It was also interesting to note that respondents thought it essentially as easy to change sexual preferences as it was the body mass index

Beliefs about personal change. Adrian Furnham, Ryne A. Sherman. Acta Psychologica, Volume 232, February 2023, 103821. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103821

Abstract: In all, 510 Europeans completed an online questionnaire rating their beliefs about personal change, including the established Dweck Mindset measure. Their ratings of 27 characteristics from BMI to sexual preference factored into 5 interpretable factors labelled Personality, Beliefs and Habits, Health, Social Status and Physical. Correlation indicated beliefs about change were most related to religious beliefs but also sex and age. Dweck ratings of ability and personality growth were logically related to beliefs about change on the five factors and also to religious beliefs and self-rated optimism. Regressions indicated that being religious was the most consistent predictor about change, as well as age and education. Many beliefs about change were in direct contraction to the academic literature on the topic. Implications and limitations are acknowledged.

Keywords: AbilityChangePersonalityGrowthMindset

4. Discussion

The issue concerning the possibility of (positive) change over a life-time in personal characteristics could be dichotomised as an optimistic vs pessimistic, idealist vs realist or essentialists vs non essentialist difference (Haslam et al., 2004). Our question is why some people favour one approach over another and their correlates; what personal factors predict whether individuals believe in change? Dweck has addressed this but focusing on just two characteristics.

Probably academics are just as divided as lay-people on this issue, possibly because of the difficulty of doing research. To answer the question means getting very high quality, longitudinal data over long periods of time (up to 50 years) where a wide variety of possibly confounding, mediating and moderating factors that influence changes in behaviour at different points in time are also assessed. While some researchers have been able to tap into various existent data banks (in education, medical and military) environments, each has problems associated with it making it difficult to answer some of the fundamental questions of change (Furnham and Cheng, 2015a, Furnham and Cheng, 2015b, Furnham and Cheng, 2016, Furnham and Cheng, 2017).

In this study we looked at people's beliefs about change about a wide range of characteristics including those variables often examined by differential psychologists, namely personality and intelligence. It appears that overall they believe Neuroticism and Conscientiousness were more likely to change compared to Openness and Extraversion. They also believed both EQ and IQ were equally likely to change, while there is extensive evidence of the stability of IQ and the many and extensive failure of efforts to improve it (Deary et al., 2000). The four features they thought least likely to change were height, religious beliefs, punctuality and trait Openness while those most likely to change were physical health, wealth, EQ and looks. It was also interesting to note that respondents thought it essentially as easy to change sexual preferences as it was BMI. Again, the academic literature would suggest the opposite (Seligman, 2007). One question is where people get their ideas about change, and indeed how easy it is the change their beliefs about change. Further there is the question of how much change (fundamental vs trivial) and whether the change is long lasting. Thus diets can lead to change in BMI but often there is a clear return to the original BMI.

As may be expected, people who were more likely to believe that they had changed were more likely to believe change possible. This makes it all the more desirable to have observer data on change. Indeed, when people meet at reunions (school, university, military) after long periods they appear to be surprised how little people had changed in their personality, beliefs and behaviour compared to their physical appearance. This suggests a classic attribution error.

The factor analysis of 27 characteristics made sense and reasonably confirmed the a-priori classification of the items. The positive correlations between the five factors (0.20 < r < 0.63) with half being greater than r > 0.40 suggests a Mindset type factor: Chango-philes and Chango-phobes.

Correlations with the two Dweck Mindset factors showed an interesting difference. It was the ability growth mindset that seemed most related to the change factors, which makes sense. Some would see this as a naïve optimism that ability, and many more human characteristics are susceptible to change, rather than the concept growth which is not as clear.

Age was not strongly related to beliefs about change but two of the five correlations were significant in the expected direction proving some support for H1. No doubt religious people endorse the concept of change more than non-religious people as most religions focus on personal change and consequent redemption. This confirmed H2. Equally it was interesting to observe that political beliefs were unrelated to beliefs about change which did not confirm H3. There was strong evidence for H4 and H5 that optimistic people with high self-esteem believed most in the opportunity for change.

Lay beliefs about change is certainly relevant to all those attempting to help people change their behaviour like clinicians, coaches and counsellors. Presumably people would not seek out help if they did not believe they could undergo some sort of beneficial change though understanding their beliefs about how the process works and their part in it, as well as how much they can change are important. Thus being naively optimistic may be as much as predictor of failure as cynical skepticism about change. Indeed it is not clear whether many “self-help” change books and programmes promise much more than they can possibly deliver.

Like all studies this had limitations. It would have been desirable to know more about the participants, particularly their personal attempts at changing any aspect of their lifestyle or themselves. Similarly it would have been desirable to have actual measures of their IQ, health and personality to determine whether these are related to change beliefs.

New well-being measure considers egative affect (pain, sadness, anger and worry) & positive affect (life satisfaction, enjoyment, smiling and being well-rested)

Wellbeing Rankings. David G. Blanchflower & Alex Bryson. NBER Working Paper 30759, December 2022. DOI 10.3386/w30759.

Abstract: Combining data on around four million respondents from the Gallup World Poll and the US Daily Tracker Poll we rank 164 countries, the 50 states of the United States and the District of Colombia on eight wellbeing measures. These are four positive affect measures - life satisfaction, enjoyment, smiling and being well-rested – and four negative affect variables – pain, sadness, anger and worry. Pooling the data for 2008-2017 we find country and state rankings differ markedly depending on whether they are ranked using positive or negative affect measures. The United States ranks lower on negative than positive affect, that is, its country wellbeing ranking looks worse using negative affect than it does when using positive affect. Combining rankings on all eight measures into a summary ranking index for 215 geographical locations we find that nine of the top ten and 16 of the top 20 ranked are US states. Only one US state ranks outside the top 100 – West Virginia (101). Iraq ranks lowest - just below South Sudan. Country-level rankings on the summary wellbeing index differ sharply from those reported in the World Happiness Index and are more comparable to those obtained with the Human Development Index.

---

Americans Have Found Their Happy Place. Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-12-23/the-happiest-place-on-earth-hawaii-and-the-rest-of-america-too

Two economists, David G. Blanchflower of Dartmouth and Alex Bryson of University College London, have come up with a new and more intuitive way to measure well-being. The results are striking. If you consider US states as comparable to countries, 16 of the top 20 political units in the world for well-being are in the US — including the top seven.

Many happiness surveys ask individuals how satisfied they are with their lives. That is one way of phrasing the happiness question, but it has its biases. It tends to favor nations where people have a strong sense of self-satisfaction — or, if you want to put a more negative gloss on it, where the people are somewhat smug. Those are some of the studies in which Finland and Denmark come in first.

The genius of this most recent study is that it considers both positive and negative affect, and gives countries (and US states) separate ratings for the two. In other words, it recognizes there is more than one dimension to well-being. It lists four variables as part of negative affect: pain, sadness, anger and worry. Positive affect consists of four measures: life satisfaction, enjoyment, smiling and being well-rested. So life satisfaction is only one part of the measure.

One interesting result is that nations that avoid negative affect are not necessarily the same as those which enjoy the highest positive affect. Some countries — including the US — have a lot of extremes. Americans tend to go to the limit on both the upside and the downside.

Bhutan is an extreme contrast along these same lines. Measured only by positive affect, the Bhutanese are No. 9 in the world, an impressive showing. But for negative affect they rank No. 149 — in other words, they experience a great deal of negative emotion, perhaps due to the extreme hardships in their lives. Considering both positive and negative affect, they come in at No. 99, not a bad showing for such a poor country (better, in fact, than the UK’s 111.)

Denmark’s positive affect puts it only at No. 71, befitting the popular image of a country where not everyone is jumping for joy. Arkansas has a better positive affect, coming in at No. 67. But Denmark rates higher overall (38, to Arkansas’s 72) because Arkansas shows higher negative affect (87, to Denmark’s 66).

Measuring both positive and negative affect, the 10 happiest political units in the world are, in order: Hawaii, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Taiwan, Alaska and Wisconsin. Of the top 50 places, 36 are US states (I include the District of Columbia, No. 16). China is No. 30.

Zero-sum thinking is associated with preferences for progressive economic policies in general (redistribution, affirmative action inter alia)

Zero-Sum Thinking and the Roots of U.S. Political Divides. Shahil Chinoy, Nathan Nunn, Sandra Sequeira, and Stefanie Stantcheva. Dec 2022. https://nathannunn.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2022/12/Zero_Sum_US_Political_Divides.pdf

Abstract: We examine the causes and consequences of an important cultural and psychological trait: the extent to which one views the world in zero-sum terms – i.e., that benefits to one person or group tend to come at the cost of others. We implement a survey among approximately 15,000 individuals living in the United States that measures zero-sum thinking, political and policy views, and a rich set of characteristics about their ancestry. We find that a more zero-sum view is strongly correlated with several policy views about the importance of government, the value of redistributive policies, the impact of immigration, and one’s political orientation. We find that zero-sum thinking can be explained by experiences of an individual’s ancestors (parents and grandparents), including the amount of intergenerational upward mobility they experienced, the degree of economic hardship they suffered, whether they immigrated to the United States or were exposed to more immigrants, and whether they had experiences with enslavement. These findings underscore the importance of psychological traits, and how they are transmitted inter-generationally, in explaining current political divides in the United States.

---

We then study the potential implications of a zero-sum mindset for attitudes and views in the United States. We find that individuals who view the world in more zero-sum terms tend to support policies that redistribute income from the rich to the poor or redistribute access to resources towards disadvantaged groups. This includes redistributive policies like taxation, universal healthcare, and affirmative action for women and African-Americans. Consistent with these specific views, we also find that zero-sum thinking is associated with preferences for liberal economic policies in general and with stronger political alignment with the Democratic Party (and weaker alignment with the Republican Party).

[...]

Zero-sum thinking has also been studied in the context of in-groups and out-groups. An#alyzing which factors increase the likelihood of hosting refugees, Piotrowski et al. (2019) find that zero-sum thinking is positively correlated with patriotism (a view in which out-groups are perceived as cooperators) and a willingness to host refugees, and negatively correlated with nationalism (a view in which out-groups are perceived as competitors). On racial attitudes, Norton and Sommers (2011) document that white respondents seem to consider racism a zero#sum game in which decreases in perceived bias against Black people over time translate into higher “reverse racism” against white people. Wilkins et al. (2015) show that high-status groups (white people and men) are more likely to espouse zero-sum beliefs than low-status groups (Black people and women), especially when they feel that their own group is being discriminated against. Stefaniak et al. (2020) also show that zero-sum beliefs are more common among white respondents (the advantaged group) than among Black respondents (the disadvantaged group) and are positively correlated with supporting the status quo, i.e., negatively correlated with their willingness to become “allies” of disadvantaged groups. Our evidence on how historical exposure to enslavement in the U.S. shapes zero-sum thinking among white individuals today is in line with these findings.

Was GPT-3 a Psychopath? Evaluating Large Language Models from a Psychological Perspective

Is GPT-3 a Psychopath? Evaluating Large Language Models from a Psychological Perspective. Xingxuan Li, Yutong Li, Linlin Liu, Lidong Bing, Shafiq Joty. Dec 20 2022. https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.10529v1

Abstract: Are large language models (LLMs) like GPT-3 psychologically safe? In this work, we design unbiased prompts to evaluate LLMs systematically from a psychological perspective. Firstly, we test the personality traits of three different LLMs with Short Dark Triad (SD-3) and Big Five Inventory (BFI). We find all of them show higher scores on SD-3 than the human average, indicating a relatively darker personality. Furthermore, LLMs like InstructGPT and FLAN-T5, which are fine-tuned with safety metrics, do not necessarily have more positive personalities. They score higher on Machiavellianism and Narcissism than GPT-3. Secondly, we test the LLMs in GPT-3 series on well-being tests to study the impact of fine-tuning with more training data. Interestingly, we observe a continuous increase in well-being scores from GPT-3 to InstructGPT. Following the observations, we show that instruction-finetune FLAN-T5 with positive answers in BFI can effectively improve the model from a psychological perspective. Finally, we call on the community to evaluate and improve LLMs' safety systematically instead of at the sentence level only.

Do you remember the hype around the gut microbiome, when it was widely believed that depletion of gut bacteria in rodents fuels anxiety and affects social behavior? Ideas left in the dust.

A Systematic Review of the Effects of Gut Microbiota Depletion on Social and Anxiety-related Behaviours in Adult Rodents: Implications for Translational Research. Loreto Olavarría-Ramírez et al. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, December 22 2022, 105013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.105013

Abstract: The microbiota-gut-brain axis is associated with several behaviours, including those relevant to anxiety or sociability in rodents, however, no conceptual framework has yet been available. Summary of the effects of antibiotic-mediated gut microbiota depletion on anxiety and sociability is essential to both inform further preclinical investigations and to guide translational research into human studies. The main objective is to examine the role of gut microbiota depletion on anxiety and sociability in rodents, and to consider how the findings can be translated to inform the design of research in humans. We reviewed 13 research articles, indicating significant changes in gut microbiota composition and diversity have been found in animals treated with a mix or a single antibiotic. Nonetheless, there is no consensus regarding the impact of gut microbiota depletion on anxiety-like or social behaviour. Gut microbiota depletion may be a useful strategy to examine the role of gut microbes in anxiety and sociability, but the lack of data from rigorous animal investigations precludes any definitive interpretations for a translational impact on human health.

Introduction

Anxiety patterns represent a well-known mental health issue in humans (Terlizzi and Norris 2021). Anxiety is a behavioural and physiological condition in humans and animals characterised by stress-associated feelings of tension and expectancy as well as physiological changes (Steimer 2002). In extreme cases, anxiety can be a component of severe neuropsychiatric disorders, including Generalised Anxiety Disorder (Hidalgo and Sheehan, 2012, DeMartini et al., 2019) and Major Depressive Disorder (Trivedi 2020).Another important component of human well-being and mental health is sociability. Social skills are essential to build resilience to social stress from childhood (Fenwick-Smith et al. 2018), and deficits in this ability represent a risk factor for a range of psychosocial problems and mental health issues (Uzunian and Vitalle, 2015, Turner et al., 2018, Fusar-Poli et al., 2020). In rodents, social skills are crucial in supporting life in social groups, and rodent studies have provided valuable information into social behaviour (Lee and Beery 2019). Social recognition and social memory are closely related abilities with important implications in the social structure of rodents, as they may need to recognize and remember specific individuals in order to assess how to behave toward these individuals (Lee and Beery 2019). These social elements have been useful for the development of rodent models of impaired social skills, i.e., Autism Spectre Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder (Toth et al., 2012, Kazdoba et al., 2016, Qi et al., 2021).

The gut microbiome refers to the trillions of microorganisms including bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses interacting with each other within the gut (Cryan et al. 2019), and is capable of significantly participating in the bidirectional communication between the gut and the brain, suggesting the term “microbiota-gut-brain axis” (Cryan et al. 2019). In the context of the microbiome, more specific microbial communities are further defined, including the mycobiome (the collective of fungi within the microbiome (Seed 2014)), and the virome (the collective of viruses in found in the host (Liang and Bushman 2021)).

The gut microbiome has been shown to be involved in brain function and behaviour, with specific relevance to anxiety (Cryan and Dinan, 2012, Cryan et al., 2019). Varying gut microbiota composition, function, and relative abundance of specific taxa have been associated with diverse health conditions including autoimmune diseases, metabolic disorders, cancer, anxiety and sociability (Duvallet et al., 2017, Nishida et al., 2018, Sherwin et al., 2019, Simpson et al., 2021). In contrast, changes in the microbiome have also been linked to potential beneficial effects, including promotion of mental health-boosting and anti-stress actions (Dinan and Cryan, 2017, van de Wouw et al., 2018). For example, differences in the gut microbiome have been associated with improvements in depression, anxiety (Simpson et al. 2021), autism (Kang et al., 2017, Fattorusso et al., 2019), and neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease (Jiang et al. 2017), Huntington’s disease (Konjevod et al. 2021), and Parkinson’s disease (Sampson et al., 2016, Sun and Shen, 2018). However, despite the correlations between psychiatric disorders and the microbiome that have been highlighted, the causal role of gut-brain interactions in the pathophysiology of these disorders remains unclear.

In preclinical research, the microbiota-gut-brain axis has been experimentally addressed by using specific animal paradigms, such as germ-free (GF) animals, antibiotics (ABX), pre/probiotic supplementation (Luczynski et al., 2016, Kennedy et al., 2018), and faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) (Gheorghe et al. 2021) to manipulate the gut microbiome and observe the consequences for brain function and behaviour. Each paradigm has particular benefits in research. For example, GF animals are born and raised in aseptic conditions to ensure the complete absence of microbes, which has facilitated understanding of the effects of gut microbiota specifically during development (Bhattarai and Kashyap 2016). Prebiotics, compounds that can induce growth of beneficial microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract (Holscher 2017), or probiotics, live bacteria with beneficial effects to health (Azad et al. 2018), can be administered at different life stages to study their effects in the host. The ABX approach (which can involve individual antibiotics or their combination in a cocktail) is used to either significantly decrease the prevalence of specific bacteria or to induce depletion of the whole gut bacterial microbiome, without interfering with other communities, such as the mycobiome and the virome (Angelucci et al. 2019). This technique has particular translational utility given the ubiquitous global use of antibiotics (Browne et al. 2021), and may provide insight into possible consequences of antibiotic consumption on the brain. Researchers may be advised to consider this advantage of ABX studies over the germ-free or FMT approach (the latter requiring a pre-transplant antibiotic treatment), while these alternative techniques offer more consistent and complete microbiome changes.

A plethora of studies have investigated the association of gut microbiome changes in composition and diversity with anxiety (Bear et al., 2021, Foster, 2021, Simpson et al., 2021) and sociability (Sherwin et al., 2019, Vuong and Hsiao, 2019, Bellone and Luscher, 2021). Most of these investigations have been carried out in rodent models and using antibiotics to deplete the gut microbiota (Kennedy et al. 2018), and have produced variable behavioural and physiological outcomes. Because of these variable outcomes and the relative novelty of the field, it has been challenging to interpret the potential role of the microbiota-gut-brain axis in anxiety and sociability, as well as the applied implications for human mental health. Thus, it is necessary to compile and summarize the current data to discuss and interpret the consequences of microbiota depletion in anxiety-like behaviour and sociability in rodent models, and to determine the research that is yet to be done to facilitate future translatability.

Changes in gut microbiome composition and diversity tend to be measured using a few common parameters: alpha-diversity (variation within a microbiome), beta-diversity (variation between microbiomes), and relative abundances of phyla (groups with a defined similarity in 16 S rRNA genes). While these parameters are well-conceived and informative, an intestinal microbiome is a complex high-dimensional structure with many other properties, with the potential for causal relationships with the brain. For instance, the degree of disruption of a microbiome (independent of its pre- and post-intervention states) may determine its effects on the nervous system; this is supported by some apparently paradoxical effects of microbiome products on neural activity (Darch and McCafferty 2022). Equally, the pre-intervention state of a microbiome may determine whether an intervention can influence behaviour. Finally, the characteristics of a microbiome as it pertains to behaviour may depend upon the absolute abundance of a particular genus, or even species, of bacteria rather than the relative abundance of phyla and genera (Rinninella et al. 2019). These parameters are less frequently used in existing studies, perhaps due to the ease of inter-study comparison afforded by relative abundance, and the challenges of testing all 100+ species for significant differences in absolute abundance.

ABX utilise different mechanisms to either kill or prevent the growth and spread of bacteria (Hutchings et al. 2019). For instance, some ABX like ampicillin, β-lactams that inhibit the biosynthesis of the cell wall of bacteria impacting a broad spectrum of species (Peechakara and Gupta 2021). Others, like vancomycin, specifically inhibit cell wall biosynthesis of Gram-positive bacteria (Levine 2006). Depending on the hypothesis being tested in a given study, specific bacterial communities or a wider spectrum of microbial species/genera can be depleted in the gastrointestinal tract by using single ABX or a more complex cocktail. The use of ABX to investigate the role of the gut microbiome carries advantages in terms of cost, time, and specificity in comparison to the other prominent microbiota-depleted murine model, germ-free animals. First, state-of-the-art facilities are necessary to breed rodents under GF conditions for multiple generations (Bhattarai and Kashyap 2016), while the exposure to ABXs can be applied in most animal facilities with minimal infrastructure (Kennedy et al. 2018). Second, GF models are limited as translational models due to the difficulties in assessing rodent behaviour in a germ-free environment, and the substantive difference between a pre-birth through development abolition of the entire microbiome on one hand, and the types of microbiome perturbations likely to occur in humans on the other (Uzbay 2019). These are important considerations which are reflected in the higher number of studies using ABX administration compared with GF animals, supporting the aim of this review in focusing on ABX-induced microbiota depletion.

Although the specific mechanisms of how the gut microbiota communicates with the brain are just starting to be deciphered, in the last decade extensive research has demonstrated that this bidirectional communication can occur via inflammatory pathways (Rooks and Garrett 2016), vagus nerve signalling (Bravo et al. 2011), and microbiota-derived metabolites (Dalile et al. 2019). For example, an investigation comparing GF mice with specific pathogen free (SPF) mice revealed that the GF group display less anxiety-like behaviour (Neufeld et al. 2011). Another study demonstrated that the anxiety-like behaviour can be transferred through the gut microbiota via FMT (Li et al. 2019). In terms of sociability, pre-clinical studies using GF mice showed deficits in social recognition and social cognition (Buffington et al., 2016, Sgritta et al., 2019). These insights suggest that a perturbed or totally absent gut microbiome may result in altered anxiety-associated behaviours and social behaviours.

The most used behavioural tests to measure anxiety-related behaviours in rodents include the light-dark box test, the elevated plus maze test and the open field test (Lezak et al. 2017), which are based on measuring the natural avoidance behaviour of rodents towards open and illuminated areas (Holter et al. 2015). Since rodents are social beings, social recognition is critical for the structure and stability of their environment (Lacey and Solomon 2003). The three-chamber social interaction test assesses the interaction of a rodent with a conspecific and with an object, where increased preference for the former is interpreted as increased sociability (Kaidanovich-Beilin et al. 2011).

Understanding the effects of gut microbiota depletion in rodent models and their consequences for anxiety and sociability may provide valuable information about the microbiome-gut-brain axis in general, and guide translational research on the potential for microbiome interventions to modulate human anxiety and/or sociability. The aim of the present review is therefore to examine the effects of gut microbiota depletion with ABX on anxiety and sociability in rodents.

Why do Black households live in neighborhoods with much lower socioeconomic status than the neighborhoods of white households with similar incomes?

What explains neighborhood sorting by income and race? Dionissi Aliprantis, Daniel R.Carroll, Eric R.Young. Journal of Urban Economics, December 20 2022, 103508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2022.103508

Abstract: Why do Black households live in neighborhoods with much lower socioeconomic status (SES) than the neighborhoods of white households with similar incomes? The explanation is not wealth. High-income, high-wealth Black households live in neighborhoods with similar SES as low-income, low-wealth white households. Instead, we provide evidence that many Black households prefer low-SES neighborhoods with Black residents to high-SES neighborhoods without Black residents. The variety of neighborhood SES available in a metro’s Black neighborhoods, which is typically low, drives the neighborhood SES of Black households.

Keywords: NeighborhoodIncomeWealthRaceHomophily

JEL J15J18R11R23

5 Conclusion

This paper documented new facts about neighborhood sorting in the US. It was previously known that Black and white households of similar incomes live in neighborhoods with different levels of socioeconomic status (SES). It was also previously known that the racial composition of neighborhoods affects location choices. What was not known before this paper was whether wealth or the price of neighborhood SES were omitted variables that could explain racial differences in neighborhood SES, and the extent to which racial composition affects African Americans’ neighborhood SES. We have shown that financial constraints related to wealth or the price of housing do not explain neighborhood sorting by income and race, and that race is a central determinant of the neighborhood externalities experienced by African Americans. Future research will be needed to quantify the relative importance of psychological costs and benefits, white flight, and racial discrimination. Our results draw attention to what we consider to be an under-appreciated phenomenon, the psychological costs of being “Black in white space” (Anderson (2020)). The psychological costs of living in predominantly-white neighborhoods are large enough for many African Americans to outweigh any educational, labor market, or safety benefits they might experience due to living in a higher-SES neighborhood. Interpreted in terms of this mechanism, our results provide one way of quantifying how costly it is for Black people to interact with white people. As suggested here at the level of neighborhoods, and in other studies at the levels of schools and workplaces (Fletcher et al. (2020), Ananat et al. (2020), Hellerstein and Neumark (2008)), making “white spaces” more welcoming for Black people appears to be an important step in achieving racial equality. By showing that race outweighs economic factors for neighborhood sorting in the US, this paper highlights that public policy should not be focused entirely on access and economics, but should also be designed with attention to race. In the case of generating integrated neighborhoods, the success or failure of policies will hinge on understanding precisely which factors matter the most in determining neighborhood choices. The preferred policy might be very different depending on whether neighborhood choices are driven more by discrimination in the housing market (Turner et al. (2013), Ross and Yinger (2002)); the related inertia of past practices (Courchane and Ross (2019), Nowak and Smith (2018)); information (Bergman et al. (2020)); family and social networks (B¨uchel et al. (2019), van der Klaauw et al. (2019)); racial hostility (Harriot (2019)); white flight (Shertzer and Walsh (2019), Derenoncourt (2018), Card et al. (2008), Ellen (2000)); amenities (Caetano and Maheshri (2019)); preferences for same-race neighbors or communities (Bayer and Blair (2019), Wong (2013)); or the supply of new housing (Monkkonen et al. (2020)); and the extent to which these mechanisms have changed over time (Blair (2019), Mallach (2019)).

Assortative mating on blood type: Evidence from one million Chinese pregnancies

Assortative mating on blood type: Evidence from one million Chinese pregnancies. Yao Hou et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 14, 2022, Vol. 119 (no. 51) e2209643119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2209643119

Significance: In the human population, spousal pairs have been found to share phenotypes, which demonstrates the highly nonrandom nature of human mate choice. However, assortative mating on blood type—one of the most fundamental phenotypes in biological, medical, and psychological studies—has not been investigated. Using a unique dataset from China, we provide statistical analysis to test whether matching on blood type is nonrandom and find a set of strong evidence for assortative mating on blood type. The findings are robust after we control for the effect of other possible mechanisms, and show that the spousal concordance on blood type we observe is attributable to not only an individual’s mate opportunity but also their mate choice.

Abstract: Blood type is one of the most fundamental phenotypes in biological, medical, and psychological studies. Using a unique dataset of one million Chinese pregnancies, we find strong evidence from a group of statistical tests for assortative mating on blood type. After controlling for anthropometric and socioeconomic confounders, assortative mating remains robust.

Possible Reasons for Assortative Mating on Blood Type

Having shown robust evidence for assortative mating on blood type, we investigate potential reasons. One possible explanation is that blood type may act as a proxy for other phenotypes. As previously stated, many studies have validated assortative mating on a group of phenotypes, such as BMI, weight, height, and IQ (10, 16–21). That is, individuals tend to choose a partner who shares similarities along these dimensions when making mate choices. If blood type is associated with these phenotypes, spousal concordance on blood type will be observed because of assortative mating. Using personal information provided by the dataset, we examine bivariate correlation between blood type and other phenotypes (Fig. 2). There appear to be some associations between blood type and the phenotypes we examine: education, job type, height, weight, pressure, and drinking habits. However, most associations have a relatively small correlation coefficient lying between −0.03 and 0.03.

[...]

To further explore to what extent assortative mating on blood type can be explained by its correlation with other phenotypes, we performed mediation analysis. Specifically, we first regressed the individual’s blood type on her partner’s using a logistic regression model, then incorporated a mediator—i.e., one of the partner’s phenotypes that might be associated with his blood type—to see whether and to what degree the effect of the partner’s blood type on the individual’s blood type is weakened after the mediator is included in the regression. We report the results of mediation analysis in Tables 7 and 8. As can be seen, the coefficients of the partner’s blood type decline after we included different mediators in the regression models, which shows that the associations between blood type and other phenotypes can explain assortative mating on blood type to a certain degree. We see from columns 2 to 9 in Table 7 and column 1 in Table 8 that the proportion of the coefficients of the partner’s blood type absorbed by mediators varies with blood type. For individuals with type B blood, when all mediators are included, the coefficients of the partner’s blood type are reduced by around 6 to 7%; for those with type A blood, the incorporation of mediators has little effect on estimation results for coefficients of the partner’s blood type, as shown in column 1 in Table 8. As for those with type AB blood or type O blood, the scale of mediator absorption is about 3 to 4%. However, a large fraction of assortativity remains unexplained. When we further included a group of control variables to isolate our measure of assortative mating from confounding factors—such as population stratification, province-level fixed effects, or even the individual’s phenotypes—in the regression, as indicated by the statistical significance of the coefficients of the partner’s blood type in columns 2 to 4 in Table 8, we still found strong evidence for assortative mating on blood type. These findings suggest that there could be other potential mechanisms for this pattern we observe in the data. Further investigation into this is left for future research.

The desire to be remembered: A review and analysis of legacy motivations and behaviors

The desire to be remembered: A review and analysis of legacy motivations and behaviors. Brett Waggoner, Jesse M. Bering. Jamin Halberstadt. New Ideas in Psychology, Volume 69, April 2023, 101005. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2022.101005

Abstract: The psychological motivations and mechanisms underlying a desire to be remembered after death is an understudied area in the social sciences. While previous research has indirectly investigated the pursuit of legacy as a means of coping with death anxiety, little attention has been paid to other potential factors involved in the appeal of leaving an individualistic (usually positive) mark in society that will outlive the self. In the present paper, we broaden the theoretical examination of the human drive for legacy, considering proximate motivations (e.g., alleviating death anxiety, concluding one's “life story” well, etc.) and ultimate causes (i.e., the direct or indirect reproductive effects that post-mortem reputations confer to surviving relatives). Additionally, we consider cognitive factors related to afterlife beliefs and perceptions of post-mortem consciousness, and their potential role in legacy-related desires. We conclude by discussing areas for further empirical investigations of the legacy drive.

Check also Legacy: Motivations and Mechanisms for a Desire to be Remembered. Brett Jordan Waggoner. PhD Thesis, Feb 2022. https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10523/14115/WaggonerBrettJ2022PhD.pdf

Introduction

Individual human beings have long strived to create and curate an enduring post-mortem reputation—their “legacy” (Braudy, 1986). They do this in a variety of ways, such as via sports achievement, creative works, having children, leaving a financial endowment, philanthropy, passing down family heirlooms, or extreme attention-grabbing acts (Hunter, 2008). In lay terms, legacy can be defined as “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past” or “a gift by will esp. of money or other personal property” (Merriam-Webster, 2014). Some researchers, working in the fields of positive psychology or narratology, have also emphasized the process of legacy, as in “the process of passing oneself through generations, creating continuity from the past through the present to the future” (Hunter, 2008, p. 314).

What is largely missing from these examples is any explicit reference to the fact that legacy centers, rather curiously, on the reputation of the self after death. It is primarily this aspect of legacy (how others will regard the self once that self ceases to exist, and why this is of particular concern to the living) that we examine in the present article. Absent a belief in the continued capacity to know how one is being regarded despite being dead, it is unclear why we should care how others will view us, or our life's work, after our consciousness expires. And yet, the desire and motivation to leave a legacy, even among those who do not believe in an afterlife, is ostensibly a powerful influence on our lives.

Although previous scholars have investigated concepts related to legacy, such as terror management theory (Becker, 1973; Solomon et al., 1991) and generativity (Erikson, 1950, 1968; McAdams et al., 1998), it is a surprisingly understudied research topic (for exceptions, see Aarssen & Altman, 2006; Sligte et al., 2013; Fox et al., 2010; Hunter & Rowles, 2005; Wade-Benzoni & Tost, 2009; Wade-Benzoni et al., 2010). Furthermore, what little work has been done in this area has tended to neglect the most puzzling question of all, which is why people seem so predisposed to ensure their own positive reputations when, at least from a materialistic perspective, they will not be able to experience it. In what follows, therefore, we consider proximate causes of the legacy drive (e.g., pursuing “symbolic immortality” to assuage death anxiety, e.g., Greenberg et al., 1986, creating a satisfying ending to one's “life story”, e.g., McAdams, 1993, etc.), ultimate causes (e.g., the direct or indirect reproductive effects that post-mortem reputations might confer to surviving biological relatives, whether these effects are positive or negative), and possible cognitive factors mediating between these levels of causation, such as a so-called default afterlife stance that – even among afterlife nonbelievers – promotes the representation of the future dead self as a conscious, experiential agent (Bering, 2006).

At age 50, people who had met diagnostic criteria for depression when surveyed at ages 27-35 earn 10% lower hourly wages, work 120-180 fewer hours annually, together generating 24% lower annual wage incomes

Lasting Scars: The Impact of Depression in Early Adulthood on Subsequent Labor Market Outcomes. Buyi Wang, Richard G. Frank & Sherry A. Glied. NBER Working Paper 30776, December 2022. DOI 10.3386/w30776

Abstract: A growing body of evidence indicates that poor health early in life can leave lasting scars on adult health and economic outcomes. While much of this literature focuses on childhood experiences, mechanisms generating these lasting effects – recurrence of illness and interruption of human capital accumulation – are not limited to childhood. In this study, we examine how an episode of depression experienced in early adulthood affects subsequent labor market outcomes. We find that, at age 50, people who had met diagnostic criteria for depression when surveyed at ages 27-35 earn 10% lower hourly wages (conditional on occupation) and work 120-180 fewer hours annually, together generating 24% lower annual wage incomes. A portion of this income penalty (21-39%) occurs because depression is often a chronic condition, recurring later in life. But a substantial share (25-55%) occurs because depression in early adulthood disrupts human capital accumulation, by reducing work experience and by influencing selection into occupations with skill distributions that offer lower potential for wage growth. These lingering effects of early depression reinforce the importance of early and multifaceted intervention to address depression and its follow-on effects in the workplace.

We demonstrate that both trait emotional intelligence and cognitive ability uniquely predict less concern for political correctness and more support for freedom of speech

The Effects of Trait Emotional Intelligence and Cognitive Ability. Louise Drieghe, Arne Roets, Jonas De keersmaecker, Alain Van Hiel, and Dries Bostyn. Journal of Individual Differences, December 21, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000385

Abstract: Freedom of speech and political correctness are recurrent and contentious topics in contemporary society. The present study (N = 300 North-American adults) aimed to advance empirical knowledge on these issues by investigating how cognitive ability and trait emotional intelligence predict individuals’ support for freedom of speech and concern for political correctness, considering empathy and intellectual humility as mediating variables. We demonstrate that both trait emotional intelligence and cognitive ability uniquely predict less concern for political correctness and more support for freedom of speech. Mediation through empathy slightly suppressed the effects of cognitive ability and emotional intelligence on concern for political correctness, whereas intellectual humility no longer served as a mediating variable in the overall path analysis. Possible mechanisms, implications, and avenues for future research are discussed.

The Case for Space Sexology

The Case for Space Sexology. S. Dubé, M. Santaguida, D. Anctil, L. Giaccari & J. Lapierre. The Journal of Sex Research, Dec 8 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2021.2012639

Space poses significant challenges for human intimacy and sexuality. Life in space habitats during long-term travel, exploration, or settlement may: detrimentally impact the sexual and reproductive functions of astronauts, restrict privacy and access to intimate partners, impose hygiene protocols and abstinence policies, and heighten risks of interpersonal conflicts and sexual violence. Together, this may jeopardize the health and well-being of space inhabitants, crew performance, and mission success. Yet, little attention has been given to the sexological issues of human life in space. This situation is untenable considering our upcoming space missions and expansion. It is time for space organizations to embrace a new discipline, space sexology: the scientific study of extraterrestrial intimacy and sexuality. To make this case, we draw attention to the lack of research on space intimacy and sexuality; discuss the risks and benefits of extraterrestrial eroticism; and propose an initial biopsychosocial framework to envision a broad, collaborative scientific agenda on space sexology. We also underline key anticipated challenges faced by this innovative field and suggest paths to solutions. We conclude that space programs and exploration require a new perspective – one that holistically addresses the intimate and sexual needs of humans – in our pursuit of a spacefaring civilization.

Those who under-estimated their own mate value earned more matches in a speed dating contest than those who over-estimated their mate value

The Role of Accurate Self-Assessments in Optimizing Mate Choice. Kaitlyn T. Harper et al. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, December 21, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221135955

Abstract: Individuals are thought to seek the best possible romantic partner in exchange for their own desirability. We investigated whether individuals’ self-evaluations were related to their partner choices and whether the accuracy of these self-evaluations was associated with mating outcomes. Participants (N = 1,354) took part in a speed-dating study where they rated themselves and others on mate value and indicated their willingness to date each potential partner. Individuals were somewhat accurate in their self-evaluations, and these self-evaluations were associated with individuals’ revealed minimum and maximum standards for a potential partner, but not the number of partners they were interested in. Participants who overestimated their mate value were accepted by an equivalent number of partners compared with under-estimators, but the over-estimators were choosier and thus ended up with fewer (but similarly attractive) reciprocal matches. Results support social exchange theory and the matching hypothesis, and contrast findings that self-enhancement facilitates positive social outcomes.

Women’s legs in comic books are supernormal stimuli, being longer than those of actual women, and further extended by being drawn in heels or on tiptoe

Burch, R. L., & Widman, D. (2022). She's got legs: Longer legs in female comic book characters correspond to global preferences. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, Dec 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000318

Abstract: Previous studies have shown that comic book bodies are supernormal stimuli, exaggerated in dimensions that are attractive to primarily male comic book consumers. Following the same methodologies as previous experiments, this study examined height and leg length measurements of comic book characters in both Marvel and DC comics. In accordance with the literature on leg length and attractiveness, we predicted that comic book women would have longer legs than comic book men and would have longer than average legs, matching preferences shown in cross-cultural studies. We also hypothesized that comic book women would be depicted as wearing heels or walking on tiptoe more often, as this further elongates the legs. Results showed that female comic character leg length matched the most common preferred leg length in cross-cultural studies and 86%–88% of female characters were drawn as either wearing high heels or walking or standing on tiptoe.

Check also Comic book bodies are supernormal stimuli that cater to the unrealistic sexual imagination of a predominantly male audience

Burch, R. L., & Widman, D. R. (2021). Comic book bodies are supernormal stimuli: Comparison of DC, Marvel, and actual humans. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, Nov 2021. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2021/11/comic-book-bodies-are-supernormal.html

MicroRNAs are deeply linked to the emergence of the complex octopus brain

MicroRNAs are deeply linked to the emergence of the complex octopus brain. Grigoriy Zolotarov et al. Science Advances, Nov 25 2022, Vol 8, Issue 47. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.add99

Abstract: Soft-bodied cephalopods such as octopuses are exceptionally intelligent invertebrates with a highly complex nervous system that evolved independently from vertebrates. Because of elevated RNA editing in their nervous tissues, we hypothesized that RNA regulation may play a major role in the cognitive success of this group. We thus profiled messenger RNAs and small RNAs in three cephalopod species including 18 tissues of the Octopus vulgaris. We show that the major RNA innovation of soft-bodied cephalopods is an expansion of the microRNA (miRNA) gene repertoire. These evolutionarily novel miRNAs were primarily expressed in adult neuronal tissues and during the development and had conserved and thus likely functional target sites. The only comparable miRNA expansions happened, notably, in vertebrates. Thus, we propose that miRNAs are intimately linked to the evolution of complex animal brains.

DISCUSSION

Coleoid cephalopods are unusual among invertebrates in having a nervous system comparable to the central nervous system of vertebrates, at least in terms of the neuronal number and anatomical specialization (3) and hence in terms of its complexity (32, 33). Nonetheless, the complexity of the coleoid nervous system belies the generality of its protein-encoding genomic content, in particular its set of transcription factors (table S2). Aside from independent expansions of the C2H2 zinc finger–encoding and protocadherin-encoding genes in the squid and octopus lineages, the octopus has a canonical repertoire of transcription factors similar to other lophotrochozoans (5, 6). Coupling this generalized protein-encoding repertoire with the reported elevated rates of A-to-I editing in coleoid neural tissues (8, 9) led us to hypothesize that RNA regulation in general might be involved in driving an apparent increase in the complexity of the coleoid nervous system. Our data and analyses argue that in terms of alternative splicing diversity and rates (including back-splicing that generates circRNAs), as well as mRNA cleavage and polyadenylation patterns, there is no major departure from other invertebrates. Further, we find no evidence for substantial editing in miRNA seed sequences nor in potential target sites either in the abrogation of a genetically encoded site or in the creation of a newly relevant site (figs. S7 and S8). Furthermore, a recent study in O. bimaculoides and squid Doryteuthis pealeii reports no enrichment of A-to-I editing in any particular protein domain genome-wide with the vast majority of editing events found outside of coding regions (34). Of course, A-to-I editing may still be functionally important in individual cases (35), but the main function of this process in coleoids remains elusive.

On the other hand, a clear distinction in RNA regulation between coleoid cephalopods and all other known invertebrates is reflected in the marked expansion of their miRNA repertoire. The conservation of more than 50 miRNA loci in both the squid and octopus lineages since they diverged from one another nearly 300 million years ago (20) coupled with the 3′UTR (Fig. 2B), miRNA expression (Figs. 3 and 4), and target site (Fig. 5) analyses discussed above all strongly suggest that these miRNAs are functionally important during the development of the coleoid nervous system. In stark contrast to Octopus that evolved 90 novel miRNA families since its last common ancestor with the oyster Crassosstrea, the genus Crassostrea evolved only five novel miRNA families over the same span of geological time (36) as assessed through comparable levels and samples of small RNA sequencing data. Like in virtually all other increases to a miRNA repertoire, both the source and evolutionary pressures for the rise of these novel miRNA loci are not known; whole-genome duplications can be ruled out (5, 6), and scenarios may apply where novel miRNAs arise from the extensive genomic reorganizations found in coleoid taxa (5, 37). Whatever their source, once under selection, miRNAs in general are believed to improve the robustness of the developmental processes (38–42), increasing the heritability of the interaction (43–45), which might then allow for the evolution of new cell types (46) and ultimately morphological and behavior complexity (32, 47). With respect to the development of the nervous system, we note that at least in vertebrates, miRNAs are known to have highly complex expression patterns with, for example, miRNA transcripts localized to the synapse and modulating their function (48). Although it remains to be seen whether these types of pathways operate in coleoids, the notable explosion of the miRNA gene repertoire in coleoid cephalopods may indicate that miRNAs and, perhaps, their specialized neuronal functions are deeply linked and possibly required for the emergence of complex brains in animals.

People are bad at evaluating their own olfactory abilities, overestimating and underestimating them

Why We Both Trust and Mistrust Our Sense of Smell. Ophelia Deroy. Chp 3 in Theoretical Perspectives on Smell, Andreas Keller and Benjamin D. Young, Eds. Routledge, 2023. DOI: 10.4324/9781003207801

3.2 Trusting Our Sense of Smell: One Problem or Many?

Let’s go back to the initial claim, exemplified by the medical quote above, that people are bad at evaluating their own olfactory abilities. Besides such anecdotal evidence, this claim has been tested in controlled and systematic ways: subjects are asked to assess their olfactory capacities, before their actual capacities are measured using standardised test.

When such tests have been conducted, they found no correlation between subjective and objective olfactory ratings,1 or only a poor one. In what is perhaps the largest scale study, 2 involving more than 6,000 patients who were coming to a smell clinic, self-ratings of “good or excellent” sense of smell could predict at 64% the fact that one had a normal sense of smell, while almost 30% (355 subjects) of anosmic patients judged their ability to smell as at least “average”. Repeatedly, reports show that people are often unaware that their olfactory sense is missing—a tendency which also increases with age (Nordin et al. 1995; Shu et al. 2009; Oleszkiewicz et al. 2020; Oleszkiewicz & Hummel 2019). In another study, White and Kurtz (2003) asked young and old individuals to determine whether their sense of smell was in the lower, middle/average tier, or upper tier compared to the rest of the population, and compared their subjective evaluations with their actual score on the Detection, Discrimination, Identification test.

Their results showed that young people tended to judge their sense of smell as less good than what it was, while older people judged their sense of smell to better than in reality. Most participants over-estimated their sense of smell, and very few would provide assessments in line with their performance on the test.

Though such statistics can be surprising, they ask a more philosophical question: Why even expect that people could tell how good their sense of smell is? Do we after all, expect people to know how good their memory or digestion are, or just have a rough idea when things go very wrong?

The literature on olfactory self-evaluation is here largely coloured by the existence of “olfactory anosognosia”: cases where olfactory loss gets unnoticed, and people who can’t smell still think they can. For people with normal olfactory capacities however, the problem is that of a bias in their evaluation of how good their sense of smell is: they can be either over-confident and think their sense of smell is better than it is or underconfident and think their sense of smell is worse that it is.

Countries with higher estimated IQs are *generally* more prosperous, better educated, more innovative, healthier, and more democratic

National Mean IQ Estimates: Validity, Data Quality, and Recommendations. Russell T. Warne. Evolutionary Psychological Science, Dec 19 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-022-00351-y

Abstract: Estimates of mean IQ scores for different nations have engendered controversy since their first publication in 2002. While some researchers have used these mean scores to identify relationships between the scores and other national-level variables (e.g., economic and health variables) or test theories, others have argued that the scores are without merit and that any study using them is inherently and irredeemably flawed. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the quality of estimates of mean national IQs, discuss the validity of different interpretations and uses of the scores, point out shortcomings of the dataset, and suggest solutions that can compensate for the deficiencies in the data underpinning the estimated mean national IQ scores. My hope is that the scientific community can chart a middle course and reject the false dichotomy of either accepting the scores without reservation or rejecting the entire dataset out of hand.

Notes

1. This Flynn effect adjustment is often misunderstood. It does not increase or decrease the score of the country to reflect the age of the test. Rather, it adjusts the international IQ standard (where 100 = the mean in the UK) to the year of the test administration in a country so that the country’s measured IQ is compared to the estimated standard for the same year.

2. Only one sample had an overall quality rating of .18; it was collected in the United States. Four samples achieved an overall quality rating of .90. The data for these samples were collected in Tajikistan, the UK, the USA, and Yemen.

3. The width of a confidence interval is equal to ± 1.96(σn√)$\pm 1.96(\frac{\text{σ}}{\sqrt{n}})$, where σn√$\frac{\text{σ}}{\sqrt{n}}$ is equal to the standard error of the mean, σ = 15 (the default SD of a population on the IQ metric), and n is the combined sample size of all samples that contribute to a country’s mean IQ estimate (Warne, 2021, pp. 199–201).

4. These statistics are calculated using the absolute value of the differences between the QNW + SAS + GEO IQ in the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset and the IQ + GEO IQ for the previous version.

5. Listed in descending order of the magnitude of IQ change: Nicaragua (− 23.78 IQ points); Haiti (21.60 IQ points); Honduras (− 18.84 IQ points); Nepal (− 18.00 IQ points); Guatemala (− 17.71 IQ points); Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha (− 17.01 IQ points); Belize (− 16.25 IQ points); Cabo Verde (− 16.00 IQ points); Morocco (− 15.39 IQ points); Yemen (− 14.39 IQ points); Mauritania (− 14.00 IQ points); Chad (11.83 IQ points); Saint Lucia (11.71 IQ points); Barbados (11.69 IQ points); Senegal (− 10.50 IQ points); Republic of the Congo (− 10.03 IQ points); Côte d’Ivoire (− 10.02 IQ points); and Vanuatu (10.02 IQ points). Positive values in this list indicate that the new IQ estimates from Lynn and Becker (2019b) are higher than the earlier estimate. Negative values indicate the new value is lower.

6. This finding also occurs in cross-national comparisons of educational achievement test scores. See, for example, Angrist et al. (2021), Gust et al. (2022), and Patel and Sandefur (2020).

7. The PERCE 1997 and SERCE 2006 data are taken from official publications reporting country means for each grade level and subject (Oficina Regional de Educación para América Latina y el Caribe/UNESCO, 2001, p. 176; 2008, Tables A.3.1, A.3.5, A.4.1, A.4.5, and A.5.1). TERCE 2013 and ERCE 2019 data can be downloaded at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/llece/comparativo/main/datos_grafico_1-1.csv

8. Cuba did not participate in TERCE 2013. Its ERCE 2019 data are much more similar to data from other countries in Latin America.

9. The 1995 SACMEQ test only produced reading scores. The 2000 and 2007 SACMEQ tests produced a reading and mathematics score. The 2000 and 2007 scores were combined as an unweighted mean for each country when calculating correlations with the estimated national-level IQs.

10. The correlations between PASEC scores and the GEO IQ scores from the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset—i.e., with Benin and Burkina Faso removed—are r = .142 (for PASEC grade 2 language), r = .153 (for PASEC grade 2 mathematics), r =  − .662 (for PASEC grade 6 language), and r = −.262 (for PASEC grade 6 mathematics). This does not change the conclusion that geographically imputed scores have a poor correspondence with data drawn from a country.

11. The national PIRLS/TIMSS scores and the chart to convert LLECE and PASEC scores to PIRLS/TIMSS scores to one another are available at https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/patel-sandefur-human-capital-final-results.xlsx

12. I used the American mean in this calculation because the UK was not one of the countries in Patel and Sandefur’s (2020) study. The 2.5 IQ point adjustment is the standard adjustment that Lynn and Becker (2019b) used when examinees took a test normed in the USA instead of the UK.

13. Two regions, England and Northern Ireland, were part of the same country. When calculating correlations with QNW + SAS IQs, the Northern Ireland data were dropped, and the data for England was compared to QNW + SAS IQs for the entire UK.

14. Sear’s (2022) criticism of using IQ data from children to estimate IQs for an entire population shows that she does not understand that IQ scores are calculated by comparing examinees to their age peers. This functionally controls for age and allows scores from different age groups to have the same meaning. For an accessible explanation of how IQ scores are calculated, see Warne (2020), pp. 5–9.

15. Readers may be aware of Lim et al.’s (2018) study that measures human capital in 195 countries. These scores are not included in the discussion in this article because the underlying data are not solely cognitive/educational scores. Lim et al. (2018) also used health data and longevity/life expectancy data in the calculation of their human capital scores. Therefore, the Lim et al. (2018) data cannot be interpreted as a cognitive measure, which makes it inadequate to use for convergent validity purposes when studying the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset.

16. Available at https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/search/dataset/0038001.

17. This statistical truism is why the Flynn effect (a purely environmental effect) can coexist with high heritability (a variance statistic measuring the strength of generic influence on a phenotype in a population) of IQ. The same secular mean increase occurred in height (a phenotype with high heritability) in many countries during the twentieth century. Changes in the mean do not automatically result in changes in the variance—and vice versa.

18. It is important to recognize that mean QNW + SAS IQs below 70 are also found in some Central American nations (Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua), the Caribbean (Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), and Morocco, Nepal, and Yemen.

19. For the 2018 PISA, the SD for the UK data was 93 for math scores and 99 for science scores (Schleicher, 2019, pp. 7–8). In these calculations, I used the standard deviation of 99 to be more conservative. My choice of standard deviation will not affect any correlations, but it will change differences between these IQs and others and make outlier national mean IQs slightly less extreme.

20. This is not an artifact of the extrapolation based on nearby countries’ data that Gust et al. (2022) used. The correlation between scores for the 12 countries that had imputed data in both datasets was r = .608; for the 13 countries that had geographically imputed scores in the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset and scores based on educational achievement testing data in the Gust et al. (2022) dataset, the correlation was r = .511. The average difference between the two sets of scores is also similar.

21. Gust et al. (2022, p. A1) noted that Angrist et al.’s (2021) method overestimates academic achievement HLOs, compared to the Gust et al. (2022) method. The average scores in Table 2 are much more similar than would be expected because of the different means for the UK that were used to calculate z-scores and IQs. The HLO mean for the UK is 527.8 in the Angrist et al. (2021) data, compared to the Gust et al. (2022) mean of 503.2. The higher HLO mean for the UK provides a correction to the HLO scores, when converted to IQs, and makes the weighted mean IQs for both datasets in Table 2 much more similar.

22. The QNW + SAS IQs for these countries are 69.45 (Botswana), 60.98 (Ghana), and 69.80 (South Africa). However, note that these are not independent of the PIRLS and TIMSS data because Lynn and Becker (2019b) used the educational achievement data to calculate SAS IQs, which contributed data to the QNW + SAS IQs.

23. The largest discrepancies were for the Dominican Republic (+ 20.11 IQ points), Yemen (+ 19.34 IQ points), Tunisia (+ 12.39 IQ points), Argentina (+ 11.45 IQ points), Kuwait (+ 10.59 IQ points), and Honduras (− 10.47 IQ points). In this list, positive numbers indicate a higher QNW + SAS score in the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset, and negative numbers indicate a higher IQ derived from the Patel and Sandefur (2020) study.

24. The four countries with geographically imputed IQs in Lynn and Becker’s (2019b) dataset that have discrepancies of at least 10 IQ points are Paraguay (+ 17.26 IQ points), Senegal (− 15.76 IQ points), Chad (+ 13.92 IQ points), and Niger (+ 10.10 IQ points). In this list, positive numbers indicate a higher QNW + SAS + GEO score in the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset, and negative numbers indicate a higher IQ derived from the Patel and Sandefur (2020) study.

25. The largest discrepancies were for Cambodia (+ 26.4 IQ points), Venezuela (− 23.1 IQ points), Cuba (− 20.6 IQ points), Pakistan (+ 18.4 IQ points), Nicaragua (− 15.9 IQ points), Sri Lanka (+ 15.9 IQ points), Guatemala (− 15.4 IQ points), the Dominican Republic (+ 15.3 IQ points), the Philippines (+ 14.8 IQ points), Kyrgyzstan (+ 13.1 IQ points), Argentina (+ 12.4 IQ points), Haiti (+ 12.2 IQ points), Morocco (− 11.4 IQ points), Mongolia (+ 10.8 IQ points), and the United Arab Emirates (− 10.1 IQ points). In this list, positive numbers indicate a higher QNW + SAS score in the Lynn and Becker (2019b) dataset, and negative numbers indicate a higher IQ derived from the Gust et al. (2022) study. The inclusion of Cuba on this list is due to the use of SERCE 2006 data in the Gust et al. (2022) paper. As I stated earlier in this article, the Cuban data for this test are an outlier and likely fraudulent. This shows that when national IQ discrepancies arise in different datasets, it does not always indicate that Lynn and Becker’s (2019b) data are wrong.

26. In descending order of the magnitude of the discrepancy, these countries were Honduras (22.62 IQ points lower), Botswana (18.52 IQ points lower), South Africa (13.80 IQ points lower), and Egypt (11.65 IQ points lower).

27. Testing students one grade higher typical is standard practice for South Africa when administering PIRLS and TIMSS tests.

28. The Burundi data are clearly an outlier. Patel and Sandefur (2020) reported that 43% of examinees in Burundi met or exceeded the TIMSS low international benchmark in reading, which is typical of PASEC countries (PASEC, 2015, p. 50). The discrepancy between Burundi’s math and reading performance originates in the PASEC data and is not an error in Patel and Sandefur’s conversion of PASEC scores to TIMSS scores.

29. Pupil age is another factor to consider in making these comparisons. Repeating a grade is much more common in sub-Saharan Africa than it is in Western countries. However, these older pupils score worse on the PASEC than their classmates who have never repeated a grade (PASEC, 2015, pp. 78–81). Unlike testing students in a higher grade, the inclusion of these older students does not increase the countries’ percentages of students who meet the TIMSS low international benchmark.

30. I only compared mathematics scores here because language differences (e.g., one language being easier to learn to read than another) make comparing reading scores and competency less straightforward than comparing proficiency in mathematics (Gust et al., 2022). Additionally, many children in African learn to read in a non-native language (i.e., Swahili, or a colonial language instead of their local African language), which would be a penalty when comparing reading scores to children in economically developed nations where most children are tested in their native language.

31. There are three versions of the Raven’s: the Colored Progressive Matrices, Progressive Matrices, and Advanced Matrices (listed in ascending order of difficulty).

32. Countries with a low NWQ + SAS IQ (≤ 75) based solely on matrix test data are Benin, the Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Eritrea, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Guatemala, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Nepal, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

33. This is why I have preferred to use the QNW + SAS IQs whenever possible in this article. QNW + SAS IQs are based on the most data and do not include countries with geographically imputed mean IQs.

34. That is, unless one does not believe that educational performance, life outcomes, health and disease, economic prosperity, and strong civic institutions are important.