Not aware of the improvement, but drinking alcohol significantly betters observer-ratings for Dutch language, specifically pronunciation

Dutch courage? Effects of acute alcohol consumption on self-ratings and observer ratings of foreign language skills. Fritz Renner, Inge Kersbergen, Matt Field, and Jessica Werthmann. Journal of Psychopharmacology. First published date: October-18-2017. DOI 10.1177/0269881117735687

Abstract

Aims: A popular belief is that alcohol improves the ability to speak in a foreign language. The effect of acute alcohol consumption on perceived foreign language performance and actual foreign language performance in foreign language learners has not been investigated. The aim of the current study was to test the effects of acute alcohol consumption on self-rated and observer-rated verbal foreign language performance in participants who have recently learned this language.

ethods: Fifty native German speakers who had recently learned Dutch were randomized to receive either a low dose of alcohol or a control beverage that contained no alcohol. Following the experimental manipulation, participants took part in a standardized discussion in Dutch with a blinded experimenter. The discussion was audio-recorded and foreign language skills were subsequently rated by two native Dutch speakers who were blind to the experimental condition (observer-rating). Participants also rated their own individual Dutch language skills during the discussion (self-rating).

Results: Participants who consumed alcohol had significantly better observer-ratings for their Dutch language, specifically better pronunciation, compared with those who did not consume alcohol. However, alcohol had no effect on self-ratings of Dutch language skills.

Conclusions: Acute alcohol consumption may have beneficial effects on the pronunciation of a foreign language in people who have recently learned that language.

Infants React with Increased Arousal to Spiders and Snakes

Itsy Bitsy Spider…: Infants React with Increased Arousal to Spiders and Snakes. Stefanie Hoehl, Kahl Hellmer, Maria Johansson and Gustaf Gredebäck. Front. Psychol., October 18 2017, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01710

Abstract: Attention biases have been reported for ancestral threats like spiders and snakes in infants, children, and adults. However, it is currently unclear whether these stimuli induce increased physiological arousal in infants. Here, 6-month-old infants were presented with pictures of spiders and flowers (Study 1, within-subjects), or snakes and fish (Study 1, within-subjects; Study 2, between-subjects). Infants’ pupillary responses linked to activation of the noradrenergic system were measured. Infants reacted with increased pupillary dilation indicating arousal to spiders and snakes compared with flowers and fish. Results support the notion of an evolved preparedness for developing fear of these ancestral threats.

Supplementing multivitamins and iodine to deficient children and learning to play a musical instrument raises the IQ

Raising IQ among school-aged children: Five meta-analyses and a review of randomized controlled trials. John Protzko. Developmental Review, Volume 46, December 2017, Pages 81-101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2017.05.001

Highlights
•    There have been 36 RCTs attempting to raise IQ in school-aged children.
•    Nutrient supplementation includes multivitamins, iron, iodine, and zinc.
•    Training includes EF and reasoning training, and learning a musical instrument.
•    We meta-analyze this literature to provide a best-evidence summary to date.
•    Multivitamin & iodine supplementation, and learning a musical instrument, raise IQ.

Abstract: In this paper, we examine nearly every available randomized controlled trial that attempts to raise IQ in children from once they begin kindergarten until pre-adolescence. We use meta-analytic procedures when there are more than three studies employing similar methods, reviewing individual interventions when too few replications are available for a quantitative analysis. All studies included in this synthesis are on non-clinical populations. This yields five fixed-effects meta-analyses on the roles of dietary supplementation with multivitamins, iron, and iodine, as well as executive function training, and learning to play a musical instrument. We find that supplementing a deficient child with multivitamins raises their IQ, supplementing a deficient child with iodine raises their IQ, and learning to play a musical instrument raises a child’s IQ. The role of iron, and executive function training are unreliable in their estimates. We also subject each meta-analytic result to a series of robustness checks. In each meta-analysis, we discuss probable causal mechanisms for how each of these procedures raises intelligence. Though each meta-analysis includes a moderate to small number of studies (< 19 effect sizes), our purpose is to highlight the best available evidence and encourage the continued experimentation in each of these fields.

Deciding for oneself, we are averse to loss; deciding for one other, aversion is significantly reduced

Decision making for others: The case of loss aversion. Sascha C. Füllbrunn and Wolfgang J. Luhan. Economics Letters, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2017.09.037

Highlights
•    We test whether loss aversion plays a role in risky decisions making for others.
•    Deciding for oneself, we find loss aversion levels similar to the literature.
•    Deciding for one other only, we find loss aversion to be significantly reduced.
•    Deciding for oneself and one other at the same time, we find no difference.

Abstract: Risky decisions are at the core of economic theory. While many of these decisions are taken on behalf of others rather than for oneself, the existing literature finds mixed results on whether people take more or less risk for others then for themselves. Recent studies suggest that taking decisions for others reduces loss aversion, thereby increasing risk taking on behalf of others. To test this, we elicit loss aversion in three treatments: making risky decisions for oneself, for one other subject, or for the decision maker and another person combined. We find a clear treatment effect when making decisions for others but not when making decisions for both.

JEL classification: C9; D3; D8
Keywords: Decision making for others; Risk taking; Loss aversion; Experiment

Acquiescence: People can explicitly recognize that their intuitive judgment is wrong but, nevertheless, stick with it

Risen JL. Acquiescing to intuition: Believing what we know isn't so. Soc Personal Psychol Compass. 2017;e12358. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12358

Abstract: When people identify an error in their initial judgment, they typically try to correct it. But, in some cases, they choose not to—even when they know, in the moment, that they are being irrational or making a mistake. A baseball fan may know that he cannot affect the pitcher from his living room but still be reluctant to say “no-hitter.” A person may learn that flying in an airplane is statistically safer than driving a car and still refuse to fly. Dual-process models of judgment and decision making often implicitly assume that if an error is detected, it will be corrected. Recent work suggests, however, that models should decouple error detection and correction. Indeed, people can explicitly recognize that their intuitive judgment is wrong but, nevertheless, stick with it, a phenomenon known as acquiescence. My goals are to offer criteria for identifying acquiescence, consider why people acquiesce even when it incurs a cost, discuss how lessons that are learned in cases when acquiescence is clearly identified can be exported to cases when acquiescence may be harder to establish, and, more broadly, describe the implications of a model that decouples error detection and error correction.

Why museum visitors touch the exhibits when they do not have permission to do so

Rehabilitating unauthorised touch or why museum visitors touch the exhibits. Fiona Candlin.  The Senses and Society, Volume 12, 2017 - Issue 3, Pages 251-266. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17458927.2017.1367485

Abstract: In 2014 The Senses and Society published a special issue on “Sensory Museology.” Registering the emergence of this new multi-disciplinary field, the editor usefully observed that “its most salient trend has been the rehabilitation of touch.” Arguably, however, touch has only been rehabilitated as an area of study insofar as it is authorised by the museum. Scholars have rarely considered the propensity of visitors to touch museum exhibits when they do not have permission to do so. In this article I suggest that the academic emphasis on authorised forms of contact privileges the institution’s aims and perspective. Conversely, researching unauthorised touch places a higher degree of emphasis on the visitors’ motivations and responses, and has the capacity to bring dominant characterisations of the museum into question. I substantiate and work through these claims by drawing on interview-based research conducted at the British Museum, and by investigating why visitors touch the exhibits without permission, what they touch, and what experiences that encounter enables.

Keywords: Sensory museology, touch, museums, exhibits, visitors, vandalism

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Thus, the visitors therefore touched the objects on display to establish that were real and not replicas, to find out about the material qualities of an exhibit and the processes by which it was made, and to get a grasp on the skill involved in its manufacture. They also touched to make contact with the past. It is possible that a consciousness of being connected to past eras and peoples is what prompts visitors to touch, but judging from the interviews it seems that this experience is predicated on actual contact. Visitors needed to put their hands into the places that their predecessors touched, or to use their bodies to mimic the shapes of the initial makers and users in order to conceive of, or to bridge the enormous geographical and historical distances that lie between them and the objects’ contexts of production.
[...]
For the visitors, touching the sculptures of animals and humans had a markedly different dynamic to that of touching architectural exhibits such as columns or sarcophagi. It did not provide a connection with the past, rather the representational character of the sculptures outweighed the consideration of who made the carvings, when, and under what conditions. These sculptures were not primarily conceived as products of human endeavor, but as quasi-men, women, and animals.
[...]
A similar logic applied to the way that visitors touched other figures, both clothed and unclothed, and animals. Visitors behaved in ways that were appropriate to the real-life version of that thing, for example, stroking a horse’s nose, but precisely because it is a carving, they were free to push the boundaries of what is acceptable or safe.

A Replication of Thomas Piketty's Data on the Concentration of Wealth in the US. By Richard Sutch

The One Percent across Two Centuries: A Replication of Thomas Piketty's Data on the Concentration of Wealth in the United States. Richard Sutch. Social Science History, Volume 41, Issue 4, Winter 2017 , pp. 587-613. https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2017.27

Abstract: This exercise reproduces and assesses the historical time series on the top shares of the wealth distribution for the United States presented by Thomas Piketty in Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Piketty's best-selling book has gained as much attention for its extensive presentation of detailed historical statistics on inequality as for its bold and provocative predictions about a continuing rise in inequality in the twenty-first century. Here I examine Piketty's US data for the period 1810 to 2010 for the top 10 percent and the top 1 percent of the wealth distribution. I conclude that Piketty's data for the wealth share of the top 10 percent for the period 1870 to 1970 are unreliable. The values he reported are manufactured from the observations for the top 1 percent inflated by a constant 36 percentage points. Piketty's data for the top 1 percent of the distribution for the nineteenth century (1810–1910) are also unreliable. They are based on a single mid-century observation that provides no guidance about the antebellum trend and only tenuous information about the trend in inequality during the Gilded Age. The values Piketty reported for the twentieth century (1910–2010) are based on more solid ground, but have the disadvantage of muting the marked rise of inequality during the Roaring Twenties and the decline associated with the Great Depression. This article offers an alternative picture of the trend in inequality based on newly available data and a reanalysis of the 1870 Census of Wealth. This article does not question Piketty's integrity.

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Very little of value can be salvaged from Piketty’s treatment of data from the nineteenth century. The user is provided with no reliable information on the antebellum trends in the wealth share and is even left uncertain about the trend for the top 10 percent during the Gilded Age (1870–1916). This is noteworthy because Piketty spends the bulk of his attention devoted to America discussing the nineteenth-century trends (Piketty 2014: 347–50).

The heavily manipulated twentieth-century data for the top 1 percent share, the lack of empirical support for the top 10 percent share, the lack of clarity about the procedures used to harmonize and average the data, the insufficient documentation, and the spreadsheet errors are more than annoying. Together they create a misleading picture of the dynamics of wealth inequality. They obliterate the intradecade movements essential to an understanding of the impact of political and financial-market shocks on inequality. Piketty’s estimates offer no help to those who wish to understand the impact of inequality on “the way economic, social, and political actors view what is just and what is not” (Piketty 2014: 20).

Hunting Strategies with Cultivated Plants as Bait and the Prey Pathway to Animal Domestication

Hunting Strategies with Cultivated Plants as Bait and the Prey Pathway to Animal Domestication. Serge Svizzero. International Journal of Research in Sociology and Anthropology, Volume 2, Issue 2, 2016, PP 53-68. http://dx.doi.org/10.20431/2454

Abstract: For various reasons related to human diet, social prestige or cosmology, hunting -especially of large preys- has always been central in foragers' societies. When pre-Neolithic foragers have iven up their nomadic way of life they have faced a sink-source problem about game procurement in the resource-catchment area around their settlements. Baiting, by mean of the cultivation of wild plants in food plots, may have help them to attract herbivores, thus improving the return of hunting activities. These foragers were also motivated by the capture of wild animals alive, in order to keep fresh meat for a while, to translocate these animals or for milk exploitation. For this capture, the use of a passive form of drive hunting seems best suited. The cultivation of food plots within the funnel and the corral might have been used to attract wild herbivores into the drive. Baiting was therefore designed either to increase the hunt or to improve the capture of large wild herbivores such as the Near-Eastern wild caprines that were later domesticated. Therefore baiting should be viewed as a hunting strategy as well as an unconscious selection mechanism since it has inadvertently contributed to the prey pathway to animal domestication

Keywords: Neolithic revolutions, hunter-gatherers, sedentism, animal domestication, unconscious  selection, large herbivores, drive hunting, Near East.

Home sharing driving up rents. Evidence from Airbnb in Boston

Is home sharing driving up rents? Evidence from Airbnb in Boston. Keren Horn & Mark Merante. Journal of Housing Economics, Volume 38, December 2017, Pages 14-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhe.2017.08.002

Abstract: The growth of the sharing economy has received increasing attention from economists. Some researchers have examined how these new business models shape market mechanisms and, in the case of home sharing, economists have examined how the sharing economy affects the hotel industry. There is currently limited evidence on whether home sharing affects the housing market, despite the obvious overlap between these two markets. As a result, policy makers grappling with the effects of the rapid growth of home sharing have inadequate information on which to make reasoned policy decisions. In this paper, we add to the small but growing body of knowledge on how the sharing economy is shaping the housing market by focusing on the short-term effects of the growth of Airbnb in Boston neighborhoods on the rental market, relying on individual rental listings. We examine whether the increasing presence of Airbnb raises asking rents and whether the change in rents may be driven by a decline in the supply of housing offered for rent. We show that a one standard deviation increase in Airbnb listings is associated with an increase in asking rents of 0.4%.

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Ultimately, our analysis supports the contention that home sharing is increasing rents by decreasing the supply of units available to potential residents

For political candidates, an increased audience diversity is associated with a reduced ‘Liking’

Trumped by context collapse: Examination of ‘Liking’ political candidates in the presence of audience diversity. Ben Marder. Computers in Human Behavior, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.10.025

Highlights
•    Examination of the effect of audience diversity on ‘Liking’ political candidates.
•    Survey of 1027 potential voters prior the 2016 US presidential election.
•    Increased audience diversity is associated with a reduced ‘Liking’.
•    Increased audience diversity predicts greater social anxiety.
•    ‘Non-Likers’ have a more diverse audience than ‘Likers’.

Abstract: Harnessing social media such as Facebook is now considered critical for electoral success. Although Facebook is widely used by the electorate, few have ‘Liked’ the Facebook pages of the political candidates for whom they vote. To provide understanding of this discrepancy, the present paper offers the first investigation on the role of audience diversity on ‘Liking’ behavior, as well as its association with varying degrees of social anxiety that may arise from ‘Liking’ political candidates. A survey of potential voters who used Facebook preceding the 2016 Presidential Election was conducted ( = 1027). Using the lens of Self-Presentation Theory, results found that for those who had not already ‘Liked’ Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, their intention to do so before the election was negatively associated with the diversity of their Facebook audience. This relationship was mediated by their expected degree of social anxiety from ‘Liking’ the candidate. A comparison of audience diversity of participants who had ‘Liked’ a candidate vs. those who had not ‘Liked’ a candidate also showed that increased audience diversity hinders ‘Liking’. This paper contributes to the knowledge of engagement with politicians through social media as well as the study of audience diversity more generally. Implications for managers are provided.

Keywords: Social media; Politics; Context collapse; Social anxiety; Facebook; Audience diversity

Psychedelic use associated with reduced odds of larceny/theft, assault, arrest for a property crime & for a violent crime

The relationships of classic psychedelic use with criminal behavior in the United States adult population. Peter S Hendricks et al. Journal of Psychopharmacology, https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881117735685

Abstract: Criminal behavior exacts a large toll on society and is resistant to intervention. Some evidence suggests classic psychedelics may inhibit criminal behavior, but the extent of these effects has not been comprehensively explored. In this study, we tested the relationships of classic psychedelic use and psilocybin use per se with criminal behavior among over 480,000 United States adult respondents pooled from the last 13 available years of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2002 through 2014) while controlling for numerous covariates. Lifetime classic psychedelic use was associated with a reduced odds of past year larceny/theft (aOR = 0.73 (0.65–0.83)), past year assault (aOR = 0.88 (0.80–0.97)), past year arrest for a property crime (aOR = 0.78 (0.65–0.95)), and past year arrest for a violent crime (aOR = 0.82 (0.70–0.97)). In contrast, lifetime illicit use of other drugs was, by and large, associated with an increased odds of these outcomes. Lifetime classic psychedelic use, like lifetime illicit use of almost all other substances, was associated with an increased odds of past year drug distribution. Results were consistent with a protective effect of psilocybin for antisocial criminal behavior. These findings contribute to a compelling rationale for the initiation of clinical research with classic psychedelics, including psilocybin, in forensic settings.

How Will China's Industrial Modernization Plan affect Workers? By Boy Luethje

How Will China's Industrial Modernization Plan affect Workers? By Boy Luethje. East-West Center, Oct 17 2017. How Will China’s Industrial Modernization Plan Affect Workers? | East-West Center | www.eastwestcenter.org 

HONOLULU (Oct. 17, 2017) -- Today’s discussions about the future of manufacturing are awash with visions of revolutionary change. Digital technologies are expected to create a “fourth industrial revolution”—a world of seamlessly interconnected “smart factories” driven by artificial intelligence, cloud computing and big data applications.

In line with this thinking, China has developed a master plan to transform its vast manufacturing base from low-cost export production to highly automated advanced manufacturing aimed primarily at the domestic market. The plan was drafted by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and was outlined in 2015 in a comprehensive government document titled “Made in China 2025.”

Made in China 2025 gives a strong role to China’s new multinationals in areas such as solar systems, wind turbines, LED, household appliances and, most prominently, telecommunications and advanced Internet services. The plan thus reflects the increased importance of large non-state-owned enterprises as drivers of innovation and marks a substantial change in economic power relations in China.

Serious questions remain, however, for China’s large, low-wage labor force, particularly related to labor markets, the transformation of work and industrial relations. Reforms are needed in areas such as vocational training, human-resource management, wage and incentive systems, appraisal of skills, and workplace safety and privacy. Yet the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the Ministry of Education, the All China Federation of Trade Unions and other mass organizations have been mostly absent from the drafting and execution of the program.

Some relevant labor laws have been extended in recent years and offer improved protections for workers related to mass layoffs, workplace safety and employment of temporary workers. Current discussions are dominated, however, by demands to discontinue key provisions of the 2008 Labor Contract Law in order to facilitate the massive job reductions underway in state-owned heavy industries and coal mining.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government and research institutions have not provided any valid assessment of the potential labor-market effects of Made in China 2025. The relevant statistics are scattered among various government agencies, making it difficult to assess the labor-market, social-security, training and other implications of the program. Ongoing research on current automation projects and policies clearly indicates that massive job cuts lie ahead. The effect will vary by industry and region:

.    In predominantly state-owned manufacturing, such as the automotive industry, the job impacts of digitalization appear to be relatively minor. Many factories are already characterized by high levels of automation, and digital technologies can be introduced gradually.
.    Among private Chinese and multinational manufacturers with large, low-wage labor forces, the effects of transformation from labor-intensive to automated manufacturing are potentially much greater. In some model “Internet factories” of home-appliance makers, more than 50 percent of the manufacturing workforce has already been cut.
.    Job reductions are potentially highest among labor-intensive small and medium enterprises. Here, relatively simple automation equipment can replace large numbers of semi- and low-skilled workers. A recent study in the city of Dongguan in central Guangdong Province found job reductions of 67 to 85 percent in such companies, often affecting the workers with the best skills and bargaining positions.

The situation in Guangdong Province illustrates the negative effects of top-down industrial policies. Ambitious to become China’s leading region in factory automation, the provincial government has promoted Made in China 2025 with the slogan “Robot-Replaces-Man.” City governments have picked up the message and make the replacement of workers a top criterion in their plans to subsidize the procurement of robots. The issue of job cuts and retraining is mostly ignored because many of the workers who lose their jobs are migrants from other regions.

The Dongguan city government reported that in 2015, the first year of its “Robot-Replaces-Man” program, 1,262 participating companies cut 71,000 jobs. With a working population of more than five million, the local labor market may absorb these job losses for the time being. In the long term, however, serious problems may occur.

Overall, digital technologies have significant potential to change the structure of manufacturing, improve cooperation within production networks and relocate production closer to end markets. For China, digital manufacturing could ease pressures for large-scale urbanization and related problems of labor migration.

Instead of the present top-down approach, industrial policies “from below” could integrate technological upgrading with strategies to develop a skilled workforce and rebalance labor markets. Industrial cities in the Pearl River Delta, for example, could support industrial upgrading by making subsidies for automation equipment conditional upon improvements in working conditions and training of workers. Long-term development of a skilled industrial workforce could be supported by granting permanent residence (called hukou) to migrant workers who graduate from vocational training programs. Last but not least, the provincial and local trade unions could enforce standards of decent work and accelerate the implementation of collective bargaining in privately owned enterprises.

Such approaches exist, but the innovative potential of digital manufacturing to improve conditions for China’s huge workforce remains unexplored due to pressure for short-term profits and the absence of institutional reform. There will most likely be job losses, but the key challenge is to find the right mix of automation and a higher-skilled labor force for long-term growth.
 
Dr. Boy Luethje is a Professor and Volkswagen Endowed Chair of Industrial Relations and Social Development at Sun Yat-sen University’s School of Government in Guangzhou, China. In January and February 2017, he was a Visiting Scholar at the East-West Center. Dr Luethje recently published a chapter with co-author Florian Butollo, ‘“Made in China 2025”: Intelligent manufacturing and work,’ in the book The New Digital Workplace: How New Technologies Revolutionise Work, published by Palgrave-Macmillan.

After seeing an agent attain two goals equally often at varying costs, infants expected the agent to prefer the goal it attained through costlier actions

Liu, Shari, Tomer D Ullman, josh tenenbaum, and Elizabeth Spelke. 2017. “Ten-month-old Infants Infer the Value of Goals from the Costs of Actions”. PsyArXiv. October 17. psyarxiv.com/78qd4

Abstract: Infants understand that people pursue goals, but how do they learn which goals people prefer? Here, we test whether infants solve this problem by inverting a mental model of action planning, trading off the costs of acting against the rewards actions bring. After seeing an agent attain two goals equally often at varying costs, infants expected the agent to prefer the goal it attained through costlier actions. These expectations held across three experiments conveying cost through different physical path features (jump height and width; incline angle), suggesting that an abstract variable, such as ‘force’, ‘work’ or ‘effort’, supported infants’ inferences. We model infants' expectations as Bayesian inferences over utility-theoretic calculations, providing a bridge to recent quantitative accounts of action understanding in older children and adults.

Dramatic pretend play games uniquely improve emotional control in young children

Goldstein TR, Lerner MD. Dramatic pretend play games uniquely improve emotional control in young children. Dev Sci. 2017;e12603. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12603

Abstract: Pretense is a naturally occurring, apparently universal activity for typically developing children. Yet its function and effects remain unclear. One theorized possibility is that pretense activities, such as dramatic pretend play games, are a possible causal path to improve children's emotional development. Social and emotional skills, particularly emotional control, are critically important for social development, as well as academic performance and later life success. However, the study of such approaches has been criticized for potential bias and lack of rigor, precluding the ability to make strong causal claims. We conducted a randomized, component control (dismantling) trial of dramatic pretend play games with a low-SES group of 4-year-old children (N = 97) to test whether such practice yields generalized improvements in multiple social and emotional outcomes. We found specific effects of dramatic play games only on emotional self-control. Results suggest that dramatic pretend play games involving physicalizing emotional states and traits, pretending to be animals and human characters, and engaging in pretend scenarios in a small group may improve children's emotional control. These findings have implications for the function of pretense and design of interventions to improve emotional control in typical and atypical populations. Further, they provide support for the unique role of dramatic pretend play games for young children, particularly those from low-income backgrounds.

Generic language encourages to categorize individuals using a lower evidentiary standard regardless of negative consequences

When Your Kind Cannot Live Here: How Generic Language and Criminal Sanctions Shape Social Categorization. Deborah Goldfarb et al. Psychological Science, https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617714827

Abstract: Using generic language to describe groups (applying characteristics to entire categories) is ubiquitous and affects how children and adults categorize other people. Five-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults (N = 190) learned about a novel social group that separated into two factions (citizens and noncitizens). Noncitizens were described in either generic or specific language. Later, the children and adults categorized individuals in two contexts: criminal (individuals labeled as noncitizens faced jail and deportation) and noncriminal (labeling had no consequences). Language genericity influenced decision making. Participants in the specific-language condition, but not those in the generic-language condition, reduced the rate at which they identified potential noncitizens when their judgments resulted in criminal penalties compared with when their judgments had no consequences. In addition, learning about noncitizens in specific language (vs. generic language) increased the amount of matching evidence participants needed to identify potential noncitizens (preponderance standard) and decreased participants’ certainty in their judgments. Thus, generic language encourages children and adults to categorize individuals using a lower evidentiary standard regardless of negative consequences for presumed social-group membership.