and Wellbeing. Judith Glück, Nic M. Weststrate & Andreas Scherpf. Journal of Happiness Studies, Jun 18 2022. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-022-00540-3

Abstract: There has been some controversy about the relationship between wisdom and constructs of the well-being complex. Some wisdom researchers argue that the ability to maintain a high level of well-being, even in the face of very negative experiences, is a core characteristic of wisdom. Other researchers argue that the willingness of wise people to reflect on the darker sides of life might jeopardize well-being. Studies mostly found moderate positive correlations of well-being with self-report wisdom measures and negative, zero, or low positive correlations with open-ended measures of wisdom. This paper tests the hypothesis that the relationship between wisdom and well-being is triangular rather than linear, with highly wise people being high in well-being, but people high in well-being not necessarily being highly wise. A sample of 155 participants (age 23 to 90 years) completed four wisdom measures and three measures from the well-being complex. We analyzed both linear relationships (using correlations) and triangular relationships (using Necessary Condition Analysis). Correlations of well-being with open-ended measures of wisdom were mostly insignificant; correlations with self-report measures of wisdom were mostly significant. However, scatterplots showed the expected triangular relationships and Necessary Condition Analysis indicated medium to large effect sizes for both open-ended and self-report wisdom measures. In sum, our findings show that even if wise individuals think more deeply about difficult aspects of the human existence, they are still able to maintain high levels of well-being.

Discussion

This paper analyzed the relationships between four different measures of wisdom and three different measures of the well-being complex (general life satisfaction, current life phase compared to “best” and “worst” life phase, and psychological well-being), reporting correlations and effect sizes from Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA).

Most Relationships Between Wisdom and Well-Being Are Triangular

Our first prediction was that relationships between wisdom and well-being would be triangular, especially for open-ended measures of wisdom. That is, highly wise individuals should be high in well-being, whereas individuals low in wisdom would show a wide range of levels of well-being. This prediction was largely supported; most scatterplots in Fig. 2 and the NCA results indicated a triangular pattern. The pattern was particularly clear for the two open-ended measures of wisdom, the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm and the MORE Life Experience Model, where we found a considerable number of participants high in well-being and low in wisdom, but no participants high in wisdom and low in well-being. Notably, most correlations between these two wisdom measures and the well-being variables were zero. As discussed earlier, a likely reason for the discrepancy between correlations and NCA results is the difference in the score distributions between the open-ended wisdom measures and the well-being measures. As Table 3 and Fig. 2 show, few participants scored high in the open-ended measures of wisdom, while many participants scored high in the well-being measures. This difference in distributions limits the size of possible correlations. Substantively, if many people are happy but few people are wise, then even if all wise people are happy, the correlation between happiness and wisdom will be low or zero. This was the pattern that the NCA results confirmed for the open-ended wisdom measures.

The two self-report measures of wisdom, the Adult Self-Transcendence Inventory and the Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale, had score distributions more similar to those of the well-being measures, with most participants scoring in the upper half of the scale. Accordingly, the relationship with well-being was more linear, as indicated by mostly significant correlations. However, Fig. 2 and the NCA results showed that even for the self-report scales, there were many participants high in well-being and low in wisdom and no participants high in wisdom and low in well-being, at least for life satisfaction and the “life-phase ladder.” The differences between the three well-being measures will be discussed later.

In sum, our findings suggest that even if highly wise individuals are more willing to face the difficult aspects of the human existence than other people, they are still able to maintain high levels of well-being (Ardelt, 2019). These findings do not necessarily contradict the notion that wise individuals may be more willing than other people to consider the darker aspects of human existence (Baltes & Kunzmann, 2003; Staudinger & Glück, 2011). Weststrate and Glück (2017b) argued that there are three reasons why wise individuals may be high in well-being even though they do engage in these thoughts. First, wise individuals are experts at coping with life challenges; their experience has taught them to manage difficult situations and regulate negative emotions. Second, because of their experience with hardship and their awareness of uncertainty, wise individuals may appreciate small pleasures and relish good moments even during difficult times. Third, wise individuals know themselves well and have learned to live their lives in the way that is “right” for them, providing them with resources, such as friends and leisure activities, that can support them in challenging times. With respect to the current study, another relevant aspect is that all three well-being measures assess summative, overall evaluations of one’s life, life phase, or self. Conceivably, individuals could score high in these measures even while they are experiencing a considerable amount of negative affect in their daily life. People working in professions that regularly confront them with suffering or death, for example, may still experience high levels of eudaimonic well-being and life satisfaction. More fine-grained studies of everyday affect in relation to wisdom are needed to test this hypothesis.

We would like to mention one observation that we cannot investigate comprehensively with the present data. We noticed that the participants who scored highest in the open-ended measures of wisdom did not necessarily report the maximum possible values in the well-being measures –in Fig. 2, their dots tend to be slightly below the top of the scale. Our sample of high scorers is too small for an in-depth analysis of this phenomenon, but we believe that individuals high in open-ended measures of wisdom might use the response scales of self-report scales in a somewhat more modest or self-reflective way (Aldwin, 2009; Glück, 2018).

Relationships with Well-Being Are Similar for Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Wisdom Measures

Our second prediction was that non-cognitive components of wisdom would have stronger relationships with well-being than cognitive components. Unexpectedly, however, content of the wisdom measures seemed to be much less relevant for their relationship with well-being than type of measure. In fact, the BWP, which assesses cognitive aspects of wise thinking about theoretical life problems, showed the exact same pattern of zero correlations and medium to large NCA effect sizes with the three measures of well-being as the MORE interview, which assesses mostly non-cognitive aspects of wisdom from narratives about autobiographical life challenges. We consider it as quite remarkable that even the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm showed a clear triangular relationship with the well-being variables. In other words, all participants who displayed factual and procedural life knowledge, an awareness of the relativity and contextuality of people’s perspectives, and awareness of uncertainty and unpredictability described themselves as quite high in various facets of well-being. We believe that this finding supports the idea of a common core of cognitive and non-cognitive wisdom conceptions: although different conceptions and measures of wisdom tend to emphasize one or the other “side,” actual wisdom may require an integrative interaction of cognitive and non-cognitive components (Baltes & Staudinger, 2000; Glück & Weststrate, in press).

That said, some subdimensions of wisdom did show stronger relationships with well-being than others, but these differences did not always follow the distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive subdimensions. For the BWP, NCA showed that procedural knowledge, value relativism, and contextualism had stronger relationships with well-being than factual knowledge and awareness of uncertainty. In the MORE interview, empathy and emotion regulation had larger NCA effect sizes than openness, reflectivity, and especially sense of mastery. In the 3DWS, the reflective dimension (a willingness to take different perspectives on issues) and the compassionate dimension were more strongly related to well-being, in terms of both correlations and NCA effect sizes, than the cognitive dimension (striving to understand life and learn from experiences). The ASTI, which measures self-transcendence without any subdimensions, was strongly related to well-being.

Thus, as expected, affective components of wisdom such as self-transcendence, compassion, and emotion regulation were quite strongly related to well-being. Unexpectedly, however, equally strong relationships with well-being were found for wisdom components reflecting an awareness of differences in perspectives, values, and contexts (BWP value relativism and contextualism, 3DWS reflective dimension). The weakest relationships with well-being were found for cognitive components referring to awareness of uncertainty and uncontrollability (BWP uncertainty, MORE sense of mastery), complex thinking and self-reflection (MORE reflectivity), and openness and curiosity (MORE openness and 3DWS cognitive dimension).

These differences between subdimensions should not be overinterpreted, especially as NCA results tend to be somewhat susceptible to the presence of outliers (Dul, 2021). Still, it seems highly interesting that well-being is related not only to affective components of wisdom, but also to a general awareness and tolerance of differences between people. Arguably, individuals who consider diversity and individual differences as a source of new insights and ideas are happier and more at peace with their life than people who consider divergent perspectives as a challenge to their own views. For wise individuals, well-being may be closely related to positive and enriching social relationships (Igarashi et al., 2018; Weststrate & Glück, 2017b).

Wisdom Is Related to Many Aspects of Well-Being

Our third prediction was that the three well-being measures would differ in their relationships with wisdom. We expected the strongest relationship for psychological well-being (Ryff & Keyes, 1995), which represents an eudaimonic conception of a good and meaningful life. We also expected relatively strong relationships between wisdom and general life satisfaction (Pavot et al., 1998), a broad evaluation of one’s past, current, and future life. We expected to find a somewhat weaker relationship between wisdom and our adapted version of the Cantril ladder, where participants rated their current life phase relative to the best and worse phases of their life.

Our results partly supported these predictions. The open-ended measures of wisdom had similar relationships with all three well-being measures. The self-report measures were most strongly related to psychological well-being. For the ASTI, this makes a lot of sense given the considerable conceptual overlap between self-transcendence and psychological well-being, especially with respect to self-acceptance and personal growth (Koller et al., 2017). The dimensions of the 3DWS are somewhat more distant from psychological well-being, but there certainly is some overlap especially with the PWB subdimensions of personal growth, positive relations to others, and autonomy. The relationships of the self-report wisdom measures with the two other well-being measures did not differ much; if anything, the correlations with the life-phase ladder were somewhat higher than those with life satisfaction. In other words, the extent to which participants considered their current life phase as the best was somewhat more strongly related to wisdom than general life satisfaction. One could speculate that highly wise individuals tend to consider their current life phase as their best because are aware of how they have grown and developed over the course of their life.

NCA: A Promising New Approach for Analyzing a Frequent Type of Relationship

Finally, we would like to add some comments on Necessary Condition Analysis as a novel approach for analyzing nonlinear relationships between psychological variables. In spite of some technical problems that still need to be resolved, such as the influence of outliers (see Dul, 2021), we consider NCA as a highly promising tool for identifying a type of relationships among psychological variables that has long been overlooked. Notably, that type of relationships is not limited to situations where one variable is theoretically a necessary condition for the other. The case of well-being and wisdom is a good example: Technically, our NCA analyses tested the hypothesis that high well-being is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for high wisdom. Theoretically, however, we do not believe that this is the only plausible account of the relationship. It does seem likely that a minimum level of well-being is necessary for people to gain wisdom from experiences; Staudinger and Kunzmann (2005) argued that “a certain level of adjustment is a necessary, but by no means a sufficient condition for growth” (p. 321). Fredrickson’s Broaden and Build theory, for example, suggests that the experience of happiness and joy is necessary for exploring different perspectives and gaining new insights (Fredrickson, 2001). At the same time, high well-being could also be an outcome of wisdom—because wisdom enables individuals to see the good things even in bad things, for example, or because wisdom entails effective emotion regulation. Also, high well-being may co-develop with wisdom, as some of the factors that foster the development of wisdom may also foster well-being (Weststrate & Glück, 2017b). At the same time, well-being is clearly also attainable through other developmental pathways that result in high well-being without high wisdom (see also Bauer et al., 2019). The cross-sectional data analyzed here do not allow us to distinguish between these different accounts of the relationship between wisdom and well-being. Statistically, however, all of them lead to the same prediction: that high wisdom is associated with high well-being, but low wisdom is not necessarily associated with low well-being. In this way, NCA as a purely descriptive instrument for testing the “triangularity” of relationships could be used to test a broader range of predictions than just those where one variable is theoretically a necessary condition for another.

In sum, the findings of this study indicate that wise individuals are happy, satisfied, and at peace with themselves and their lives. Even as they are willing to look into the darker sides of the human existence and certainly have their darker moments, they know how to live well and they live the life that is right for them. Many individuals who are not particularly wise, however, are equally happy and satisfied with their lives. The complex, dynamic relationship between wisdom and well-being remains an exciting topic for future research.

While overall sexual activity among young adults has been found to be declining, experimentation with non-committed relationships has increased, particularly among females

Gender, Sex, & Emerging Adulthood. Katarina Andrea Reyes. Polytechnic State University, Calif. BS in Psychology, Jun 2022. https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/psycdsp/56

Abstract/Summary: Emerging adulthood is a key developmental period when individuals explore and make meaning of their intimate relationships. National trends suggest that experimentation with non-committed relationships has increased (Olmstead, 2020), particularly for females (Netting & Reynolds, 2018). Young women utilize casual sex to explore sex, while men use sex for pleasure (Sizemore & Olmstead, 2017). Moreover, the double sexual standard impacts women’s sexual satisfaction and self-esteem (Williams & Jovanovic, 2018). Little research has examined how sex influences emerging adult’s self-esteem. Previous research has primarily relied on survey data to understand women’s and men’s experiences. Narrative identity scholars posit that individuals can make meaning of their experiences when given the opportunity to construct their life in story-like or narrative terms (McAdams, 2013, Adler et al. 2017). Using a well-established narrative identity instrument, the Love Life Story Interview (Dunlop et al., 2018), we analyze the love life stories of 31 emerging adults (15 males, 15 females, and 1 transgender male; 41% White; 83% Heterosexual) in order to understand how sex impacts emerging adult’s intimacy development. Our study indicates that women and men both view sex as an opportunity for exploration, yet men are more likely to conclude that sex is not a priority in relationships whereas women strive to achieve empowerment in their sexual relationships. Our findings suggest that although today’s emerging adults may have more freedom to assert their sexual desires, women’s sexual agency is still dictated by social norms (Uecker & Martinez, 2017). This may, in part, explain why women’s but not men’s self-esteem is integral to their sexual experiences (Heinrichs et al., 2009; Thompson & Donaghue, 2014).

Millet, Rice, and Isolation: Origins and Persistence of the World's Most Enduring Mega-State

Kung, James Kai-sing and Özak, Ömer and Putterman, Louis and Shi, Shuang, Millet, Rice, and Isolation: Origins and Persistence of the World's Most Enduring Mega-State. IZA Discussion Paper No. 15348. SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4134131

Abstract: We propose and test empirically a theory describing the endogenous formation and persistence of mega-states, using China as an example. We suggest that the relative timing of the emergence of agricultural societies, and their distance from each other, set off a race between their autochthonous state-building projects, which determines their extent and persistence. Using a novel dataset describing the historical presence of Chinese states, prehistoric development, the diffusion of agriculture, and migratory distance across 1° × 1° grid cells in eastern Asia, we find that cells that adopted agriculture earlier and were close to Erlitou – the earliest political center in eastern Asia – remained under Chinese control for longer and continue to be a part of China today. By contrast, cells that adopted agriculture early and were located further from Erlitou developed into independent states, as agriculture provided the fertile ground for state-formation, while isolation provided time for them to develop and confront the expanding Chinese empire. Our study sheds important light on why eastern Asia kept reproducing a mega-state in the area that became China and on the determinants of its borders with other states.

Keywords: state, agriculture, isolation, social complexity, stickiness to China, Erlitou, East Asia

JEL Classification: F50, F59, H70, H79, N90, O10, R10, Z10, Z13

The majority preferred quashing harmful misinformation over protecting free speech; Republicans were consistently less willing than Democrats or Independents to delete posts or penalize the accounts that posted them

Kozyreva, Anastasia, Stefan M. Herzog, Stephan Lewandowsky, Ralph Hertwig, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Mark Leiser, and Jason Reifler. 2022. “Free Speech Vs. Harmful Misinformation: Moral Dilemmas in Online Content Moderation.” PsyArXiv. June 18. doi:10.31234/osf.io/2pc3a

Abstract: When moderating content online, two key values may come into conflict: protecting freedom of expression and preventing harm. Robust rules based in part on how citizens think about these moral dilemmas are necessary to deal with the unprecedented scale and urgency of this conflict in a principled way. Yet little is known about people's judgments and preferences around content moderation. We examined such moral dilemmas in a conjoint survey experiment where respondents (N = 2,564) indicated whether they would remove problematic social media posts on election denial, anti-vaccination, Holocaust denial, and climate change denial and whether they would take punitive action against the accounts. Respondents were shown key information about the user and their post, as well as the consequences of the misinformation. The majority preferred quashing harmful misinformation over protecting free speech. Respondents were more likely to remove posts and suspend accounts if the consequences were severe and if it was a repeated offence. Features related to the account itself (the person behind the account, their partisanship, and number of followers) had little to no effect on respondents' decisions. Content moderation of harmful misinformation was a partisan issue: Across all four scenarios, Republicans were consistently less willing than Democrats or Independents to delete posts or penalize the accounts that posted them. Our results can inform the design of transparent rules of content moderation for human and algorithmic moderators.

Believing in conspiracy theories is related to non-normative tendencies, such as lower social and political engament, or lower adherence to norms guiding everyday interactions such as holding the door for someone who has a lot to carry

Belief in Conspiracy Theories and Non-normative Behavior. Lotte Pummerer. Current Opinion in Psychology, June 18 2022, 101394. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101394

Highlights

• Believing in conspiracy theories is related to non-normative behaviors.

• This non-normative behavior is a natural consequence of a different social reality.

• This social reality is characterized by distrust and a different perception of norms.

• Taking into account the social reality of conspiracy belief can improve interventions.

Abstract: There are many examples of people believing in conspiracy theories showing non-normative behaviors. But why is this the case? The current contribution proposes that the non-normative behavior of people believing in conspiracy theories is a natural consequence of a different social reality that is associated with the belief in conspiracy theories. This social reality is characterized by a tendency for distinction and distrust in social relationships, a different perception of descriptive norms, a questioning of the injunctive norms regarding specific behaviors, lower trust in institutions and traditional authorities, as well as alternative norms among people believing in conspiracy theories.

Keywords: conspiracy theoryconspiracy mentalitysocial normsnon-normative behaviorcollective actionintervention

Contrary to the number of books at home, the number of ebooks did not contribute to students’ academic language comprehension

Number of books at home as an indicator of socioeconomic status: Examining its extensions and their incremental validity for academic achievement. Birgit Heppt, Melanie Olczyk & Anna Volodina. Social Psychology of Education, Jun 17 2022. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11218-022-09704-8

Abstract: The present study investigates the incremental validity of the traditional books-at-home measure and selected extensions (i.e., number of children’s books and number of ebooks) for explaining students’ academic achievement as measured by their academic language comprehension. Using multiple linear regressions, we additionally explore the role of the source of information (i.e., whether information is given by parents or children). Based on cross-sectional data of a German sample of 2353 elementary school children from Grades 2 through 4, we found that parents’ information on the number of books and children’s books contributed to students’ academic language comprehension over and above parental occupation and education. Children’s information on the number of books did not further increase the amount of explained variance, and the effects were smaller than those for parents’ information. Yet, when investigated separately, both parents’ and children’s information on the number of books and children’s books at home predicted students’ academic language comprehension and mediated the relationship between more distal structural features of socioeconomic status (i.e., parents’ occupational status and education) and the outcome variable. No effect emerged for the number of ebooks. Our findings point to the robustness of the traditional books-at-home measure when used in parent questionnaires.

Discussion

The current study investigated the incremental validity of the books-at-home measure beyond other commonly used SES indicators (i.e., parents’ occupational status and education) in explaining academic language comprehension. In particular, we examined whether selected extensions of the traditional books-at-home measure, namely, the number of children’s books and the number of ebooks, increase the validity of the books-at-home measure and whether the predictive value of the number of books and the number of children’s books differs by information source (i.e., whether parents or children answered the question). Additional analyses examined whether the number of books and children’s books as indicated by both parents and children mediated the relation between more distal structural SES features and students’ academic language comprehension.

Predictive validity of the books-at-home measure and its extensions

We found that parents’ information on the number of books and children’s books at home significantly increased the amount of explained variance in students’ academic language comprehension, even when considering parental education and occupational status (HISEI). The number of ebooks, however, did not contribute to the explanation of students’ academic language comprehension. A similar pattern of results emerged when using children’s information instead of parents’ information. Thus, children’s estimates, which were only assessed for the number of books and the number of their own books but not for the number of ebooks, contributed significantly to the explanation of their academic language comprehension. Moreover, parents’ books and children’s books, both when assessed by parents and by children, mediated the relationship between parents’ occupational status and education as well as students’ academic language comprehension. When simultaneously considering parents’ and children’s estimates of the number of books at home, however, only parents’ information on the number of books and the number of children’s books remained significant. The results thus show that children’s information on the number of books at home is of limited predictive value compared to parents’ information for explaining student achievement (see Table S5 in the Supplemental Material for additional findings in support of this interpretation). Overall, the findings indicate that when used in the parent questionnaire, the validity of the traditional books-at-home measure is not compromised by the greater availability of ebooks and can be slightly increased by additionally considering the number of children’s books at home.

The present study’s results corroborate previous findings that confirm the interrelatedness of different SES indicators while underlining their distinctiveness (e.g., Bukodi & Goldthorpe, 2013). Thus, although the different measures for assessing a family’s SES showed substantial amounts of shared variance, parental occupation status (HISEI), parental education, number of books, and number of children’s books all contributed independently to the explanation of student achievement. This suggests that they capture slightly different aspects of SES and cannot be used interchangeably. Simultaneously, the present study adds to the literature by examining the importance of the number of children’s books and the number of ebooks as well as the role of the respondent (parents vs. children) in increasing the predictive value of the traditional books-at-home measure. Furthermore, mediation analyses’ results confirmed and extended prior research that pointed to the mediating role of combined indices of the number of books and children’s books for the relation between different SES measures and students’ academic achievement (e.g., McElvany et al., 2009; McMullin et al., 2020; Myrberg & Rosén, 2009). The present findings thus further support the assumption that parents’ occupational status and education should be conceived of as distal structural features of SES whose impact on students’ learning outcomes can at least partly be explained by more proximal process-oriented features such as the learning stimulation tied to books and children’s books available at home (cf. Gustafsson et al., 2011; McElvany et al., 2009).

In terms of underlying mechanisms, which help to explain the relation between the number of books at home and student academic achievement, theoretical considerations suggest that the number of children’s books may be a better proxy for learning stimulation and joint reading activities than the number of parents’ books and, thus, may be an even more valid indicator of students’ cultural capital and learning resources. However, remarkably, this measure is not typically considered in large-scale assessments (with the exception of TIMSS and PIRLS), and its individual effects in predicting student achievement (i.e., net of the number of parents’ books) are usually not investigated. Hence, whereas prior research mostly used combined measures of the number of parents’ and children’s books and found that they were positively related to, for instance, students’ reading comprehension (Gustafsson et al., 2011; McElvany et al., 2009), we established the number of children’s books as an independent predictor of students’ academic language comprehension.

For the number of ebooks, the present findings challenge the assumption that the process of digitalization and the greater availability of digital devices threaten the validity of the traditional books-at-home measure (cf. Schwippert, 2019). In line with prior studies on media use (Kinder-Medien-Studie, 2018; Statista, 2021) that did not report widespread use of ebooks, the vast majority of parents in our study indicated owning 0 to 10 ebooks or chose not to answer the question. We suspect that this very uneven distribution and resulting variance restriction, which differed sharply from all the other books-at-home indicators (Fig. S1 in the Supplemental Material), is the driving force for explaining the null effects in the present study (for convergent findings, see Pagel, 2016). Potential differences in the use of ebooks and printed books in joint interactions among parents and children (cf. Krcmar & Cingel, 2014; Ross et al., 2016) might additionally have come into play.

The present study is among the very few to examine parents’ and children’s ratings of the number of books at home (e.g., Engzell, 2018; Jerrim & Micklewright, 2014) and, to the best of our knowledge, is the first to compare the predictive value of the number of books and the number of children’s books for these different information sources. In line with the studies by Engzell (2018) and Jerrim and Micklewright (2014), for instance, we found exceptionally low agreement between parents’ and children’s information on parents’ books and children’s books. Although it is not possible to determine which ratings are more accurate, we have reason to assume that elementary school children are the less reliable information source given their limited capacity for estimating amounts (Harel et al., 2007). Additionally, considering the stronger relations between parents’ estimates and students’ academic achievement compared to students’ estimates, our findings support the inclusion of the books-at-home measure in the parent questionnaire rather than in the student questionnaire (see Hovestadt & Schneider, 2021, for convergent findings regarding parental education).

Limitations, future directions, and conclusion

Several limitations exist in the current study. First, no information was available on the processes that occur within families, which might help to explain the effects of the number of books and the number of children’s books on students’ learning outcomes. While it can reasonably be assumed that books at home form an important basis for home literacy activities, such as joint reading activities or talking about reading experiences (e.g., Martin & Mullis, 2013; McElvany et al., 2009), future studies should deliberately assess students’ home literacy activities to inform our understanding of the role of parents’ books compared to children’s books for student outcomes.

Second, the present analyses are based on cross-sectional data and, thus, do not allow for drawing causal inferences. We assumed and modeled the various SES indicators as predictors of students’ academic language comprehension and can reasonably exclude reverse causality for most relations. Parents’ number of books and, in particular, their occupational status and education are most likely unaffected by their children’s academic language comprehension. However, reciprocal relations may occur between academic language comprehension and children’s own books, as children with greater mastery of the academic register may demand and be supplied with more books than students who are less proficient in academic language comprehension (cf. Mol & Bus, 2011).

Third, students’ academic language comprehension was the only outcome measure involved in our analyses. Academic language proficiency has been shown to be substantially related to competencies in a variety of domains, such as reading comprehension, mathematics, and science (e.g., Schuth et al., 2017; Volodina et al., 2021b), thus confirming it as a meaningful variable for investigating social inequalities in student achievement. However, the predictive value of the books-at-home measure and its extensions might be smaller for less language-bound measures.

Fourth, although we controlled for parents’ occupational status and education, which are both substantially related to the various books-at-home measures and students’ academic language comprehension, further measures that might help capture an even more nuanced picture of the relation between the number of books at home and student achievement were not considered. Specifically, information on parents’ home ownership, living space, and recent or upcoming moves, which all may relate to the number of books at home were not included in the dataset. In particular, frequent relocations may pair with a diminished personal book stock independent of a person’s occupational status and education.

Despite these limitations and open questions, which are subject to future research, the present study’s results may serve as an important basis for selecting and assessing SES indicators in social research. In particular, they increase our knowledge of the validity of the books-at-home measure, which is ubiquitously used in surveys and large-scale assessments but the quality of which has only rarely been scrutinized.