Fearmongering, according to Hans Rosling's comments in "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think"

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. Hans Rosling with‎ Ola Rosling and  Anna Rosling Rönnlund. 352 pages. Flatiron Books (April 3, 2018), ISBN-13: 978-1250107817

Half of these are wrong, irrelevant, or a linear combination of both, but even so:

Some of the author's comments:




 

"Without trust, we are lost."

More religious adults in particular tend to exhibit healthier sleep outcomes than their less religious counterparts. This general pattern can be seen across large population-based studies using a narrow range of religion measurements and sleep outcome

Religious involvement as a social determinant of sleep: an initial review and conceptual model. Terrence D. Hill et al. Sleep Health, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2018.04.001

Abstract: Although numerous empirical studies show that religious involvement is associated with better health and longer life expectancies, researchers have virtually ignored possible links between religious involvement and sleep. To spark greater attention to this important and understudied area of sleep research, we review previous population-based studies, propose an initial conceptual model of the likely pathways for these associations, and offer several avenues for future research. Our review and critical examination suggest that religious involvement is indeed a social determinant of sleep in the United States. More religious adults in particular tend to exhibit healthier sleep outcomes than their less religious counterparts. This general pattern can be seen across large population-based studies using a narrow range of religion measurements and sleep outcomes. Our conceptual model, grounded in the broader religion and health literature, suggests that religious involvement may be associated with healthier sleep outcomes by limiting mental, chemical, and physiological arousal associated with psychological distress, substance use, stress exposure, and allostatic load. As we move forward, researchers should incorporate (1) more rigorous longitudinal research designs, (2) more sophisticated sleep measurements, (3) more complex conceptual models, (4) more comprehensive measurements of religion and related concepts, and (5) more measures of religious struggles to better assess the “dark side” of religion. Research along these lines would provide a more thorough understanding of the intersection of religious involvement and population sleep.

Keywords: Religion; Sleep; Mental health; Substance use; Stress; Allostatic load

Under male-biased sex ratios one sees greater monogamy; with female-biased ratios women shift to short-term mating orientations

Sng, O., Neuberg, S. L., Varnum, M. E. W., & Kenrick, D. T. (2018). The behavioral ecology of cultural psychological variation. Psychological Review. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rev0000104

Abstract: Recent work has documented a wide range of important psychological differences across societies. Multiple explanations have been offered for why such differences exist, including historical philosophies, subsistence methods, social mobility, social class, climactic stresses, and religion. With the growing body of theory and data, there is an emerging need for an organizing framework. We propose here that a behavioral ecological perspective, particularly the idea of adaptive phenotypic plasticity, can provide an overarching framework for thinking about psychological variation across cultures and societies. We focus on how societies vary as a function of six important ecological dimensions: density, relatedness, sex ratio, mortality likelihood, resources, and disease. This framework can: (a) highlight new areas of research, (b) integrate and ground existing cultural psychological explanations, (c) integrate research on variation across human societies with research on parallel variations in other animal species, (d) provide a way for thinking about multiple levels of culture and cultural change, and (e) facilitate the creation of an ecological taxonomy of societies, from which one can derive specific predictions about cultural differences and similarities. Finally, we discuss the relationships between the current framework and existing perspectives.

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Human parallels and predictions.Sex ratio has a direct ecological parallel in human societies, and is defined in a similar way (e.g., Secord, 1983). There is considerable variation in sex ratio across societies. For instance, at the country level, Russia has a sex ratio of .86 (i.e., 86 males for every 100 females), whereas Kuwait.s sex ratio is 1.43 (Central Intelligence Agency, 2013). Tracking behavioral ecological work, research on the effects of sex ratio on psychological variation across societies and cultures has focused on mating dynamics. Notably, variation in sex ratio within the U.S. has been found to predict differences in inclinations towards monogamy: male-biased populations exhibit lower divorce rates and greater male parental investment (Pedersen, 1991), and higher proportions of young adult men who are married (Kruger & Schlemmer, 2009). Similarly, in hunter-gatherer groups, more male-biased sex ratios are also associated with lower divorce rates (Blurton-Jones et al., 2000) and greater paternal investment (Marlowe, 1999). More recent work has also examined how sex ratio, across nations, influences whether individuals are oriented towards more short-term or long-term mating relationships (Schmitt, 2005). In general, under male-biased sex ratios, one sees greater monogamy and tendencies towards long-term mating (Gutentag & Secord, 1983). This reflects the greater intrasexual competition men face in male-biased ecologies, and hence the need to respond by attempting to match female preferences for long-term mating relationships. Experimental work that situationally manipulates perceived sex ratios finds a similar pattern, with males shifting towards greater long-term mating orientations under male-biased sex ratios, and females shifting towards greater short-term mating orientations under female-biased sex ratios (females face greater intrasexual competition in the latter context, hence the shift towards a mating orientation that would appear more attractive to males) (Moss & Maner, 2016).

A number of aspects of marital arrangements also appear to be linked to sex ratios (Pollet & Nettle, 2007). In Uganda, polygyny (one man marrying multiple women) is more common in areas with more women, and as the number of men increases, wealthy men are more likely to have multiple wives, and poor men none (Pollet & Nettle, 2009). In China, sex ratios are becoming increasingly skewed (due to selective abortion of female fetuses), and there was by 2006 a surplus of 40 million single men (Chan, Blyth, & Chan, 2006). At the same time, the practice of bride price has been increasing in China. In some areas, there has been a fourfold increase in bride price, and half of the men living in rural areas can no longer afford a bride. In Vietnam, men are finding it more difficult to find wives, as men from other countries, with shortages of women, are paying increasingly large sums of bride price to marry Vietnamese women (Belanger & Linh, 2011).

Other indirect effects of changing situational sex ratios have been found, with male-biased sex ratios leading men to increase their spending behaviors for objects that display their wealth and resources (Griskevicius et al., 2012). Such behaviors presumably reflect similarly greater male-male competition in displaying financial resources to potential mates. Given that male-male competition is more likely to involve physical aggression, one might also predict that in societies with male-biased sex ratios that one would observe higher rates of violence. This appears to be the case, as countries that have more male-biased sex ratios have higher rates of homicide and other violent crimes (Barber, 2003; Dreze & Keher, 2000; Hudson & Den Boer, 2002). Female-biased sex ratios, on the other hand, lead women to be more career-driven (Durante et al., 2012), with such a shift ostensibly occurring because of the greater difficulty females face in finding a long-term investing partner when men are scarce. Finally, both men and women have been found to adopt more risky financial investment behaviors under more unfavorable sex ratios (i.e., more individuals of the same sex) (Ackerman, Maner & Carpenter, 2016).

Nonetheless, there is still much to be explored in terms of sex ratio.s role in explaining psychological variation across societies and cultures. One possibility is that operational sex ratios may shape the nature of xenophobia and outgroup prejudice. In societies with a strong sex-ratio bias, one might predict greater between-group prejudice, but specifically between members of the over-prevalent sex. For example, whereas males generally hold stronger outgroup prejudices than females (McDonald, Navarrete, & Van Vugt, 2012), and especially against outgroup men, one might predict that women might hold especially strong prejudices against outgroup women within societies with a female-biased sex ratio, as those outgroup women pose mating competition in an already female-competitive ecology. Such a perspective could lend unique insights into cross-society variation in intergroup conflict, and what the specific structure of such conflicts might be.

When competing with a rival adviser for a client’s attention, the majority of participants were ready to forgo financial reward to increase their chances of being selected. Payments for influence were higher when the client did not favour the participant. Participants also used their advice confidence strategically, expressing more confidence when they were ignored

Hertz, Uri,and Bahador Bahrami 2018. “Intrinsic Value of Social Influence over Others”. PsyArXiv. April 30. psyarxiv.com/6jm7t

Abstract: The view that social rewards, such as belonging to a group and having influence on other’s behaviour have intrinsic value has been supported by recent neuroscientific studies, showing that social rewards are processed in the brain similarly to monetary rewards. Here we ask whether influencing others is a strong enough a motivation, that to secure it one might be willing to forgo monetary pay offs? We examined participants online and in the lab, while playing an advice-giving game, competing with a rival adviser for a client’s attention. Majority of participants were ready to forgo financial reward to increase their chances of being selected over their rival. Payments for influence were higher when the client did not favour the participant. Participants also used their advice confidence strategically, expressing more confidence when they were ignored by the client. Both means of persuasion were affected by the participants performance – performance relative to the rival adviser affected advice confidence, while one’s own accuracy affected payments. In both cases performing better led to increase use of persuasion. These results imply that influence on others is inherently valuable and exchangeable for monetary reward.

Men also infer that other men with luxury performance cars are oriented towards short-term mating & see them more as rivals and potential mate poachers than as friends

What Do Economically Costly Signals Signal?: a Life History Framework for Interpreting Conspicuous Consumption. Daniel J. Kruger, Jessica S. Kruger. Evolutionary Psychological Science, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40806-018-0151-y

Abstract: Compared to women, men have a greater tendency to make conspicuous wealth displays and typically make greater contributions in non-somatic provisioning. Male resource displays often predict future paternal resource investments; however, some conspicuous displays may function as mating effort at the cost of investment potential. Men who tend to make such displays may have less interest in long-term relationship investment and commitment and greater interest in short-term sexual relationships. Undergraduates read descriptions of two men purchasing automobiles with the same budget. One man purchased a new car for the sake of reliability (frugal investment); the other purchased a used car and allocated the remaining funds to conspicuous display features (new paint, larger wheels, louder sound system). Participants rated each character on life history characteristics, relationship interests, and relationship attractiveness. Participants rated the man who invested in flashy display higher on mating effort, lower on parental investment, higher on interest in brief sexual affairs, lower on interest in long-term committed romantic relationships, higher in attractiveness to women for brief sexual affairs, and lower in attractiveness to women for long-term committed romantic relationships, compared to the man with a frugal investment strategy. Participants demonstrated an intuitive understanding that some male conspicuous displays can indicate faster life history strategies. Human male luxury displays associated with high mating effort life histories may mimic the properties of male secondary sexual characteristics across species, and these displays may be more prevalent in environments fostering faster life histories.

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Effects of socioeconomic status displays on attractiveness have been found in laboratory studies using pictures of luxury and standard apartments (Dunn and Hill 2014) and clothing indicating socioeconomic status (Nelissen and Meijers 2011; Townsend and Levy 1990). Automobiles may be popular as stimuli in studies of conspicuous consumption (e.g., Guéguen and Lamy 2012; Hennighausen et al. 2016; Sundie et al. 2011), because they enable comparisons of luxury and practical attributes (Kruger 2008) and portable displays of wealth are more suitable for establishing initial attraction. As demonstrated by this study and others, even those who do not necessarily have extensive experiences with or knowledge of cars have reactions consistent with expectations. Men are rated as more attractive when standing next to luxury cars than economy cars (Dunn and Searle 2010; Shuler andMcCord 2010). Women are more likely to provide contact information to men standing next to luxury cars than economy cars or mid-range cars (Guéguen and Lamy 2012).Women see men with expensive luxury cars as more interested in and attractive for shortterm, uncommitted sexual relationships than men with economy cars (Sundie et al. 2011). Men also infer that other men with luxury performance cars are oriented towards short-term mating and see them more as rivals and potential mate poachers than as friends (Hennighausen et al. 2016).

[...] Our theoretical framework proposes that male resource displays functioning primarily as mating effort will mimic the exaggerated physiological and behavioral properties featured in male secondary sexual characteristics that facilitate mating competition across species. We utilized personal automobiles in our scenarios because they enable displays that are portable, highly visible, and easily recognized by a wide variety of individuals. There are prolific industries devoted to automotive aftermarket modifications for a wide variety of attributes, including performance, utility, safety, and display attributes. The specific attributes described in the flashy man’s automobile, exaggerated size, coloration, and sound mimic the properties of exaggerated male secondary sexual characteristics across species. Such properties are instrumental in the processes of intrasexual competition and mate attraction and may be especially appropriate for soliciting short-term sexual relationships. Conspicuous features functioning as mating effort may be broadcast to a wide audience, rather than requiring prior knowledge of content or individual reputation. In contrast, displays predicting substantial future resource investment in offspring and romantic partners may be more directed in terms of audience, focused in terms of content, and more dependent on prior knowledge and reputation. These properties may facilitate assortative mating with high quality mates for longterm partnerships. Such resource displays may function as ingroup signals (for those of high social class) and are more likely to be semi-cryptic shibboleths where recognition is dependent on the audience’s prior reputational knowledge. There is a common cultural dynamic where the reigning aristocracy denigrates the nouveau riche for their ostentatious displays of wealth. By definition, these gaudy displays feature exaggerated sensory properties (size, coloration, etc.). Ostentation may be an inherent strategy by those wishing to advertise (newly acquired) wealth and status to audiences where they do not possess the reputational status markers of the establishment.

Of course, commercial marketers may mix these signal channels for the purpose of promoting sales to those interested in acquiring status. Marketers continually invent “luxury” brands that provide higher profit margins on products emerging from the same mass production systems as more proletarian items. These branding exercises often promote an image of economic abundance as well as a façade of tradition and inherited wealth. Contemporary marketers developing new luxury brand names seem to be particularly fond of ampersands, perhaps for their antiquated appearance and suggestion of origins in long-established traditions.

Our life history-based theoretical framework provides both the prediction of and explanation for functional variation in the signal content of male resource displays. This framework proposes that the degree to which male displays reflect high investment in mating effort at the expense of paternal investment will directly follow from environmental conditions fostering faster human life history strategies. The material functional analogues of male secondary sexual characteristics will be more prevalent in human environments with shorter life expectancies, less predictable mortality incidence, lower predictability of access to material resources, lower levels of personal safety, lower social cohesion, and greater socioeconomic inequality. This model also advances the discussion of tendencies for conspicuous consumption beyond Marxistderived explanations based in symbols of social class membership or ethnic group stereotypes. From a life history perspective, demographic categories are crude indicators for meaningful variation in underlying factors. Darwin noted that differences in the mental faculties of humans and other animals are “Differences of degree, rather than kind” (1871b/ 1981, p.83). If variability in psychology and behavior across species is on a continuous spectrum, certainly variation within our own species is along a gradient rather than a collection of types and likely a reflection of facultative adaptations to environmental conditions.