Sleep and nesting behavior in primates: A review. Barbara Fruth, Nikki Tagg, Fiona Stewart. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23373
Abstract: Sleep is a universal behavior in vertebrate and invertebrate animals, suggesting it originated in the very first life forms. Given the vital function of sleep, sleeping patterns and sleep architecture follow dynamic and adaptive processes reflecting trade‐offs to different selective pressures.
Here, we review responses in sleep and sleep‐related behavior to environmental constraints across primate species, focusing on the role of great ape nest building in hominid evolution. We summarize and synthesize major hypotheses explaining the proximate and ultimate functions of great ape nest building across all species and subspecies; we draw on 46 original studies published between 2000 and 2017. In addition, we integrate the most recent data brought together by researchers from a complementary range of disciplines in the frame of the symposium “Burning the midnight oil” held at the 26th Congress of the International Primatological Society, Chicago, August 2016, as well as some additional contributors, each of which is included as a “stand‐alone” article in this “Primate Sleep” symposium set. In doing so, we present crucial factors to be considered in describing scenarios of human sleep evolution: (a) the implications of nest construction for sleep quality and cognition; (b) the tree‐to‐ground transition in early hominids; (c) the peculiarities of human sleep.
We propose bridging disciplines such as neurobiology, endocrinology, medicine, and evolutionary ecology, so that future research may disentangle the major functions of sleep in human and nonhuman primates, namely its role in energy allocation, health, and cognition.
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
The likelihood of a relationship ending per unit time goes down with increased duration of search before that relationship, in accord with the foraging prediction
Cohen, S. E., & Todd, P. M. (2018). Relationship foraging: Does time spent searching predict relationship length? Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 12(3), 139-151. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000131
Abstract: Animals foraging for resources often need to alternate between searching for and benefiting from patches of those resources. Here we explore whether such patterns of behavior can usefully be applied to the human search for romantic relationships. Optimal foraging theory (OFT) suggests that foragers should alter their time spent in patches based on how long they typically spend searching between patches. We test whether human relationship search can be described as a foraging task that fits this OFT prediction. By analyzing a large, demographically representative data set on marriage and cohabitation timing using survival analysis, we find that the likelihood of a relationship ending per unit time goes down with increased duration of search before that relationship, in accord with the foraging prediction. We consider the possible applications and limits of a foraging perspective on mate search and suggest further directions for study.
Abstract: Animals foraging for resources often need to alternate between searching for and benefiting from patches of those resources. Here we explore whether such patterns of behavior can usefully be applied to the human search for romantic relationships. Optimal foraging theory (OFT) suggests that foragers should alter their time spent in patches based on how long they typically spend searching between patches. We test whether human relationship search can be described as a foraging task that fits this OFT prediction. By analyzing a large, demographically representative data set on marriage and cohabitation timing using survival analysis, we find that the likelihood of a relationship ending per unit time goes down with increased duration of search before that relationship, in accord with the foraging prediction. We consider the possible applications and limits of a foraging perspective on mate search and suggest further directions for study.
Identification of individual subjects on the basis of their brain anatomical features
Identification of individual subjects on the basis of their brain anatomical features. Seyed Abolfazl Valizadeh, Franziskus Liem, Susan Mérillat, Jürgen Hänggi & Lutz Jäncke. Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 5611 (2018), https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23696-6
Abstract: We examined whether it is possible to identify individual subjects on the basis of brain anatomical features. For this, we analyzed a dataset comprising 191 subjects who were scanned three times over a period of two years. Based on FreeSurfer routines, we generated three datasets covering 148 anatomical regions (cortical thickness, area, volume). These three datasets were also combined to a dataset containing all of these three measures. In addition, we used a dataset comprising 11 composite anatomical measures for which we used larger brain regions (11LBR). These datasets were subjected to a linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and a weighted K-nearest neighbors approach (WKNN) to identify single subjects. For this, we randomly chose a data subset (training set) with which we calculated the individual identification. The obtained results were applied to the remaining sample (test data). In general, we obtained excellent identification results (reasonably good results were obtained for 11LBR using WKNN). Using different data manipulation techniques (adding white Gaussian noise to the test data and changing sample sizes) still revealed very good identification results, particularly for the LDA technique. Interestingly, using the small 11LBR dataset also revealed very good results indicating that the human brain is highly individual.
Abstract: We examined whether it is possible to identify individual subjects on the basis of brain anatomical features. For this, we analyzed a dataset comprising 191 subjects who were scanned three times over a period of two years. Based on FreeSurfer routines, we generated three datasets covering 148 anatomical regions (cortical thickness, area, volume). These three datasets were also combined to a dataset containing all of these three measures. In addition, we used a dataset comprising 11 composite anatomical measures for which we used larger brain regions (11LBR). These datasets were subjected to a linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and a weighted K-nearest neighbors approach (WKNN) to identify single subjects. For this, we randomly chose a data subset (training set) with which we calculated the individual identification. The obtained results were applied to the remaining sample (test data). In general, we obtained excellent identification results (reasonably good results were obtained for 11LBR using WKNN). Using different data manipulation techniques (adding white Gaussian noise to the test data and changing sample sizes) still revealed very good identification results, particularly for the LDA technique. Interestingly, using the small 11LBR dataset also revealed very good results indicating that the human brain is highly individual.
Men purchase larger, more expensive engagement rings when imagining themselves mated to a more attractive woman; women desire larger, more expensive engagement rings when imagining themselves mated to a less attractive man
The Effect of Mate Value Discrepancy on Hypothetical Engagement Ring Purchases. Jaime M. Cloud, Madalyn H. Taylor. Evolutionary Psychological Science, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-018-0156-6
Abstract: Few material goods entail as high a cost and carry as little practical value as an engagement ring. Despite their obvious signaling value, engagement ring expenditures have rarely been studied. The purpose of the current study was to experimentally manipulate a discrepancy in the physical attractiveness of romantic partners to determine its effect on hypothetical engagement ring purchases. We predicted that (1) men would purchase larger, more expensive engagement rings when imagining themselves mated to a more attractive rather than less attractive woman and (2) women would desire larger, more expensive engagement rings when imagining themselves mated to a less attractive rather than more attractive man. We further predicted a positive correlation between women’s self-ratings of attractiveness and the size and cost of the engagement ring women chose, regardless of target attractiveness. Results supported all three predictions. Data about the cost and quality of actual engagement rings was also collected to explore their correlations with age and attractiveness discrepancies in real-world couples; however, we failed to find a consistent pattern whereby more desirable women received more expensive and higher quality engagement rings. Results from the experimental portion of the current study show that men invest greater resources in attractive women and that increased resource investment can compensate for decreased physical attractiveness within the domain of women’s mate preferences.
Abstract: Few material goods entail as high a cost and carry as little practical value as an engagement ring. Despite their obvious signaling value, engagement ring expenditures have rarely been studied. The purpose of the current study was to experimentally manipulate a discrepancy in the physical attractiveness of romantic partners to determine its effect on hypothetical engagement ring purchases. We predicted that (1) men would purchase larger, more expensive engagement rings when imagining themselves mated to a more attractive rather than less attractive woman and (2) women would desire larger, more expensive engagement rings when imagining themselves mated to a less attractive rather than more attractive man. We further predicted a positive correlation between women’s self-ratings of attractiveness and the size and cost of the engagement ring women chose, regardless of target attractiveness. Results supported all three predictions. Data about the cost and quality of actual engagement rings was also collected to explore their correlations with age and attractiveness discrepancies in real-world couples; however, we failed to find a consistent pattern whereby more desirable women received more expensive and higher quality engagement rings. Results from the experimental portion of the current study show that men invest greater resources in attractive women and that increased resource investment can compensate for decreased physical attractiveness within the domain of women’s mate preferences.
Children’s gender-stereotypical dress and appearance might be one of the first representations of children’s emerging sense of gender identity; surprisingly, mothers’ gender-role attitudes were not significantly associated with toddlers’ gender-typed appearance
The Roles of Self-Socialization and Parent Socialization in Toddlers’ Gender-Typed Appearance. May Ling et al. Archives of Sexual Behavior, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-018-1263-y
Abstract: Children’s gender-stereotypical dress and appearance might be one of the first representations of children’s emerging sense of gender identity. Gender self-socialization theories posit that as children become more aware of gender categories, they become motivated to adhere to gender stereotypes, such as by expressing interest in dressing in feminine or masculine ways. Socialization theories predict that children’s gender-typed appearance reflects parents’ choices. For example, gender-traditional parents might dress their children in gender-stereotypical ways. At the same time, dressing in gender-stereotypical ways might contribute to children’s growing awareness of gender categories. The current study investigated the factors associated with gender-typed appearance among 175 (87 girls, 88 boys) Mexican American, Dominican American, and African American 2-year-olds. We examined both child and parent contributions to early gender-typed appearance. To measure children’s early conceptual understanding of gender categories, we assessed children’s use and recognition of gender verbal labels. To examine the influence of parent socialization, we assessed mothers’ gender-role attitudes. Children’s gender-typed appearance was observed and coded during an assessment. Surprisingly, mothers’ gender-role attitudes were not significantly associated with toddlers’ gender-typed appearance. However, toddlers’ gender labeling was associated with their gender-typed appearance, suggesting that self-socialization processes can be found as early as 24 months of age.
Abstract: Children’s gender-stereotypical dress and appearance might be one of the first representations of children’s emerging sense of gender identity. Gender self-socialization theories posit that as children become more aware of gender categories, they become motivated to adhere to gender stereotypes, such as by expressing interest in dressing in feminine or masculine ways. Socialization theories predict that children’s gender-typed appearance reflects parents’ choices. For example, gender-traditional parents might dress their children in gender-stereotypical ways. At the same time, dressing in gender-stereotypical ways might contribute to children’s growing awareness of gender categories. The current study investigated the factors associated with gender-typed appearance among 175 (87 girls, 88 boys) Mexican American, Dominican American, and African American 2-year-olds. We examined both child and parent contributions to early gender-typed appearance. To measure children’s early conceptual understanding of gender categories, we assessed children’s use and recognition of gender verbal labels. To examine the influence of parent socialization, we assessed mothers’ gender-role attitudes. Children’s gender-typed appearance was observed and coded during an assessment. Surprisingly, mothers’ gender-role attitudes were not significantly associated with toddlers’ gender-typed appearance. However, toddlers’ gender labeling was associated with their gender-typed appearance, suggesting that self-socialization processes can be found as early as 24 months of age.
No evidence that facial attractiveness, femininity, averageness, or coloration are valid health cues in young adult women
No evidence that facial attractiveness, femininity, averageness, or coloration are valid health cues in young adult women. Ziyi Cai et al. https://osf.io/f9tu2/
Description: Previous reports that women with attractive faces are healthier have been widely cited as evidence that sexual selection has shaped human mate preferences. However, evidence for correlations between women’s physical health and facial attractiveness is equivocal. Moreover, positive results on this issue have generally come from studies of self-reported health in small samples. The current study took standardized face photographs of women who completed three different health questionnaires (Ns=582, 583, 572). Of these women, 221 also provided a saliva sample that was assayed for immunoglobulin A (a marker of immune function). Analyses showed no significant correlations between rated facial attractiveness and either scores on any of the health questionnaires or salivary immunoglobulin A. Furthermore there was no compelling evidence that objective measures of sexual dimorphism of face shape, averageness of face shape, or facial coloration were correlated with health. These null results do not support the prominent and influential assumption that women’s facial attractiveness is a health cue, at least in young adult women.
Description: Previous reports that women with attractive faces are healthier have been widely cited as evidence that sexual selection has shaped human mate preferences. However, evidence for correlations between women’s physical health and facial attractiveness is equivocal. Moreover, positive results on this issue have generally come from studies of self-reported health in small samples. The current study took standardized face photographs of women who completed three different health questionnaires (Ns=582, 583, 572). Of these women, 221 also provided a saliva sample that was assayed for immunoglobulin A (a marker of immune function). Analyses showed no significant correlations between rated facial attractiveness and either scores on any of the health questionnaires or salivary immunoglobulin A. Furthermore there was no compelling evidence that objective measures of sexual dimorphism of face shape, averageness of face shape, or facial coloration were correlated with health. These null results do not support the prominent and influential assumption that women’s facial attractiveness is a health cue, at least in young adult women.
List of the 20 most charismatic animals. The majority are large exotic, terrestrial mammals. These species were deemed charismatic, mainly because they were regarded as beautiful, impressive, or endangered
The twenty most charismatic species. Céline Albert, Gloria M. Luque, Franck Courchamp. PLOS, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199149
Abstract: Charisma is a term commonly used in conservation biology to describe species. However, as the term “charismatic species” has never been properly defined, it needs to be better characterized to fully meet its potential in conservation biology. To provide a more complete depiction, we collected information from four different sources to define the species currently considered to be the most charismatic and to understand what they represent to the Western public. First, we asked respondents of two separate surveys to identify the 10 animal species that they considered to be the most charismatic and associate them with one to six traits: Rare, Endangered, Beautiful, Cute, Impressive, and Dangerous. We then identified the wild animals featured on the website homepages of the zoos situated in the world’s 100 largest cities as well as on the film posters of all Disney and Pixar films, assuming in both cases that the most charismatic species were generally chosen to attract viewers. By combining the four approaches, we set up a ranked list of the 20 most charismatic animals. The majority are large exotic, terrestrial mammals. These species were deemed charismatic, mainly because they were regarded as beautiful, impressive, or endangered, although no particular trait was discriminated, and species were heterogeneously associated with most of the traits. The main social characteristics of respondents did not have a significant effect on their choices. These results provide a concrete list of the most charismatic species and offer insights into the Western public’s perception of charismatic species, both of which could be helpful to target new species for conservation campaigns.
Abstract: Charisma is a term commonly used in conservation biology to describe species. However, as the term “charismatic species” has never been properly defined, it needs to be better characterized to fully meet its potential in conservation biology. To provide a more complete depiction, we collected information from four different sources to define the species currently considered to be the most charismatic and to understand what they represent to the Western public. First, we asked respondents of two separate surveys to identify the 10 animal species that they considered to be the most charismatic and associate them with one to six traits: Rare, Endangered, Beautiful, Cute, Impressive, and Dangerous. We then identified the wild animals featured on the website homepages of the zoos situated in the world’s 100 largest cities as well as on the film posters of all Disney and Pixar films, assuming in both cases that the most charismatic species were generally chosen to attract viewers. By combining the four approaches, we set up a ranked list of the 20 most charismatic animals. The majority are large exotic, terrestrial mammals. These species were deemed charismatic, mainly because they were regarded as beautiful, impressive, or endangered, although no particular trait was discriminated, and species were heterogeneously associated with most of the traits. The main social characteristics of respondents did not have a significant effect on their choices. These results provide a concrete list of the most charismatic species and offer insights into the Western public’s perception of charismatic species, both of which could be helpful to target new species for conservation campaigns.
Monday, July 9, 2018
A representation of the space immediately surrounding the body is the peripersonal space, PPS. [As with non-defensive behaviors,] there is evidence that representations of PPS are flexible in defensive contexts [...]. Looming images of threatening stimulli (snakes & spiders) were judged as arriving sooner than [rabbits and butterflies].
What is peripersonal space? An examination of unresolved empirical issues and emerging findings. Samuel B. Hunley, Stella F. Lourenco. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1472
Abstract: Findings from diverse fields of study, including neuroscience, psychology, zoology, and sociology, demonstrate that human and non‐human primates maintain a representation of the space immediately surrounding the body, known as peripersonal space (PPS). However, progress in this field has been hampered by the lack of an agreed upon definition of PPS. Since the beginning of its formal study, scientists have argued that PPS plays a crucial role in both defensive and non‐defensive actions. Yet consensus is lacking about the cognitive and neural instantiation of these functions. In particular, researchers have begun to ask whether a single, unified system of spatial‐attentional resources supports both the defensive and non‐defensive functions of PPS or, rather, whether there are multiple, independent systems. Moreover, there are open questions about the specificity of PPS. For example: Does PPS dissociate from other well‐known phenomena such as personal space and the body schema? Finally, emerging research has brought attention to important questions about individual differences in the flexibility of PPS and the distribution of PPS in front compared to behind the body. In this advanced review, we shed light on questions about the nature of PPS, offering answers when the research permits or providing recommendations for achieving answers in future research. In so doing, we lay the groundwork for a comprehensive definition of PPS.
Abstract: Findings from diverse fields of study, including neuroscience, psychology, zoology, and sociology, demonstrate that human and non‐human primates maintain a representation of the space immediately surrounding the body, known as peripersonal space (PPS). However, progress in this field has been hampered by the lack of an agreed upon definition of PPS. Since the beginning of its formal study, scientists have argued that PPS plays a crucial role in both defensive and non‐defensive actions. Yet consensus is lacking about the cognitive and neural instantiation of these functions. In particular, researchers have begun to ask whether a single, unified system of spatial‐attentional resources supports both the defensive and non‐defensive functions of PPS or, rather, whether there are multiple, independent systems. Moreover, there are open questions about the specificity of PPS. For example: Does PPS dissociate from other well‐known phenomena such as personal space and the body schema? Finally, emerging research has brought attention to important questions about individual differences in the flexibility of PPS and the distribution of PPS in front compared to behind the body. In this advanced review, we shed light on questions about the nature of PPS, offering answers when the research permits or providing recommendations for achieving answers in future research. In so doing, we lay the groundwork for a comprehensive definition of PPS.
In recent decades, dictatorships based on mass repression have largely given way to a new model based on the manipulation of information. Instead of terror, "informational autocrats" boost their popularity by convincing the public they are competent
Guriev, Sergei M. and Treisman, Daniel, Informational Autocrats (July 5, 2018). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3208523
Abstract: In recent decades, dictatorships based on mass repression have largely given way to a new model based on the manipulation of information. Instead of terrorizing citizens into submission, "informational autocrats" artificially boost their popularity by convincing the public they are competent. To do so, they use propaganda and silence informed members of the elite by co-optation or censorship. Using several sources--including a newly created dataset of authoritarian control techniques--we document a range of trends in recent autocracies that fit the theory: a decline in violence, efforts to conceal state repression, rejection of official ideologies, imitation of democracy, a perceptions gap between masses and elite, and the adoption by leaders of a rhetoric of performance rather than one aimed at inspiring fear.
Abstract: In recent decades, dictatorships based on mass repression have largely given way to a new model based on the manipulation of information. Instead of terrorizing citizens into submission, "informational autocrats" artificially boost their popularity by convincing the public they are competent. To do so, they use propaganda and silence informed members of the elite by co-optation or censorship. Using several sources--including a newly created dataset of authoritarian control techniques--we document a range of trends in recent autocracies that fit the theory: a decline in violence, efforts to conceal state repression, rejection of official ideologies, imitation of democracy, a perceptions gap between masses and elite, and the adoption by leaders of a rhetoric of performance rather than one aimed at inspiring fear.
Animal pointing: Changing trends and findings from 30 years of research
Krause, M. A., Udell, M. A. R., Leavens, D. A., & Skopos, L. (2018). Animal pointing: Changing trends and findings from 30 years of research. Journal of Comparative Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/com0000125
Abstract: The past 30 years have witnessed a continued and growing interest in the production and comprehension of manual pointing gestures in nonhuman animals. Captive primates with diverse rearing histories have shown evidence of both pointing production and comprehension, though there certainly are individual and species differences, as well as substantive critiques of how to interpret pointing or “pointing-like” gestures in animals. Early literature primarily addressed basic questions about whether captive apes point, understand pointing, and use the gesture in a way that communicates intent (declarative) rather than motivational states (imperative). Interest in these questions continues, but more recently there has been a dramatic increase in the number of articles examining pointing in a diverse array of species, with an especially large literature on canids. This proliferation of research on pointing and the diversification of species studied has brought new and exciting questions about the evolution of social cognition, and the effects of rearing history and domestication on pointing production and, more prolifically, comprehension. A review of this work is in order. In this article, we examine trends in the literature on pointing in nonhumans. Specifically, we examine publication frequencies of different study species from 1987 to 2016. We also review data on the form and function of pointing, and evidence either supporting or refuting the conclusion that various nonhuman species comprehend the meaning of pointing gestures.
Abstract: The past 30 years have witnessed a continued and growing interest in the production and comprehension of manual pointing gestures in nonhuman animals. Captive primates with diverse rearing histories have shown evidence of both pointing production and comprehension, though there certainly are individual and species differences, as well as substantive critiques of how to interpret pointing or “pointing-like” gestures in animals. Early literature primarily addressed basic questions about whether captive apes point, understand pointing, and use the gesture in a way that communicates intent (declarative) rather than motivational states (imperative). Interest in these questions continues, but more recently there has been a dramatic increase in the number of articles examining pointing in a diverse array of species, with an especially large literature on canids. This proliferation of research on pointing and the diversification of species studied has brought new and exciting questions about the evolution of social cognition, and the effects of rearing history and domestication on pointing production and, more prolifically, comprehension. A review of this work is in order. In this article, we examine trends in the literature on pointing in nonhumans. Specifically, we examine publication frequencies of different study species from 1987 to 2016. We also review data on the form and function of pointing, and evidence either supporting or refuting the conclusion that various nonhuman species comprehend the meaning of pointing gestures.
Sunday, July 8, 2018
Just a poster, but who knows... Ease your Partner's Jealousy by Cheating Again: Jealousy Decreases as Partner Number Increases
Poster 61. Ease your Partner's Jealousy by Cheating Again: Jealousy Decreases as Partner Number Increases. Benjamin Gelbart, Cari M. Pick, Asha Ganesan, Adam Cohen. Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 30th Annual Meeting, July 2018. http://www.hbes.com/conference/hbes2018/
Abstract: A large body of research suggests that men report more jealousy following a partner's imagined sexual infidelity, whereas women report more jealousy following a partner's imagined emotional infidelity (Sagarin et al., 2012). Here, we build upon this resear ch by suggesting that the number of sexual cheating partners with whom one is involved may be a novel cue to the likelihood of concomitant emotional infidelity. Sexual cheating with a single person, particularly when done repeatedly, may cue concurrent emo tional involvement. Conversely, sexual cheating with multiple partners, particularly when consisting of one-time encounters, may suggest that emotional involvement is unlikely. Across two studies in online (N = 345) and undergraduate (N = 488) samples, res ults from regression analyses showed that jealousy is greatest when imagining a romantic partner cheating with a single individual, relative to multiple individuals (ps < .001). This effect held across genders, remained when holding the number of sexual en counters constant, and appeared to be unique to jealousy. Other emotions -- including anger, distress, and disgust -- increased when imagining multiple cheating partners. The relationship between partner number and jealousy was significantly mediated by concerns of emotional attachment. These findings highlight the functionally specialized nature of sexual jealousy.
Abstract: A large body of research suggests that men report more jealousy following a partner's imagined sexual infidelity, whereas women report more jealousy following a partner's imagined emotional infidelity (Sagarin et al., 2012). Here, we build upon this resear ch by suggesting that the number of sexual cheating partners with whom one is involved may be a novel cue to the likelihood of concomitant emotional infidelity. Sexual cheating with a single person, particularly when done repeatedly, may cue concurrent emo tional involvement. Conversely, sexual cheating with multiple partners, particularly when consisting of one-time encounters, may suggest that emotional involvement is unlikely. Across two studies in online (N = 345) and undergraduate (N = 488) samples, res ults from regression analyses showed that jealousy is greatest when imagining a romantic partner cheating with a single individual, relative to multiple individuals (ps < .001). This effect held across genders, remained when holding the number of sexual en counters constant, and appeared to be unique to jealousy. Other emotions -- including anger, distress, and disgust -- increased when imagining multiple cheating partners. The relationship between partner number and jealousy was significantly mediated by concerns of emotional attachment. These findings highlight the functionally specialized nature of sexual jealousy.
Humans detect valid facial cues of leadership in chimpanzees
Humans detect valid facial cues of leadership in chimpanzees. Alexander Bor, Darren Schreiber, Sarah Brosnan, Susan Lambeth, Steven Schapiro, Frans de Waal, Mark Van Vugt. Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 30th Annual Meeting, July 2018. http://www.hbes.com/conference/hbes2018/
Abstract: Humans rely on facial cues to assess the leadership ability of their peers, which af fects the selection and assessment of leaders in political and business settings. Prominent theoretical explanations propose that facial cues serve as inputs into an adaptive, context-sensitive followership psychology. Here, we push this evolutionary explanation further by testing if humans are able to identify chimpanzee (pan troglodytes) leaders. Importantly, we do not claim that detecting leadership across species had adaptive benefits. Instead, we argue that it is reasonable to assume that facial cues o f leadership may be similar across humans and chimps due to convergences and/or homologies and that humans’ facial cue detecting mechanisms are triggered by encountering chimpanzee faces. We, therefore, predict that alpha chimpanzees will be perceived to b e more dominant and leader-looking than non-alpha chimpanzees. We test our hypothesis relying on a unique inventory of over 150 standardized photographs of more than 70 captive adult male chimpanzees from three colonies. Naive human raters recruited on Ama zon’s Mechanical Turk rated these photographs on six traits (dominance, age, leader ability, attractiveness, likability and competence). Subsequently, we compare the average trait ratings of alpha and non-alpha targets. Preliminary results show that interrater reliability of evaluations are very high and that alpha males are rated higher on dominance, age and leader ability.
Abstract: Humans rely on facial cues to assess the leadership ability of their peers, which af fects the selection and assessment of leaders in political and business settings. Prominent theoretical explanations propose that facial cues serve as inputs into an adaptive, context-sensitive followership psychology. Here, we push this evolutionary explanation further by testing if humans are able to identify chimpanzee (pan troglodytes) leaders. Importantly, we do not claim that detecting leadership across species had adaptive benefits. Instead, we argue that it is reasonable to assume that facial cues o f leadership may be similar across humans and chimps due to convergences and/or homologies and that humans’ facial cue detecting mechanisms are triggered by encountering chimpanzee faces. We, therefore, predict that alpha chimpanzees will be perceived to b e more dominant and leader-looking than non-alpha chimpanzees. We test our hypothesis relying on a unique inventory of over 150 standardized photographs of more than 70 captive adult male chimpanzees from three colonies. Naive human raters recruited on Ama zon’s Mechanical Turk rated these photographs on six traits (dominance, age, leader ability, attractiveness, likability and competence). Subsequently, we compare the average trait ratings of alpha and non-alpha targets. Preliminary results show that interrater reliability of evaluations are very high and that alpha males are rated higher on dominance, age and leader ability.
Men & women more strongly blamed men for their own disadvantages, were more supportive of policies that favored women, & donated more to a female-only (vs male-only) homeless shelter. Females showed a stronger in-group bias, perceiving women's harm as more problematic
Man up and take it: Greater concern for female than male suffering. Tania Reynolds, Hallgeir Sjåstad, Chuck Howard, Tyler Okimoto, Roy Baumeister, Karl Aquino, JongHan Kim. Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 30th Annual Meeting, July 2018. http://www.hbes.com/conference/hbes2018/
Throughout human history, women set the upper limit on reproduction. Women's greater physiological contribution to reproduction may have favored psychological mechanisms within individuals aimed at protecting women from harm. Across 5 studies, we tested the prediction that harm to women would evoke greater concern and outrage than equivalent harm to men. In Study 1, participants more readily assumed an unspecified harmed target was a woman than a man, but especially if the terms 'victim/perpetrator' were used. In Study 2, participants expected both female victims and female perpetrators to experience mo re pain than male victims or perpetrators. They were also less willing to forgive and more strongly desired to punish male perpetrators. Using a variety of social scenarios (e.g., affirmative action, sex-biased careers), Studies 3-5 found female harm or di sadvantage evoked more sympathy and outrage and was perceived as more unfair than equivalent male harm or disadvantage. Participants more strongly blamed men for their own disadvantages, were more supportive of policies that favored women, and donated more to a female-only (vs male-only) homeless shelter. Female participants showed a stronger in-group bias, perceiving women's harm as more problematic and more strongly endorsed policies that favored women.
Throughout human history, women set the upper limit on reproduction. Women's greater physiological contribution to reproduction may have favored psychological mechanisms within individuals aimed at protecting women from harm. Across 5 studies, we tested the prediction that harm to women would evoke greater concern and outrage than equivalent harm to men. In Study 1, participants more readily assumed an unspecified harmed target was a woman than a man, but especially if the terms 'victim/perpetrator' were used. In Study 2, participants expected both female victims and female perpetrators to experience mo re pain than male victims or perpetrators. They were also less willing to forgive and more strongly desired to punish male perpetrators. Using a variety of social scenarios (e.g., affirmative action, sex-biased careers), Studies 3-5 found female harm or di sadvantage evoked more sympathy and outrage and was perceived as more unfair than equivalent male harm or disadvantage. Participants more strongly blamed men for their own disadvantages, were more supportive of policies that favored women, and donated more to a female-only (vs male-only) homeless shelter. Female participants showed a stronger in-group bias, perceiving women's harm as more problematic and more strongly endorsed policies that favored women.
Double Standards of the Political Mind: Results support the Alliance Theory & suggest that ideologies are less morally principled, & more strategic, than has been previously supposed
Double Standards of the Political Mind: Empirical Support for the Alliance Theory. David Pinsof. Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 30t Annual Meeting, July 2018. http://www.hbes.com/conference/hbes2018/
According to many prominent theories in political psychology, ideologies are a type of ethical belief system. According to the Alliance Theory, however, ideologies are collections of ad hoc arguments designed to mobilize support for one's political allies (e.g. the demographic groups associated with one's political party) in particular conflicts. Accordingly, the two frameworks make different predictions about the prevalence of ideological double standards (i.e. inconsistently held moral principles). If ideologies are ethical belief systems, then moral principles should be held consistently. But if ideologies are collections of ad hoc arguments, then moral “principles” should change depending on whether they are applied to one's political allies or enemies. Here, I present American polling data using cellphones and landlines (N = 1,215) showing that majorities of both Democrats and Republicans endorse moral double standards across different questions in the same survey. For example, of the Republicans who trust Vladimir Putin when he said that he did not interfere with the 2016 presidential election, 71% say that Americans should be less trusting of foreigners. Of the Democrats who object to blaming terrorist attacks on Muslims as a group, 65% blame the Charlottesville killing on Trump supporters as a group. Overall, results support the Alliance Theory and suggest that ideologies are less morally principled, and more strategic, than has been previously supposed
According to many prominent theories in political psychology, ideologies are a type of ethical belief system. According to the Alliance Theory, however, ideologies are collections of ad hoc arguments designed to mobilize support for one's political allies (e.g. the demographic groups associated with one's political party) in particular conflicts. Accordingly, the two frameworks make different predictions about the prevalence of ideological double standards (i.e. inconsistently held moral principles). If ideologies are ethical belief systems, then moral principles should be held consistently. But if ideologies are collections of ad hoc arguments, then moral “principles” should change depending on whether they are applied to one's political allies or enemies. Here, I present American polling data using cellphones and landlines (N = 1,215) showing that majorities of both Democrats and Republicans endorse moral double standards across different questions in the same survey. For example, of the Republicans who trust Vladimir Putin when he said that he did not interfere with the 2016 presidential election, 71% say that Americans should be less trusting of foreigners. Of the Democrats who object to blaming terrorist attacks on Muslims as a group, 65% blame the Charlottesville killing on Trump supporters as a group. Overall, results support the Alliance Theory and suggest that ideologies are less morally principled, and more strategic, than has been previously supposed
Genes associated with homosexual behaviour are, in heterosexuals, associated with greater mating success; genes that predispose to homosexual behaviour may have been evolutionarily maintained in the population because they confer a mating advantage to heterosexual carriers
The evolutionary genetics of homosexuality. Brendan Zietsch, Andrea Ganna, Karin Verweij, Felix Day, Michel Nivard, Robert Maier, Robbee Wedow, Abdel Abdellaoui, Benjamin Neale, John Perry. Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 30t Annual Meeting, July 2018. http://www.hbes.com/conference/hbes2018/
Abstract: Homosexual behaviour in humans is genetically influenced and is associated with having fewer offspring. This presents a Darwinian paradox: why have genes that predispose to homosexual behaviour been maintained in the population despite apparent selection against them? Here we show that genes associated with homosexual behaviour are, in heterosexuals, associated with greater mating success. In in a genotyped sample of more than 400,000 individuals from the UK and USA, we for the first time found genomewide-significant association of specific variants with ever having had a same-sex partner, and hundreds of additional variants were significantly associated in aggregate. Among men and women who had never had a same-sex partner, these same aggregate genetic effects were significantly associated with having more lifetime sexual partners and, in an independent sample, with being judged more physically attractive. Our results suggest that genes that predispose to homosexual behaviour may have been evolutionarily maintained in the population because they confer a mating advantage to heterosexual carriers.
Abstract: Homosexual behaviour in humans is genetically influenced and is associated with having fewer offspring. This presents a Darwinian paradox: why have genes that predispose to homosexual behaviour been maintained in the population despite apparent selection against them? Here we show that genes associated with homosexual behaviour are, in heterosexuals, associated with greater mating success. In in a genotyped sample of more than 400,000 individuals from the UK and USA, we for the first time found genomewide-significant association of specific variants with ever having had a same-sex partner, and hundreds of additional variants were significantly associated in aggregate. Among men and women who had never had a same-sex partner, these same aggregate genetic effects were significantly associated with having more lifetime sexual partners and, in an independent sample, with being judged more physically attractive. Our results suggest that genes that predispose to homosexual behaviour may have been evolutionarily maintained in the population because they confer a mating advantage to heterosexual carriers.
Mate-copying is a form of social learning in which witnessing sexual interactions biases own future mate-choice; female fruit flies can copy the choice for _mutant_ males despite the fact that mating with those induces a significant fitness cost for the observer
Mate-copying for a costly variant in Drosophila melanogaster females. Sabine Nöbel Etienne Danchin Guillaume Isabel. Behavioral Ecology, ary095, https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/ary095
Abstract: Mate-copying is a form of social learning in which witnessing sexual interactions between conspecifics biases an observer individual's future mate-choice. Mate-copying exists in many vertebrates, as well as in Drosophila melanogaster. Here, we show that female fruit flies can copy the choice for mutant males (Curly-wing [Cy] mutants vs. wild types [WTs]) despite the fact that mating with Cy males induces a significant fitness cost for the observer female. When facing WT and Cy males, naive observer females of both phenotypes naturally prefer WT males. In a mate-copying experiment, naive observer Cy or WT females saw a demonstrator female copulating with either a Cy or a WT male aside a lonely male of the opposite phenotype. In the subsequent mate-choice test, the Cy and WT observer females did not change their already high natural preference for WT males after witnessing a WT male copulating during the demonstration. Contrastingly, Cy and WT females increased their preference for the naturally nonpreferred Cy males after witnessing a Cy male copulating, showing that mate-copying also exists for costly variants in invertebrates. Furthermore, mate-copying efficiency did not differ when using neutral artificial variants (coloring, Dagaeff et al. 2016) versus phenotypic variants (this study), suggesting that these 2 types of experiments are equivalently suitable to study mate-copying. We finally discuss how mate-copying can participate to the maintenance of costly traits in a population.
Check also Mate copying in Drosophila melanogaster males. Sabine Nöbel, Mélanie Allain, Guillaume Isabel, Etienne Danchin. Animal Behaviour, Volume 141, July 2018, Pages 9–15. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/05/mate-copying-has-been-documented-in.html
Abstract: Mate-copying is a form of social learning in which witnessing sexual interactions between conspecifics biases an observer individual's future mate-choice. Mate-copying exists in many vertebrates, as well as in Drosophila melanogaster. Here, we show that female fruit flies can copy the choice for mutant males (Curly-wing [Cy] mutants vs. wild types [WTs]) despite the fact that mating with Cy males induces a significant fitness cost for the observer female. When facing WT and Cy males, naive observer females of both phenotypes naturally prefer WT males. In a mate-copying experiment, naive observer Cy or WT females saw a demonstrator female copulating with either a Cy or a WT male aside a lonely male of the opposite phenotype. In the subsequent mate-choice test, the Cy and WT observer females did not change their already high natural preference for WT males after witnessing a WT male copulating during the demonstration. Contrastingly, Cy and WT females increased their preference for the naturally nonpreferred Cy males after witnessing a Cy male copulating, showing that mate-copying also exists for costly variants in invertebrates. Furthermore, mate-copying efficiency did not differ when using neutral artificial variants (coloring, Dagaeff et al. 2016) versus phenotypic variants (this study), suggesting that these 2 types of experiments are equivalently suitable to study mate-copying. We finally discuss how mate-copying can participate to the maintenance of costly traits in a population.
Check also Mate copying in Drosophila melanogaster males. Sabine Nöbel, Mélanie Allain, Guillaume Isabel, Etienne Danchin. Animal Behaviour, Volume 141, July 2018, Pages 9–15. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/05/mate-copying-has-been-documented-in.html
Mr. Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, proposed less significant constitutional changes 15 months before the amendments became law & tolerated some open debate [...] The wording of Mr. Hu’s revisions was released to the public nearly three months before lawmakers approved them
How Xi Jinping Made His Power Grab: With Stealth, Speed and Guile. Chris Buckley. The New York Times, March 7, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-party-term-limit.html
BEIJING — Some 200 senior Communist Party officials gathered behind closed doors in January to take up a momentous political decision: whether to abolish presidential term limits and enable Xi Jinping to lead China for a generation.
In a two-day session in Beijing, they bowed to Mr. Xi’s wish to hold onto power indefinitely. But a bland communiqué issued afterward made no mention of the weighty decision, which the authorities then kept under wraps for more than five weeks.
That meeting of the party’s Central Committee was the culmination of months of secretive discussions that are only now coming to light — and show how Mr. Xi maneuvered with stealth, swiftness and guile to rewrite China’s Constitution.
The decision was abruptly announced only last week, days before the annual session of China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress. The delay was apparently an effort to prevent opposition from coalescing before formal approval of the change by the legislature’s nearly 3,000 members.
The congress is all but certain to approve the change and other constitutional amendments — the first since 2004 — in a vote on Sunday, sweeping away a rule that restricts presidents to two five-year terms and has been in the Constitution for 35 years. The congress alone has the power to amend the Constitution, by a two-thirds vote, but lawmakers, picked by the party, have always passed proposals presented to them.
Even those who thought that they had taken the full measure of Mr. Xi’s ambition are surprised by how fast he has moved.
“I always thought Xi would seek to stay for three or four terms, and could even introduce a new presidential system after his terms were finished. But I never thought the Constitution would be revised so quickly,” said Wu Wei, a former official who advised Zhao Ziyang, the party leader ousted during the mass protests of 1989 in Tiananmen Square.
“For such a major revision to an important clause of the Constitution, the views of the whole public nationwide should have been more broadly sought,” he added, pausing to contain his emotion.
Mr. Xi deployed speed, secrecy and intimidation to smother potential opposition inside and outside the party. He swept past the consensus-building conventions that previous leaders used to amend the Constitution. He installed loyalists to draft and support the amendments. And he kept the whole process under the tight control of the party, allowing little debate, even internally.
Soon after China’s Communist Party announced a plan to end presidential term limits, its censors and propaganda machine kicked into high gear. Here’s how it unfolded.Published OnFeb. 28, 2018CreditImage by Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Mr. Xi first formally proposed amending the Constitution little more than five months ago, at a Sept. 29 meeting of the Politburo, a council of 25 party leaders more powerful than the Central Committee, according to an official account issued at the congress on Monday.
But he did not immediately raise the possibility of removing the term limit, said a retired official, citing a senior serving official. To avoid being seen as dictating changes, Mr. Xi let loyal provincial and city leaders quietly promote the idea in his stead, the retired official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of punishment for describing internal discussions.
At that same meeting, the Politburo agreed to purge one of its own members, Sun Zhengcai, who had once been considered a potential successor to Mr. Xi, on corruption charges — a warning to other party officials that needed little elaboration.
Previous rounds of constitutional amendments in China took much longer and involved at least the trappings of public discussion.
Mr. Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, proposed less significant constitutional changes 15 months before the amendments became law and tolerated some open debate, including forums held by liberal intellectuals. The wording of Mr. Hu’s revisions was released to the public nearly three months before lawmakers approved them in March 2004.
By contrast, Mr. Xi first announced that he wanted to make constitutional changes in December, without specifying what they would be. The full details of the amendments, including the abolition of his term limit, were released to the public only eight days before the National People’s Congress convened.
Mr. Xi kept a tight lid on his machinations. After the Politburo meeting in late September, he entrusted the task of revising the Constitution to just three officials: the chairman of the congress, Zhang Dejiang, and two close allies, Li Zhanshu and Wang Huning, both of whom were elevated last year into the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s top body.
Mr. Wang has long been sympathetic to the authoritarian argument that China needs a strongman to maintain social order while pushing through painful policies, such as closing down inefficient factories.
“If somewhere lacks a central authority, or central authority is in decline, the country falls into a state of rupture and turmoil,” he said in an interview published in 1995.
In recent speeches, Mr. Xi has echoed that theme, arguing that China faces unprecedented risks and opportunities. “Our party was born under a sense of peril, grew up under a sense of peril and matured under a sense of peril,” he told a meeting of senior officials in December.
Momentum for ending the term limit built in November, when the party began secretly seeking suggestions on possible constitutional changes, according to the official account issued at the congress. Mr. Xi’s allies began an effort to support the change, and in a clue of their effectiveness, the official account said there was “consistent approval for issuing new rules on the term of office of the president.”
Still, Mr. Xi needed to win approval for his plan at the January meeting of the Central Committee, and when and how he did so have been the subject of dispute.
Reuters, citing two unnamed sources, has reported that the Central Committee failed to reach a consensus at the January meeting and convened its next meeting earlier than usual.
But four party insiders — two retired officials, a party newspaper editor and a businessman with family links to the leadership — told The New York Times that Mr. Xi prevailed in January, essentially confirming the official timeline.
Any committee members with misgivings were unlikely to speak out, given the array of punishment they could face, and party elders who may have once opposed such a move — including Mr. Hu and another former president, Jiang Zemin — are too old or too cowed by Mr. Xi’s anticorruption investigations to muster resistance, party insiders said.
Mr. Xi gained the Central Committee’s backing for ending the term limit just three months after winning his second term as party leader, his other main title, and before starting his second term as president.
“It demonstrates Xi’s penchant for rule-breaking,” said Christopher K. Johnson, an expert on Chinese elite politics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It’s slowly, slowly, slowly, and then when no one’s looking, he turns around and does something big. I think it comes back to the political shock and awe that really dates back to his arrival.”
Several experts and former party officials who have met Mr. Xi said he appears to be driven to overturn the term limit out of a confluence of confidence and anxiety.
He is confident that he has eliminated potential rivals in the elite and enjoys broad public support after cracking down on corruption. But he is worried that a crisis such as an economic slump or a war over North Korea could weaken his authority, they said.
Even with victory in sight, Mr. Xi appears wary of a potential public backlash. Online commentary on ending the term limit has been heavily censored.
After the official Xinhua news agency first announced the proposal on Twitter, which is blocked in China, the journalist who issued the bulletin in English was punished. A colleague, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials apparently thought it was too bluntly worded.
Critics said the imperious way in which Mr. Xi scored his constitutional coup was a foretaste of how his power could swell into dangerous hubris. Mr. Xi demolished a political convention that for decades has helped to shield China from the succession struggles that convulsed politics under the earlier leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, they said.
The legislature will go through the motions of debating the constitutional changes, but there is virtually no chance that the handpicked delegates will oppose them in large numbers when they vote.
On Monday, delegates broke into applause twice when a legislative official read out the proposal to end Mr. Xi’s term limit.
“I think we should give Xi 20 years to accomplish the Chinese dream and give us back a strong China,” said Jiao Yun, a congress delegate from northeast China who is chairman of a coal processing company. “The previous 10-year limit doesn’t mesh with China’s long-term development.”
Keith Bradsher and Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting. Adam Wu, Ailin Tang and Zoe Mou contributed research.
Follow Chris Buckley on Twitter: @ChuBailiang.
A version of this article appears in print on March 8, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Behind Xi’s Power Grab: Stealth, Speed and Guile.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-party-term-limit.html
BEIJING — Some 200 senior Communist Party officials gathered behind closed doors in January to take up a momentous political decision: whether to abolish presidential term limits and enable Xi Jinping to lead China for a generation.
In a two-day session in Beijing, they bowed to Mr. Xi’s wish to hold onto power indefinitely. But a bland communiqué issued afterward made no mention of the weighty decision, which the authorities then kept under wraps for more than five weeks.
That meeting of the party’s Central Committee was the culmination of months of secretive discussions that are only now coming to light — and show how Mr. Xi maneuvered with stealth, swiftness and guile to rewrite China’s Constitution.
The decision was abruptly announced only last week, days before the annual session of China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress. The delay was apparently an effort to prevent opposition from coalescing before formal approval of the change by the legislature’s nearly 3,000 members.
The congress is all but certain to approve the change and other constitutional amendments — the first since 2004 — in a vote on Sunday, sweeping away a rule that restricts presidents to two five-year terms and has been in the Constitution for 35 years. The congress alone has the power to amend the Constitution, by a two-thirds vote, but lawmakers, picked by the party, have always passed proposals presented to them.
Even those who thought that they had taken the full measure of Mr. Xi’s ambition are surprised by how fast he has moved.
“I always thought Xi would seek to stay for three or four terms, and could even introduce a new presidential system after his terms were finished. But I never thought the Constitution would be revised so quickly,” said Wu Wei, a former official who advised Zhao Ziyang, the party leader ousted during the mass protests of 1989 in Tiananmen Square.
“For such a major revision to an important clause of the Constitution, the views of the whole public nationwide should have been more broadly sought,” he added, pausing to contain his emotion.
Mr. Xi deployed speed, secrecy and intimidation to smother potential opposition inside and outside the party. He swept past the consensus-building conventions that previous leaders used to amend the Constitution. He installed loyalists to draft and support the amendments. And he kept the whole process under the tight control of the party, allowing little debate, even internally.
Soon after China’s Communist Party announced a plan to end presidential term limits, its censors and propaganda machine kicked into high gear. Here’s how it unfolded.Published OnFeb. 28, 2018CreditImage by Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Mr. Xi first formally proposed amending the Constitution little more than five months ago, at a Sept. 29 meeting of the Politburo, a council of 25 party leaders more powerful than the Central Committee, according to an official account issued at the congress on Monday.
But he did not immediately raise the possibility of removing the term limit, said a retired official, citing a senior serving official. To avoid being seen as dictating changes, Mr. Xi let loyal provincial and city leaders quietly promote the idea in his stead, the retired official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of punishment for describing internal discussions.
At that same meeting, the Politburo agreed to purge one of its own members, Sun Zhengcai, who had once been considered a potential successor to Mr. Xi, on corruption charges — a warning to other party officials that needed little elaboration.
Previous rounds of constitutional amendments in China took much longer and involved at least the trappings of public discussion.
Mr. Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, proposed less significant constitutional changes 15 months before the amendments became law and tolerated some open debate, including forums held by liberal intellectuals. The wording of Mr. Hu’s revisions was released to the public nearly three months before lawmakers approved them in March 2004.
By contrast, Mr. Xi first announced that he wanted to make constitutional changes in December, without specifying what they would be. The full details of the amendments, including the abolition of his term limit, were released to the public only eight days before the National People’s Congress convened.
Mr. Xi kept a tight lid on his machinations. After the Politburo meeting in late September, he entrusted the task of revising the Constitution to just three officials: the chairman of the congress, Zhang Dejiang, and two close allies, Li Zhanshu and Wang Huning, both of whom were elevated last year into the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s top body.
Mr. Wang has long been sympathetic to the authoritarian argument that China needs a strongman to maintain social order while pushing through painful policies, such as closing down inefficient factories.
“If somewhere lacks a central authority, or central authority is in decline, the country falls into a state of rupture and turmoil,” he said in an interview published in 1995.
In recent speeches, Mr. Xi has echoed that theme, arguing that China faces unprecedented risks and opportunities. “Our party was born under a sense of peril, grew up under a sense of peril and matured under a sense of peril,” he told a meeting of senior officials in December.
Momentum for ending the term limit built in November, when the party began secretly seeking suggestions on possible constitutional changes, according to the official account issued at the congress. Mr. Xi’s allies began an effort to support the change, and in a clue of their effectiveness, the official account said there was “consistent approval for issuing new rules on the term of office of the president.”
Still, Mr. Xi needed to win approval for his plan at the January meeting of the Central Committee, and when and how he did so have been the subject of dispute.
Reuters, citing two unnamed sources, has reported that the Central Committee failed to reach a consensus at the January meeting and convened its next meeting earlier than usual.
But four party insiders — two retired officials, a party newspaper editor and a businessman with family links to the leadership — told The New York Times that Mr. Xi prevailed in January, essentially confirming the official timeline.
Any committee members with misgivings were unlikely to speak out, given the array of punishment they could face, and party elders who may have once opposed such a move — including Mr. Hu and another former president, Jiang Zemin — are too old or too cowed by Mr. Xi’s anticorruption investigations to muster resistance, party insiders said.
Mr. Xi gained the Central Committee’s backing for ending the term limit just three months after winning his second term as party leader, his other main title, and before starting his second term as president.
“It demonstrates Xi’s penchant for rule-breaking,” said Christopher K. Johnson, an expert on Chinese elite politics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It’s slowly, slowly, slowly, and then when no one’s looking, he turns around and does something big. I think it comes back to the political shock and awe that really dates back to his arrival.”
Several experts and former party officials who have met Mr. Xi said he appears to be driven to overturn the term limit out of a confluence of confidence and anxiety.
He is confident that he has eliminated potential rivals in the elite and enjoys broad public support after cracking down on corruption. But he is worried that a crisis such as an economic slump or a war over North Korea could weaken his authority, they said.
Even with victory in sight, Mr. Xi appears wary of a potential public backlash. Online commentary on ending the term limit has been heavily censored.
After the official Xinhua news agency first announced the proposal on Twitter, which is blocked in China, the journalist who issued the bulletin in English was punished. A colleague, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials apparently thought it was too bluntly worded.
Critics said the imperious way in which Mr. Xi scored his constitutional coup was a foretaste of how his power could swell into dangerous hubris. Mr. Xi demolished a political convention that for decades has helped to shield China from the succession struggles that convulsed politics under the earlier leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, they said.
The legislature will go through the motions of debating the constitutional changes, but there is virtually no chance that the handpicked delegates will oppose them in large numbers when they vote.
On Monday, delegates broke into applause twice when a legislative official read out the proposal to end Mr. Xi’s term limit.
“I think we should give Xi 20 years to accomplish the Chinese dream and give us back a strong China,” said Jiao Yun, a congress delegate from northeast China who is chairman of a coal processing company. “The previous 10-year limit doesn’t mesh with China’s long-term development.”
Keith Bradsher and Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting. Adam Wu, Ailin Tang and Zoe Mou contributed research.
Follow Chris Buckley on Twitter: @ChuBailiang.
A version of this article appears in print on March 8, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Behind Xi’s Power Grab: Stealth, Speed and Guile.
Revisiting Perceiver & Target Gender Effects in Deception Detection: Female targets were easier to “read” (i.e., greater sensitivity) by both sexes & were called liars more frequently than male targets
Revisiting Perceiver and Target Gender Effects in Deception Detection. E. Paige Lloyd, Kevin M. Summers, Kurt Hugenberg, Allen R. McConnell. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10919-018-0283-6
Abstract: Existing research is inconclusive regarding the influence of perceiver gender and target gender on lie detection. Researchers have offered a number of conclusions regarding gender effects in deception detection (e.g., women are better at lie detection than men, participant and target gender interact in predicting deception detection accuracy, there are no gender effects in deception detection). In the current work, we revisit the question of whether and how gender influences lie detection, employing a large database of controlled stimuli, a large sample size, and the analytical advantages provided by signal detection theory. Participants viewed videos of male and female targets telling truths and lies about interpersonal relationships, and after each video, they rendered a truth or lie judgment. Female targets were easier to “read” (i.e., greater sensitivity) and were called liars more frequently than male targets. No effects of participant gender were observed. This work sheds light on an important issue in the lie detection literature (i.e., does gender matter?), and it identifies important considerations for understanding gender biases and cross-gender social interactions.
Abstract: Existing research is inconclusive regarding the influence of perceiver gender and target gender on lie detection. Researchers have offered a number of conclusions regarding gender effects in deception detection (e.g., women are better at lie detection than men, participant and target gender interact in predicting deception detection accuracy, there are no gender effects in deception detection). In the current work, we revisit the question of whether and how gender influences lie detection, employing a large database of controlled stimuli, a large sample size, and the analytical advantages provided by signal detection theory. Participants viewed videos of male and female targets telling truths and lies about interpersonal relationships, and after each video, they rendered a truth or lie judgment. Female targets were easier to “read” (i.e., greater sensitivity) and were called liars more frequently than male targets. No effects of participant gender were observed. This work sheds light on an important issue in the lie detection literature (i.e., does gender matter?), and it identifies important considerations for understanding gender biases and cross-gender social interactions.
Trained male rats to associate copulation with wearing a [Velcro jacket]. After training, males were sexually aroused by being fitted with the jacket, and even showed reduced sexual activity when exposed unclothed to females
Evaluation and hedonic value in mate choice. Gil G Rosenthal. Current Zoology, zoy054, https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoy054
Abstract: Mating preferences can show extreme variation within and among individuals even when sensory inputs are conserved. This variation is a result of changes associated with evaluative mechanisms that assign positive, neutral, or negative hedonic value to stimuli – that is, label them as attractive, uninteresting, or unattractive. There is widespread behavioral evidence for differences in genes, environmental cues, or social experience leading to marked changes in the hedonic value of stimuli. Evaluation is accomplished through an array of mechanisms that are readily modifiable through genetic changes or environmental inputs, and that may often result in the rapid acquisition or loss of behavioral preferences. Reversals in preference arising from “flips” in hedonic value may be quite common. Incorporating such discontinuous changes into models of preference evolution may illuminate our understanding of processes like trait diversification, sexual conflict, and sympatric speciation.
Keywords: associative learning, mating preference, sensory biology, assortative mating, valence
---
Indeed, animals can be trained to develop fetishes: striong, specific preferences for arbitrary stimuly. Pfaus and colleagues trained male rats to associate copulation with wearing a [Velcro jacket]. After training, males were sexually aroused by being fitted with the jacket, and even showed reduced sexual activity when exposed unclothed to females.
Abstract: Mating preferences can show extreme variation within and among individuals even when sensory inputs are conserved. This variation is a result of changes associated with evaluative mechanisms that assign positive, neutral, or negative hedonic value to stimuli – that is, label them as attractive, uninteresting, or unattractive. There is widespread behavioral evidence for differences in genes, environmental cues, or social experience leading to marked changes in the hedonic value of stimuli. Evaluation is accomplished through an array of mechanisms that are readily modifiable through genetic changes or environmental inputs, and that may often result in the rapid acquisition or loss of behavioral preferences. Reversals in preference arising from “flips” in hedonic value may be quite common. Incorporating such discontinuous changes into models of preference evolution may illuminate our understanding of processes like trait diversification, sexual conflict, and sympatric speciation.
Keywords: associative learning, mating preference, sensory biology, assortative mating, valence
---
Indeed, animals can be trained to develop fetishes: striong, specific preferences for arbitrary stimuly. Pfaus and colleagues trained male rats to associate copulation with wearing a [Velcro jacket]. After training, males were sexually aroused by being fitted with the jacket, and even showed reduced sexual activity when exposed unclothed to females.
Greater national gender inequality significantly predicts greater gender differences in job satisfaction, but not life satisfaction
A Meta-Analysis of Gender Differences in Subjective Well-Being: Estimating Effect Sizes and Associations With Gender Inequality. Cassondra Batz-Barbarich et al. Psychological Science, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797618774796
Abstract: Despite global gender inequalities, findings on gender differences in subjective well-being have been inconsistent. We conducted a meta-analysis on gender differences in subjective well-being to account for the type of subjective-well-being measure, sampling variability, and levels of national gender inequality from which samples are gathered. Based on 281 effect sizes for life satisfaction (N = 1,001,802) and 264 for job satisfaction (N = 341,949), results showed no significant gender differences in both types of subjective well-being. Supplementary meta-analyses found significantly lower job satisfaction, but not life satisfaction, in women for studies that used both life-satisfaction and job-satisfaction measures, and studies that relied on measures that previously demonstrated measurement equivalence. Using the Gender Inequality Index, we found that greater national gender inequality significantly predicts greater gender differences in job satisfaction, but not life satisfaction. We discuss the implications of these findings and the use of subjective well-being as a measure of societal progress.
Keywords: gender differences, subjective well-being, life satisfaction, job satisfaction, inequality
Abstract: Despite global gender inequalities, findings on gender differences in subjective well-being have been inconsistent. We conducted a meta-analysis on gender differences in subjective well-being to account for the type of subjective-well-being measure, sampling variability, and levels of national gender inequality from which samples are gathered. Based on 281 effect sizes for life satisfaction (N = 1,001,802) and 264 for job satisfaction (N = 341,949), results showed no significant gender differences in both types of subjective well-being. Supplementary meta-analyses found significantly lower job satisfaction, but not life satisfaction, in women for studies that used both life-satisfaction and job-satisfaction measures, and studies that relied on measures that previously demonstrated measurement equivalence. Using the Gender Inequality Index, we found that greater national gender inequality significantly predicts greater gender differences in job satisfaction, but not life satisfaction. We discuss the implications of these findings and the use of subjective well-being as a measure of societal progress.
Keywords: gender differences, subjective well-being, life satisfaction, job satisfaction, inequality
Saturday, July 7, 2018
The importance given to appearance was lower among uninvolved (“single”) persons; & single men and women were more dissatisfied with their overall appearance than adults who were romantically involved but not currently cohabitating
Body image and the role of romantic relationships. Maria Fernanda Laus, Sebastião S. Almeida & Lori A. Klos. Cogent Psychology, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23311908.2018.1496986
Abstract: A variety of sociocultural factors have been recognized as important influences on appearance-related issues but little research has examined the intersection between romantic relationships and body image among adults. This study examined whether self-evaluative and motivational investment in appearance, overweight preoccupation, and body satisfaction differ between men and women who were involved (or not) in a romantic relationship. Moreover, we investigated the associations between relationship experiences (relationship type, relationship length, commitment, passion, and intimacy) and body image. To that, 423 men (Mage = 45.32 ± 13.86 years) and 505 women (Mage = 43.52 ± 13.07 years) completed an online survey through the SurveyMonkey Audience database in the United States, including several measures of body image and relationship functioning. Our results demonstrated that the importance given to appearance was lower among uninvolved (“single”) participants; overweight preoccupation did not differ between men and women who were involved or not in a romantic relationship; and that single men and women were more dissatisfied with their overall appearance than adults who were romantically involved but not currently cohabitating. For men and women, romantic involvement plays a pivotal role in promoting and maintaining a less negative body image. The type of relationship and its functioning are also important aspects related to body image. This study provides some context for understanding the importance of romantic situation on one’s body image.
Keywords: romantic relationships, body image, appearance investment, overweight concerns, body satisfaction, relationship quality
Abstract: A variety of sociocultural factors have been recognized as important influences on appearance-related issues but little research has examined the intersection between romantic relationships and body image among adults. This study examined whether self-evaluative and motivational investment in appearance, overweight preoccupation, and body satisfaction differ between men and women who were involved (or not) in a romantic relationship. Moreover, we investigated the associations between relationship experiences (relationship type, relationship length, commitment, passion, and intimacy) and body image. To that, 423 men (Mage = 45.32 ± 13.86 years) and 505 women (Mage = 43.52 ± 13.07 years) completed an online survey through the SurveyMonkey Audience database in the United States, including several measures of body image and relationship functioning. Our results demonstrated that the importance given to appearance was lower among uninvolved (“single”) participants; overweight preoccupation did not differ between men and women who were involved or not in a romantic relationship; and that single men and women were more dissatisfied with their overall appearance than adults who were romantically involved but not currently cohabitating. For men and women, romantic involvement plays a pivotal role in promoting and maintaining a less negative body image. The type of relationship and its functioning are also important aspects related to body image. This study provides some context for understanding the importance of romantic situation on one’s body image.
Keywords: romantic relationships, body image, appearance investment, overweight concerns, body satisfaction, relationship quality
No evidence for attention bias towards threat in clinical anxiety: a meta-analysis of baseline bias in attention bias modification RCTs
No evidence for attention bias towards threat in clinical anxiety: a meta-analysis of baseline bias in attention bias modification RCTs. Anne-Wil Kruijt, Sam Parsons, Elaine Fox. Pre-print 10.31234/osf.io/rfjup
Abstract
Background: Considerable effort and funding are spent on developing Attention Bias Modification (ABM) as a treatment for anxiety disorders. ABM is theorized to exert therapeutic effects through reduction of an increased attentional bias towards threat. Yet, the available meta-analytical evidence for the common assertion that clinical anxiety is characterised by this treat-related attentional bias is thin: the largest meta-analysis to date included n=337 clinically anxious individuals. We propose that baseline measurements in clinical ABM RCTs constitute a hitherto not assessed additional body of data on magnitude of biased attention in clinically anxious samples.
Method: We meta-analysed baseline dot-probe assessed bias for 1005 clinically anxious individuals enrolled in ABM RCTs.
Results: REML analysis indicated no evidence that mean bias index (BI) differs from zero (k= 13, n= 1005, mean BI = 1.8 ms, SE = 1.26 ms, p = .144, 95% CI [-0.6 - 4.3]. Additional Bayes factor analyses also supported the traditional point-nil hypothesis (BF10 = .23), whereas additional interval-based analysis indicated it unlikely that mean bias in clinical anxiety extends beyond the 0 to 5 ms interval.
Discussion: We discuss our findings with respect to strengths (larger samples, possible bypassing of publication bias), limitations (lack of control comparison, repurposing data), and theoretical and practical context. We suggest that it may be prudent to no longer classify anxious samples as being characterized by bias.
Conclusion: Clinically anxious individuals enrolled in RCTs for Attention Bias Modification are not characterized by attentional bias towards threat at baseline.
Abstract
Background: Considerable effort and funding are spent on developing Attention Bias Modification (ABM) as a treatment for anxiety disorders. ABM is theorized to exert therapeutic effects through reduction of an increased attentional bias towards threat. Yet, the available meta-analytical evidence for the common assertion that clinical anxiety is characterised by this treat-related attentional bias is thin: the largest meta-analysis to date included n=337 clinically anxious individuals. We propose that baseline measurements in clinical ABM RCTs constitute a hitherto not assessed additional body of data on magnitude of biased attention in clinically anxious samples.
Method: We meta-analysed baseline dot-probe assessed bias for 1005 clinically anxious individuals enrolled in ABM RCTs.
Results: REML analysis indicated no evidence that mean bias index (BI) differs from zero (k= 13, n= 1005, mean BI = 1.8 ms, SE = 1.26 ms, p = .144, 95% CI [-0.6 - 4.3]. Additional Bayes factor analyses also supported the traditional point-nil hypothesis (BF10 = .23), whereas additional interval-based analysis indicated it unlikely that mean bias in clinical anxiety extends beyond the 0 to 5 ms interval.
Discussion: We discuss our findings with respect to strengths (larger samples, possible bypassing of publication bias), limitations (lack of control comparison, repurposing data), and theoretical and practical context. We suggest that it may be prudent to no longer classify anxious samples as being characterized by bias.
Conclusion: Clinically anxious individuals enrolled in RCTs for Attention Bias Modification are not characterized by attentional bias towards threat at baseline.
Friday, July 6, 2018
Neuronal Mechanisms Recording the Stream of Consciousness–A Reappraisal of Wilder Penfield’s (1891–1976) Concept of Experiential Phenomena Elicited by Electrical Stimulation of the Human Cortex
Neuronal Mechanisms Recording the Stream of Consciousness–A Reappraisal of Wilder Penfield’s (1891–1976) Concept of Experiential Phenomena Elicited by Electrical Stimulation of the Human Cortex. R Nitsch, F W Stahnisch. Cerebral Cortex, bhy085, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhy085
Abstract: Research on memory has been a major focus in the neurosciences over the past decades. An important advance was achieved by Wilder Penfield at the Montreal Neurological Institute, who reported from the 1930s to the 1950s about experiential phenomena induced by electrical brain stimulation in humans, implying neuronal causation of memory. Since then, neuroscientists have addressed the topic of memory from a range of subdisciplines; however, these reports by Penfield and his group as well as those on patient H. M. by Brenda Milner at the same institution continue to be referenced as groundbreaking. Further experimental work by Nobel laureates Eric Kandel and John O’Keefe, as well as by Edvard and May-Britt Moser related Penfield’s patient documentation to experiential phenomena. However, our reassessment of Penfield’s original patient documentation questions the stance that he had uncovered the “storehouse of memories.” Human memory must be regarded more as context sensitive and as representative of an active reconstructive process, than as a simple recording of events. Hence, strategies aiming at naturalizing all phenomena of mind (including memory) to cellular and molecular mechanisms cannot convincingly refer to Penfield’s electrophysiological studies alone as evidence that memories are solely caused by neuronal firing patterns.
Keywords: brain stimulation, consciousness, cortical organization, memory, temporal lobe
Abstract: Research on memory has been a major focus in the neurosciences over the past decades. An important advance was achieved by Wilder Penfield at the Montreal Neurological Institute, who reported from the 1930s to the 1950s about experiential phenomena induced by electrical brain stimulation in humans, implying neuronal causation of memory. Since then, neuroscientists have addressed the topic of memory from a range of subdisciplines; however, these reports by Penfield and his group as well as those on patient H. M. by Brenda Milner at the same institution continue to be referenced as groundbreaking. Further experimental work by Nobel laureates Eric Kandel and John O’Keefe, as well as by Edvard and May-Britt Moser related Penfield’s patient documentation to experiential phenomena. However, our reassessment of Penfield’s original patient documentation questions the stance that he had uncovered the “storehouse of memories.” Human memory must be regarded more as context sensitive and as representative of an active reconstructive process, than as a simple recording of events. Hence, strategies aiming at naturalizing all phenomena of mind (including memory) to cellular and molecular mechanisms cannot convincingly refer to Penfield’s electrophysiological studies alone as evidence that memories are solely caused by neuronal firing patterns.
Keywords: brain stimulation, consciousness, cortical organization, memory, temporal lobe
Openness was negatively associated with eating red meat, positively related to fish & unrelated to poultry & overall meat consumption; extraverted people had higher meat consumption of the three types & overall
Personality and meat consumption: The importance of differentiating between type of meat. Tamara M.Pfeiler, Boris Egloff. Appetite, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2018.07.007
Abstract: Recent research has shown that sociodemographic factors and the Big Five personality traits are related to people's overall level of meat consumption. However, there are important differences among various types of meat (e.g., red meat, poultry, and fish) that might lead to differential patterns in how the consumption of specific types of meat is associated with personality and sociodemographic factors. To disentangle these general and specific relationships, we conducted two studies using two large-scale representative samples from different countries: Germany (N = 13,062) and Australia (N = 15,036). Mostly consistent with our expectations, personality and sociodemographic variables showed specific associations with meat consumption, depending on type of meat. For example, in both studies, openness was negatively associated with red meat consumption but positively related to fish consumption, whereas it was unrelated to poultry consumption and overall meat consumption in hierarchical regression analyses in which we controlled for sociodemographic factors. By contrast, extraverted people reported both more consumption of each individual type of meat and more overall meat consumption. In sum, results were largely consistent between the samples, but effect sizes were generally small. Taken together, these two studies underscore the importance of differentiating between meat types when examining individual differences in meat consumption. Implications and future avenues for investigating the link between personality and dietary habits are discussed.
Abstract: Recent research has shown that sociodemographic factors and the Big Five personality traits are related to people's overall level of meat consumption. However, there are important differences among various types of meat (e.g., red meat, poultry, and fish) that might lead to differential patterns in how the consumption of specific types of meat is associated with personality and sociodemographic factors. To disentangle these general and specific relationships, we conducted two studies using two large-scale representative samples from different countries: Germany (N = 13,062) and Australia (N = 15,036). Mostly consistent with our expectations, personality and sociodemographic variables showed specific associations with meat consumption, depending on type of meat. For example, in both studies, openness was negatively associated with red meat consumption but positively related to fish consumption, whereas it was unrelated to poultry consumption and overall meat consumption in hierarchical regression analyses in which we controlled for sociodemographic factors. By contrast, extraverted people reported both more consumption of each individual type of meat and more overall meat consumption. In sum, results were largely consistent between the samples, but effect sizes were generally small. Taken together, these two studies underscore the importance of differentiating between meat types when examining individual differences in meat consumption. Implications and future avenues for investigating the link between personality and dietary habits are discussed.
Checking against age, father’s class, education, ethnicity, religiosity, native language & parental divorce, is higher well-being with similar partner? Seems not so.
Verbakel, Ellen, and Christiaan W. S. Monden. 2018. “Higher Well-being with Similar Partner? Testing the Similarity Hypothesis for Socio-demographic Characteristics.” SocArXiv. July 5. doi:10.31235/osf.io/ahwn6
Abstract: Studies on marriage and divorce often assume, explicitly or implicitly, that there is a positive relationship between partner similarity and well-being. We test this similarity hypothesis: do individuals who share more socio-demographic characteristics with their partners report higher well-being than individuals whose partners are less similar? We analyzed information on more than 2,300 married and cohabiting couples aged 18-50 from the UK Understanding Society wave 1 survey. Three dimensions of well-being were assessed: relationship quality, life satisfaction and psychological distress. We examined similarity on seven characteristics separately and as an index of similarity: age, father’s class, education, ethnicity, religiosity, native language, and parental divorce. The results provided no support for the similarity hypothesis: there was no evidence for a positive association between partner similarity and the three well-being measures. We discuss the implications of this finding for our understanding of partner choice and divorce.
Abstract: Studies on marriage and divorce often assume, explicitly or implicitly, that there is a positive relationship between partner similarity and well-being. We test this similarity hypothesis: do individuals who share more socio-demographic characteristics with their partners report higher well-being than individuals whose partners are less similar? We analyzed information on more than 2,300 married and cohabiting couples aged 18-50 from the UK Understanding Society wave 1 survey. Three dimensions of well-being were assessed: relationship quality, life satisfaction and psychological distress. We examined similarity on seven characteristics separately and as an index of similarity: age, father’s class, education, ethnicity, religiosity, native language, and parental divorce. The results provided no support for the similarity hypothesis: there was no evidence for a positive association between partner similarity and the three well-being measures. We discuss the implications of this finding for our understanding of partner choice and divorce.
Consistent preference for deontological over consequentialist agents: deontological agents were viewed as more moral and trustworthy, &were actually entrusted with more money in a resource distribution task.
Everett, Jim A. C., Nadira S. Faber, Julian Savulescu, and Molly Crockett. 2018. “Everett Et Al. The Cost of Being Consequentialist.” PsyArXiv. July 5. doi:10.31234/osf.io/a2kx6
Abstract: Previous work has demonstrated that people are more likely to trust “deontological” agents who reject instrumentally harming one person to save a greater number than “consequentialist” agents who endorse such harm in pursuit of the greater good. It has been argued that these differential social perceptions of deontological vs. consequentialist agents could explain the higher prevalence of deontological moral intuitions. Yet consequentialism involves much more than decisions to endorse instrumental harm: another critical dimension is impartial beneficence, defined as the impartial maximization of the greater good, treating the well-being of every individual as equally important. In three studies (total N = 1,634), we investigated preferences for deontological vs. consequentialist social partners in both the domains of instrumental harm and impartial beneficence, and consider how such preferences vary across different types of social relationships. Our results demonstrate consistent preferences for deontological over consequentialist agents across both domains of instrumental harm and impartial beneficence: deontological agents were viewed as more moral and trustworthy, and were actually entrusted with more money in a resource distribution task. However, preferences for deontological agents were stronger when those preferences were revealed via aversion to instrumental harm than impartial beneficence. Finally, in the domain of instrumental harm, deontological agents were uniformly preferred across a variety of social roles, but in the domain of impartial beneficence, people prefer deontologists for roles requiring direct interaction (friend, spouse, boss) but not for more distant roles with little-to-no personal interaction (political leader).
Abstract: Previous work has demonstrated that people are more likely to trust “deontological” agents who reject instrumentally harming one person to save a greater number than “consequentialist” agents who endorse such harm in pursuit of the greater good. It has been argued that these differential social perceptions of deontological vs. consequentialist agents could explain the higher prevalence of deontological moral intuitions. Yet consequentialism involves much more than decisions to endorse instrumental harm: another critical dimension is impartial beneficence, defined as the impartial maximization of the greater good, treating the well-being of every individual as equally important. In three studies (total N = 1,634), we investigated preferences for deontological vs. consequentialist social partners in both the domains of instrumental harm and impartial beneficence, and consider how such preferences vary across different types of social relationships. Our results demonstrate consistent preferences for deontological over consequentialist agents across both domains of instrumental harm and impartial beneficence: deontological agents were viewed as more moral and trustworthy, and were actually entrusted with more money in a resource distribution task. However, preferences for deontological agents were stronger when those preferences were revealed via aversion to instrumental harm than impartial beneficence. Finally, in the domain of instrumental harm, deontological agents were uniformly preferred across a variety of social roles, but in the domain of impartial beneficence, people prefer deontologists for roles requiring direct interaction (friend, spouse, boss) but not for more distant roles with little-to-no personal interaction (political leader).
Thursday, July 5, 2018
Morality Is for Choosing Sides, not for improving the welfare of families, friends or groups or for altruism
Morality Is for Choosing Sides. Peter DeScioli, Robert Kurzban. descioli.com/papers/descioli.kurzban.morality.choosing.sides.atlas18.pdf
Arguably still worse for altruism theories are moral rules that guarantee welfare losses. Across cultures, moral rules prohibit any number of victimless, mutually profitable transactions. Historically, an obvious example is the prohibition against charging interest, which preventts mutuaally profitable loans. In India, the prohibition against killing cows has long caused substantial harms (Suri, 2015). Any number of similar rules con. tinue to undermine potential welfare gains.
We suggest that the tremendous array of data showing that people's judgments are deontological, along witlh the ubiquity of welfare-destroying moral rules, all constitute serious evidence against welfare-based theories of morality. The side-taking hypothesis does not run afoul of these problems. This theory requires that a rule is known and that its violation can be recognized by observers; because rules are for coordinated side-taking rather than welfare-enhancement, they can include a wide range of contents, including welfare-destroying contents. In short, deontological judgment is a set of observations that is, we think, fatal for welfare theories but consistent with the side-taking theory. There are several other areas of active research that provide evidence relevant to the side-taking hypothesis. First, research has found that people's tendency to moralize an issue depends on their power and alliances [...]. This evidence supports the idea that moral judgernent is a strategy that people selectively deploy depending on whether they are m1ost advantaged when others choose sides according to moral judgment, power, or alliances. Second, the side-taking theory points to impartiality as a core feature of moral judgment because it is designed as an alternative to partial alliances. Recent work on fairness judgments points to a similar role for impartiality in suppressing alliances in the context of allocating resources (Shaw, 2013). Third, the side-taking hypothesis emphasizes variability in moral rules and also people's debates and arguments about which moral rules will structure side-taking in their community. Consistent with this idea, research shows that people actively advocate for the moral rules that most advantage them over other people [...].
Arguably still worse for altruism theories are moral rules that guarantee welfare losses. Across cultures, moral rules prohibit any number of victimless, mutually profitable transactions. Historically, an obvious example is the prohibition against charging interest, which preventts mutuaally profitable loans. In India, the prohibition against killing cows has long caused substantial harms (Suri, 2015). Any number of similar rules con. tinue to undermine potential welfare gains.
We suggest that the tremendous array of data showing that people's judgments are deontological, along witlh the ubiquity of welfare-destroying moral rules, all constitute serious evidence against welfare-based theories of morality. The side-taking hypothesis does not run afoul of these problems. This theory requires that a rule is known and that its violation can be recognized by observers; because rules are for coordinated side-taking rather than welfare-enhancement, they can include a wide range of contents, including welfare-destroying contents. In short, deontological judgment is a set of observations that is, we think, fatal for welfare theories but consistent with the side-taking theory. There are several other areas of active research that provide evidence relevant to the side-taking hypothesis. First, research has found that people's tendency to moralize an issue depends on their power and alliances [...]. This evidence supports the idea that moral judgernent is a strategy that people selectively deploy depending on whether they are m1ost advantaged when others choose sides according to moral judgment, power, or alliances. Second, the side-taking theory points to impartiality as a core feature of moral judgment because it is designed as an alternative to partial alliances. Recent work on fairness judgments points to a similar role for impartiality in suppressing alliances in the context of allocating resources (Shaw, 2013). Third, the side-taking hypothesis emphasizes variability in moral rules and also people's debates and arguments about which moral rules will structure side-taking in their community. Consistent with this idea, research shows that people actively advocate for the moral rules that most advantage them over other people [...].
Self-reports of felt emotion were delayed relative to reports of event-directed moral judgments (e.g. badness) & were no faster than person-directed moral judgments (e.g. blame), challenging theories arguing that moral judgments are made on the basis of reflecting on affective states
Cusimano, Corey J., Stuti Thapa Magar and Bertram F. Malle. “Judgment Before Emotion: People Access Moral Evaluations Faster than Affective States.” CogSci (2017). http://research.clps.brown.edu/SocCogSci/Publications/Pubs/Cusimano%20ThapaMagar%20&%20Malle%202017%20CogSci.pdf
Abstract: Theories about the role of emotions in moral cognition make different predictions about the relative speed of moral and affective judgments: those that argue that felt emotions are causal inputs to moral judgments predict that recognition of affective states should precede moral judgments; theories that posit emotional states as the output of moral judgment predict the opposite. Across four studies, using a speeded reaction time task, we found that self-reports of felt emotion were delayed relative to reports of event-directed moral judgments (e.g. badness) and were no faster than person-directed moral judgments (e.g. blame). These results pose a challenge to prominent theories arguing that moral judgments are made on the basis of reflecting on affective states.
Keywords: affect, emotion, moral judgment, reaction time
Abstract: Theories about the role of emotions in moral cognition make different predictions about the relative speed of moral and affective judgments: those that argue that felt emotions are causal inputs to moral judgments predict that recognition of affective states should precede moral judgments; theories that posit emotional states as the output of moral judgment predict the opposite. Across four studies, using a speeded reaction time task, we found that self-reports of felt emotion were delayed relative to reports of event-directed moral judgments (e.g. badness) and were no faster than person-directed moral judgments (e.g. blame). These results pose a challenge to prominent theories arguing that moral judgments are made on the basis of reflecting on affective states.
Keywords: affect, emotion, moral judgment, reaction time
Why are animate dishes so disturbing?
Why are animate dishes so disturbing? Charles Spence. International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijgfs.2018.07.001
Abstract: Most foods are relatively static on the plate. Food that moves, especially if it does so in an animate manner, captures our attention in a way that would seem to play to society's growing interest with ‘food porn’. At the same time, however, most diners appear to find such movement on the plate or in the bowl rather disconcerting to say the very least. Such animacy may be aversive, ‘horrifying’, in fact, being a term that one sometimes sees used in this context. According to one suggestion, this may be because of a primordial fear of asphyxiation on eating food that still has the capacity to move of its own volition. According to others, however, there may also be something of a taboo around harming living things that many meat eaters try to mitigate by, for example, not calling the animals they eat by the name of the beast: Think steak or beef for cow and pork chop or bacon for pig. It may simply be that it is harder to suppress such thoughts related to the life that was lost, what some call the ‘meat paradox’, when food is animate. The breaking of some sort of taboo might also help to explain the excitement that some feel when they think about eating something that moves. In this article, I provide a brief historical overview of the diner's / chef's / advertiser's fascination with the visual transformation of food on the plate or in food advertising. I take a look at movement, both animate and inanimate, as well as other kinds of transformations, such as foods that change colour before the diner's very eyes. I also look at how technological advances are increasingly starting to offer the creative chef/food designer the opportunity to bring food to life in a way that doesn’t necessarily trigger any concerns with animal welfare, nor threaten the diner with asphyxiation.
Abstract: Most foods are relatively static on the plate. Food that moves, especially if it does so in an animate manner, captures our attention in a way that would seem to play to society's growing interest with ‘food porn’. At the same time, however, most diners appear to find such movement on the plate or in the bowl rather disconcerting to say the very least. Such animacy may be aversive, ‘horrifying’, in fact, being a term that one sometimes sees used in this context. According to one suggestion, this may be because of a primordial fear of asphyxiation on eating food that still has the capacity to move of its own volition. According to others, however, there may also be something of a taboo around harming living things that many meat eaters try to mitigate by, for example, not calling the animals they eat by the name of the beast: Think steak or beef for cow and pork chop or bacon for pig. It may simply be that it is harder to suppress such thoughts related to the life that was lost, what some call the ‘meat paradox’, when food is animate. The breaking of some sort of taboo might also help to explain the excitement that some feel when they think about eating something that moves. In this article, I provide a brief historical overview of the diner's / chef's / advertiser's fascination with the visual transformation of food on the plate or in food advertising. I take a look at movement, both animate and inanimate, as well as other kinds of transformations, such as foods that change colour before the diner's very eyes. I also look at how technological advances are increasingly starting to offer the creative chef/food designer the opportunity to bring food to life in a way that doesn’t necessarily trigger any concerns with animal welfare, nor threaten the diner with asphyxiation.
Higher IQ in adolescence was related to a younger subjective age 50 years later; this association was mediated by higher openness to experience
Higher IQ in adolescence is related to a younger subjective age in later life: Findings from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Yannick Stephan et al. Intelligence, Volume 69, July–August 2018, Pages 195-199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2018.06.006
Highlights
• Higher IQ in adolescence was related to a younger subjective age 50 years later.
• This association was mediated by higher openness to experience.
• Higher intelligence in adolescence is a resource that promotes subjective aging.
Abstract: Subjective age predicts consequential outcomes in old age, including risk of hospitalization, dementia, and mortality. Studies investigating the determinants of subjective age have mostly focused on aging-related factors measured in adulthood and old age. Little is known about the extent to which early life factors may contribute to later life subjective age. The present study examined the prospective association between IQ in adolescence and subjective age in later life and tested education, disease burden, adult cognition, and personality traits as potential mediators. Participants (N = 4494) were drawn from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Data on IQ were obtained in 1957 when participants were in high school. Education, disease burden, cognition, and personality were assessed in 1992–1993, and subjective age was measured in 2011 at age 71 (SD = 0.93). Accounting for demographic factors, results revealed that higher IQ in adolescence was associated with a younger subjective age in late life. Bootstrap analysis further showed that this association was mediated by higher openness. The present study suggests that how old or young individuals feel is partly influenced by lifespan developmental processes that may begin with early life cognitive ability.
Highlights
• Higher IQ in adolescence was related to a younger subjective age 50 years later.
• This association was mediated by higher openness to experience.
• Higher intelligence in adolescence is a resource that promotes subjective aging.
Abstract: Subjective age predicts consequential outcomes in old age, including risk of hospitalization, dementia, and mortality. Studies investigating the determinants of subjective age have mostly focused on aging-related factors measured in adulthood and old age. Little is known about the extent to which early life factors may contribute to later life subjective age. The present study examined the prospective association between IQ in adolescence and subjective age in later life and tested education, disease burden, adult cognition, and personality traits as potential mediators. Participants (N = 4494) were drawn from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Data on IQ were obtained in 1957 when participants were in high school. Education, disease burden, cognition, and personality were assessed in 1992–1993, and subjective age was measured in 2011 at age 71 (SD = 0.93). Accounting for demographic factors, results revealed that higher IQ in adolescence was associated with a younger subjective age in late life. Bootstrap analysis further showed that this association was mediated by higher openness. The present study suggests that how old or young individuals feel is partly influenced by lifespan developmental processes that may begin with early life cognitive ability.
Momentary increases in deprivation, hunger, and boredom increased likelihood of diatary lapse types; eating at an unintended time was the only lapse type that predicted worse weight loss outcomes
Using ecological momentary assessment to better understand dietary lapse types. Stephanie P.Goldstein et al. Appetite, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2018.07.003
Abstract: Frequency of lapsing from a diet predicts weight loss failure, however previous studies have only utilized one definition of dietary lapse. No study has examined different types of lapse behaviors among individuals with overweight/obesity. The current study uses ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine predictors of three lapse types—eating a larger portion than intended, eating an unintended type of food, and eating at an unplanned time—in adults (N = 189; MBMI = 36.93 ± 5.83 kg/m2; 82.0% female; Mage = 51.81 ± 9.76 years) enrolled in a 12-month randomized controlled trial of two behavioral weight loss treatments. Participants completed 14 days of EMA at the start of treatment during which they indicated types of lapses that occurred with time and location of the lapse. Participants also responded to questions assessing current physical (e.g., hunger, tiredness), environmental (e.g., presence of “delicious” foods), and affective (e.g., loneliness, sadness) states at each prompt. Weight change was assessed at post-treatment. Separate generalized estimating equations were used to examine whether states prospectively predicted lapse occurrence at the next survey. Results indicated that lapse types differed significantly across time and location. Momentary increases in deprivation, hunger, and boredom increased likelihood of different lapse types. Lastly, we examined the prospective association between lapse type and weight loss. Eating at an unintended time was the only lapse type that predicted worse weight loss outcomes. Results support the theory that distinct lapse types exist, and that lapse types can be predicted by both momentary conditions and individual tendencies toward certain physical and affective states. However, not all lapse types may impact weight outcomes. Future research on behaviors that constitute dietary lapse is warranted and could inform personalized weight loss treatments.
Abstract: Frequency of lapsing from a diet predicts weight loss failure, however previous studies have only utilized one definition of dietary lapse. No study has examined different types of lapse behaviors among individuals with overweight/obesity. The current study uses ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine predictors of three lapse types—eating a larger portion than intended, eating an unintended type of food, and eating at an unplanned time—in adults (N = 189; MBMI = 36.93 ± 5.83 kg/m2; 82.0% female; Mage = 51.81 ± 9.76 years) enrolled in a 12-month randomized controlled trial of two behavioral weight loss treatments. Participants completed 14 days of EMA at the start of treatment during which they indicated types of lapses that occurred with time and location of the lapse. Participants also responded to questions assessing current physical (e.g., hunger, tiredness), environmental (e.g., presence of “delicious” foods), and affective (e.g., loneliness, sadness) states at each prompt. Weight change was assessed at post-treatment. Separate generalized estimating equations were used to examine whether states prospectively predicted lapse occurrence at the next survey. Results indicated that lapse types differed significantly across time and location. Momentary increases in deprivation, hunger, and boredom increased likelihood of different lapse types. Lastly, we examined the prospective association between lapse type and weight loss. Eating at an unintended time was the only lapse type that predicted worse weight loss outcomes. Results support the theory that distinct lapse types exist, and that lapse types can be predicted by both momentary conditions and individual tendencies toward certain physical and affective states. However, not all lapse types may impact weight outcomes. Future research on behaviors that constitute dietary lapse is warranted and could inform personalized weight loss treatments.
Individuals higher in gender self-confidence were less likely to choose to be reincarnated as the other sex; those older, more religious, more negative towards gays, & high higher gender self-confidence were less likely to choose to experience being the other sex even for a week
Factors Influencing Cisgender Individuals’ Interest in Experiencing Being the Other Sex. E. Sandra Byers, Kaitlyn M. Goldsmith, Amanda Miller. Gender Issues, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12147-018-9219-z
Abstract: In this study we asked people about their hypothetical interest in experiencing being the other sex as a possible means to capture their implicit gender-related attitudes and assumptions. As such, we sought to identify the extent to which gender self-confidence, openness to experience, and conservative attitudes are associated with hypothetically having this experience permanently (i.e., through reincarnation) and temporarily (i.e., for 1 week). Participants were 208 cisgender individuals (107 men, 101 women) who completed an on-line survey. A logistic regression analysis demonstrated that individuals higher in gender self-confidence were less likely to choose to be reincarnated as the other sex. A multiple regression analysis demonstrated that individuals who were older, more religious, had more negative attitudes towards gay men and lesbians, and high higher gender self-confidence were less likely to choose to experience being the other sex for a week. Gender identity, age, religiosity, and openness were not related to interest in being the other sex permanently or temporarily. These results demonstrate the potential utility of this approach for assessing implicit gender-related attitudes. They are discussed in terms of the multiple factors associated with these attitudes.
Abstract: In this study we asked people about their hypothetical interest in experiencing being the other sex as a possible means to capture their implicit gender-related attitudes and assumptions. As such, we sought to identify the extent to which gender self-confidence, openness to experience, and conservative attitudes are associated with hypothetically having this experience permanently (i.e., through reincarnation) and temporarily (i.e., for 1 week). Participants were 208 cisgender individuals (107 men, 101 women) who completed an on-line survey. A logistic regression analysis demonstrated that individuals higher in gender self-confidence were less likely to choose to be reincarnated as the other sex. A multiple regression analysis demonstrated that individuals who were older, more religious, had more negative attitudes towards gay men and lesbians, and high higher gender self-confidence were less likely to choose to experience being the other sex for a week. Gender identity, age, religiosity, and openness were not related to interest in being the other sex permanently or temporarily. These results demonstrate the potential utility of this approach for assessing implicit gender-related attitudes. They are discussed in terms of the multiple factors associated with these attitudes.
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
98% of web users missed absurd clauses in terms of service about data sharing with the NSA & employers, & about providing a first-born child as payment for access
The biggest lie on the Internet: ignoring the privacy policies and terms of service policies of social networking services. Jonathan A. Obar & Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch. Information, Communication & Society, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1486870
ABSTRACT: This paper addresses ‘the biggest lie on the internet’ with an empirical investigation of privacy policy (PP) and terms of service (TOS) policy reading behavior. An experimental survey (N = 543) assessed the extent to which individuals ignored PP and TOS when joining a fictitious social networking service (SNS), NameDrop. Results reveal 74% skipped PP, selecting the ‘quick join’ clickwrap. Average adult reading speed (250–280 words per minute), suggests PP should have taken 29–32 minutes and TOS 15–17 minutes to read. For those that didn’t select the clickwrap, average PP reading time was 73 seconds. All participants were presented the TOS and had an average reading time of 51 seconds. Most participants agreed to the policies, 97% to PP and 93% to TOS, with decliners reading PP 30 seconds longer and TOS 90 seconds longer. A regression analysis identifies information overload as a significant negative predictor of reading TOS upon sign up, when TOS changes, and when PP changes. Qualitative findings suggest that participants view policies as nuisance, ignoring them to pursue the ends of digital production, without being inhibited by the means. Implications are revealed as 98% missed NameDrop TOS ‘gotcha clauses’ about data sharing with the NSA and employers, and about providing a first-born child as payment for SNS access.
KEYWORDS: Privacy policies, terms of service, privacy, consent, social networking service, social media
h/t: Rolf Degen https://twitter.com/DegenRolf
ABSTRACT: This paper addresses ‘the biggest lie on the internet’ with an empirical investigation of privacy policy (PP) and terms of service (TOS) policy reading behavior. An experimental survey (N = 543) assessed the extent to which individuals ignored PP and TOS when joining a fictitious social networking service (SNS), NameDrop. Results reveal 74% skipped PP, selecting the ‘quick join’ clickwrap. Average adult reading speed (250–280 words per minute), suggests PP should have taken 29–32 minutes and TOS 15–17 minutes to read. For those that didn’t select the clickwrap, average PP reading time was 73 seconds. All participants were presented the TOS and had an average reading time of 51 seconds. Most participants agreed to the policies, 97% to PP and 93% to TOS, with decliners reading PP 30 seconds longer and TOS 90 seconds longer. A regression analysis identifies information overload as a significant negative predictor of reading TOS upon sign up, when TOS changes, and when PP changes. Qualitative findings suggest that participants view policies as nuisance, ignoring them to pursue the ends of digital production, without being inhibited by the means. Implications are revealed as 98% missed NameDrop TOS ‘gotcha clauses’ about data sharing with the NSA and employers, and about providing a first-born child as payment for SNS access.
KEYWORDS: Privacy policies, terms of service, privacy, consent, social networking service, social media
h/t: Rolf Degen https://twitter.com/DegenRolf
Prolonged sitting is linked to increased disease & premature mortality risk; but standing at work as a way of reducing sitting generated marked psychological discomfort due to concern at being seen to be violating a strong perceived sitting norm
“Could you sit down please?” A qualitative analysis of employees’ experiences of standing in normally-seated workplace meetings. Louise Mansfield et al. PLOS One, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198483
Abstract: Office workers spend most of their working day sitting, and prolonged sitting has been associated with increased risk of poor health. Standing in meetings has been proposed as a strategy by which to reduce workplace sitting but little is known about the standing experience. This study documented workers’ experiences of standing in normally seated meetings. Twenty-five participants (18+ years), recruited from three UK universities, volunteered to stand in 3 separate, seated meetings that they were already scheduled to attend. They were instructed to stand when and for however long they deemed appropriate, and gave semi-structured interviews after each meeting. Verbatim transcripts were analysed using Framework Analysis. Four themes, central to the experience of standing in meetings, were extracted: physical challenges to standing; implications of standing for meeting engagement; standing as norm violation; and standing as appropriation of power. Participants typically experienced some physical discomfort from prolonged standing, apparently due to choosing to stand for as long as possible, and noted practical difficulties of fully engaging in meetings while standing. Many participants experienced marked psychological discomfort due to concern at being seen to be violating a strong perceived sitting norm. While standing when leading the meeting was felt to confer a sense of power and control, when not leading the meeting participants felt uncomfortable at being misperceived to be challenging the authority of other attendees. These findings reveal important barriers to standing in normally-seated meetings, and suggest strategies for acclimatising to standing during meetings. Physical discomfort might be offset by building standing time slowly and incorporating more sit-stand transitions. Psychological discomfort may be lessened by notifying other attendees about intentions to stand. Organisational buy-in to promotional strategies for standing may be required to dispel perceptions of sitting norms, and to progress a wider workplace health and wellbeing agenda.
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Abstract: Office workers spend most of their working day sitting, and prolonged sitting has been associated with increased risk of poor health. Standing in meetings has been proposed as a strategy by which to reduce workplace sitting but little is known about the standing experience. This study documented workers’ experiences of standing in normally seated meetings. Twenty-five participants (18+ years), recruited from three UK universities, volunteered to stand in 3 separate, seated meetings that they were already scheduled to attend. They were instructed to stand when and for however long they deemed appropriate, and gave semi-structured interviews after each meeting. Verbatim transcripts were analysed using Framework Analysis. Four themes, central to the experience of standing in meetings, were extracted: physical challenges to standing; implications of standing for meeting engagement; standing as norm violation; and standing as appropriation of power. Participants typically experienced some physical discomfort from prolonged standing, apparently due to choosing to stand for as long as possible, and noted practical difficulties of fully engaging in meetings while standing. Many participants experienced marked psychological discomfort due to concern at being seen to be violating a strong perceived sitting norm. While standing when leading the meeting was felt to confer a sense of power and control, when not leading the meeting participants felt uncomfortable at being misperceived to be challenging the authority of other attendees. These findings reveal important barriers to standing in normally-seated meetings, and suggest strategies for acclimatising to standing during meetings. Physical discomfort might be offset by building standing time slowly and incorporating more sit-stand transitions. Psychological discomfort may be lessened by notifying other attendees about intentions to stand. Organisational buy-in to promotional strategies for standing may be required to dispel perceptions of sitting norms, and to progress a wider workplace health and wellbeing agenda.
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The experience of providing Likes to others on social media related to activation in brain circuity implicated in reward, including the striatum and ventral tegmental area, regions also implicated in the experience of receiving Likes from other
What the Brain “Likes:” Neural Correlates of Providing Feedback on Social Media. Lauren E Sherman, Leanna M Hernandez, Patricia M Greenfield, Mirella Dapretto. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, nsy051, https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsy051
Abstract: Evidence increasingly suggests that neural structures that respond to primary and secondary rewards are also implicated in the processing of social rewards. The “Like” – a popular feature on social media – shares features with both monetary and social rewards as a means of feedback that shapes reinforcement learning. Despite the ubiquity of the Like, little is known about the neural correlates of providing this feedback to others. In the present study, we mapped the neural correlates of providing Likes to others on social media. Fifty-eight adolescents and young adults completed a task in the MRI scanner designed to mimic the social photo-sharing app Instagram. We examined neural responses when participants provided positive feedback to others. The experience of providing Likes to others on social media related to activation in brain circuity implicated in reward, including the striatum and ventral tegmental area, regions also implicated in the experience of receiving Likes from others. Providing Likes was also associated with activation in brain regions involved in salience processing and executive function. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the neural processing of social rewards, as well as the neural processes underlying social media use.
Keywords: social reward, social feedback, social media, ventral striatum
h/t: Rolf Degen https://twitter.com/DegenRolf
Abstract: Evidence increasingly suggests that neural structures that respond to primary and secondary rewards are also implicated in the processing of social rewards. The “Like” – a popular feature on social media – shares features with both monetary and social rewards as a means of feedback that shapes reinforcement learning. Despite the ubiquity of the Like, little is known about the neural correlates of providing this feedback to others. In the present study, we mapped the neural correlates of providing Likes to others on social media. Fifty-eight adolescents and young adults completed a task in the MRI scanner designed to mimic the social photo-sharing app Instagram. We examined neural responses when participants provided positive feedback to others. The experience of providing Likes to others on social media related to activation in brain circuity implicated in reward, including the striatum and ventral tegmental area, regions also implicated in the experience of receiving Likes from others. Providing Likes was also associated with activation in brain regions involved in salience processing and executive function. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the neural processing of social rewards, as well as the neural processes underlying social media use.
Keywords: social reward, social feedback, social media, ventral striatum
h/t: Rolf Degen https://twitter.com/DegenRolf
A man becomes a beast in 3 weeks, given heavy labor, cold, hunger, and beatings; the main means for depraving the soul is the cold; friendship, comradeship, would never arise in really difficult, life-threatening conditions
Forty-Five Things I Learned in the Gulag. Varlam Shalamov. June 12, 2018. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/06/12/forty-five-things-i-learned-in-the-gulag/
Excerpts:
For fifteen years the writer Varlam Shalamov was imprisoned in the Gulag for participating in “counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities.” He endured six of those years enslaved in the gold mines of Kolyma, one of the coldest and most hostile places on earth. While he was awaiting sentencing, one of his short stories was published in a journal called Literary Contemporary. He was released in 1951, and from 1954 to 1973 he worked on Kolyma Stories, a masterpiece of Soviet dissident writing that has been newly translated into English and published by New York Review Books Classics this week. Shalamov claimed not to have learned anything in Kolyma, except how to wheel a loaded barrow. But one of his fragmentary writings, dated 1961, tells us more.
1. The extreme fragility of human culture, civilization. A man becomes a beast in three weeks, given heavy labor, cold, hunger, and beatings.
2. The main means for depraving the soul is the cold. Presumably in Central Asian camps people held out longer, for it was warmer there.
3. I realized that friendship, comradeship, would never arise in really difficult, life-threatening conditions. Friendship arises in difficult but bearable conditions (in the hospital, but not at the pit face).
4. I realized that the feeling a man preserves longest is anger. There is only enough flesh on a hungry man for anger: everything else leaves him indifferent.
5. I realized that Stalin’s “victories” were due to his killing the innocent—an organization a tenth the size would have swept Stalin away in two days.
6. I realized that humans were human because they were physically stronger and clung to life more than any other animal: no horse can survive work in the Far North.
7. I saw that the only group of people able to preserve a minimum of humanity in conditions of starvation and abuse were the religious believers, the sectarians (almost all of them), and most priests.
8. Party workers and the military are the first to fall apart and do so most easily.
9. I saw what a weighty argument for the intellectual is the most ordinary slap in the face.
10. Ordinary people distinguish their bosses by how hard their bosses hit them, how enthusiastically their bosses beat them.
11. Beatings are almost totally effective as an argument (method number three).
[...]
19. Both my physical and my spiritual strength turned out to be stronger than I thought in this great test, and I am proud that I never sold anyone, never sent anyone to their death or to another sentence, and never denounced anyone.
[...]
28. The passion for power, to be able to kill at will, is great—from top bosses to the rank-and-file guards (Seroshapka and similar men).
29. Russians’ uncontrollable urge to denounce and complain.
[...]
From Kolyma Stories by Varlam Shalamov. Translation and introduction copyright © 2018 by Donald Rayfield. Courtesy of NYRB Classics
A different source:
What I Saw and Learned in the Kolyma Camps
https://shalamov.ru/en/library/34/1.htmlWhile incarcerated offenders showed a high rate of cheating, levels of psychopathic traits did not influence the frequency of dishonesty; higher psychopathy scores predicted decreased activity in the ACC during dishonest decision-making
Reduced engagement of the anterior cingulate cortex in the dishonest decision-making of incarcerated psychopaths. Nobuhito Abe, Joshua D Greene, Kent A Kiehl. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, nsy050, https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsy050
Abstract: A large body of research indicates that psychopathic individuals lie chronically and show little remorse or anxiety. Yet, little is known about the neurobiological substrates of dishonesty in psychopathy. In a sample of incarcerated individuals (N = 67), we tested the hypothesis that psychopathic individuals show reduced activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) when confronted with an opportunity for dishonest gain, reflecting dishonest behavior that is relatively unhindered by response conflict. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), incarcerated offenders with different levels of psychopathy performed an incentivized prediction task wherein they were given real and repeated opportunities for dishonest gain. We found that while incarcerated offenders showed a high rate of cheating, levels of psychopathic traits did not influence the frequency of dishonesty. Higher psychopathy scores predicted decreased activity in the ACC during dishonest decision-making. Further analysis revealed that the ACC was functionally connected to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and that ACC activity mediated the relationship between psychopathic traits and reduced reaction times (RTs) for dishonest behavior. These findings suggest that psychopathic individuals behave dishonestly with relatively low levels of response conflict and that the ACC may play a critical role in this pattern of behavior.
Keywords: anterior cingulate cortex, cognitive conflict, deception, dishonesty, honesty, psychopathy
h/t: Rolf Degen https://twitter.com/DegenRolf
Abstract: A large body of research indicates that psychopathic individuals lie chronically and show little remorse or anxiety. Yet, little is known about the neurobiological substrates of dishonesty in psychopathy. In a sample of incarcerated individuals (N = 67), we tested the hypothesis that psychopathic individuals show reduced activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) when confronted with an opportunity for dishonest gain, reflecting dishonest behavior that is relatively unhindered by response conflict. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), incarcerated offenders with different levels of psychopathy performed an incentivized prediction task wherein they were given real and repeated opportunities for dishonest gain. We found that while incarcerated offenders showed a high rate of cheating, levels of psychopathic traits did not influence the frequency of dishonesty. Higher psychopathy scores predicted decreased activity in the ACC during dishonest decision-making. Further analysis revealed that the ACC was functionally connected to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and that ACC activity mediated the relationship between psychopathic traits and reduced reaction times (RTs) for dishonest behavior. These findings suggest that psychopathic individuals behave dishonestly with relatively low levels of response conflict and that the ACC may play a critical role in this pattern of behavior.
Keywords: anterior cingulate cortex, cognitive conflict, deception, dishonesty, honesty, psychopathy
h/t: Rolf Degen https://twitter.com/DegenRolf
Many consumers claim to have a positive attitude towards ethical products, but reported purchases show that this behavior is not consistent; taste and perceived health benefits, could be seen to generate higher consumers’ commitment
Coffee consumption and purchasing behavior review: Insights for further research. Antonella Samoggia, Bettina Riedel. Appetite, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2018.07.002
Abstract: This paper presents a systematic literature review of consumer research towards coffee with the objective to identify and categorize motives, preferences and attributes of coffee consumption and purchasing behavior. Research papers were analyzed in terms of main characteristics and components (study type, research methodology, sampling, and product type). The review gives a systematic overview of the heterogeneous group of concepts and approaches that have been used so far to examine consumer behavior towards coffee. Results provide a model of key determinants for coffee consumption that can be grouped into the categories, (1) personal preferences, (2) economic attributes, (3) product attributes, (4) context of consumption, and (5) socio-demographics. The findings also show that there is a strong focus on coffee sustainability.
Abstract: This paper presents a systematic literature review of consumer research towards coffee with the objective to identify and categorize motives, preferences and attributes of coffee consumption and purchasing behavior. Research papers were analyzed in terms of main characteristics and components (study type, research methodology, sampling, and product type). The review gives a systematic overview of the heterogeneous group of concepts and approaches that have been used so far to examine consumer behavior towards coffee. Results provide a model of key determinants for coffee consumption that can be grouped into the categories, (1) personal preferences, (2) economic attributes, (3) product attributes, (4) context of consumption, and (5) socio-demographics. The findings also show that there is a strong focus on coffee sustainability.
Eveningness is related to increased sociosexuality; having nocturnal short-term sexual strategies is an adaptive niche-exploiting behavior for both men and women that is governed by natural selection
Evening chronotype is associated with a more unrestricted sociosexuality in men and women. Robert L.Matchock. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 135, 1 December 2018, Pages 56-59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.06.054
Abstract: Chronotype and sociosexuality have been reported to be associated with each other and to also be sexually dimorphic. Specifically, research has suggested a link between evening chronotypes and increased sociosexuality, but the research is sparse, including the extent to which gender may interact with chronotype and sociosexuality. To that end, the present study administered the Horne and Ostberg morningness/eveningness questionnaire (MEQ) and the revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI-R), which consists of behavior, attitude, and desire subscales, to 554 participants (61.7% female). Results indicated that men had a more unrestricted sociosexuality than women, except for the behavioral subscale. Eveningness was related to increased sociosexuality for both men (except the behavioral subscale) and women (for all subscales). It is suggested that adopting phase-delayed nocturnal short-term sexual strategies is an adaptive niche-exploiting behavior for both men and women that is governed by natural selection.
h/t: Rolf Degen https://twitter.com/DegenRolf
Abstract: Chronotype and sociosexuality have been reported to be associated with each other and to also be sexually dimorphic. Specifically, research has suggested a link between evening chronotypes and increased sociosexuality, but the research is sparse, including the extent to which gender may interact with chronotype and sociosexuality. To that end, the present study administered the Horne and Ostberg morningness/eveningness questionnaire (MEQ) and the revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI-R), which consists of behavior, attitude, and desire subscales, to 554 participants (61.7% female). Results indicated that men had a more unrestricted sociosexuality than women, except for the behavioral subscale. Eveningness was related to increased sociosexuality for both men (except the behavioral subscale) and women (for all subscales). It is suggested that adopting phase-delayed nocturnal short-term sexual strategies is an adaptive niche-exploiting behavior for both men and women that is governed by natural selection.
h/t: Rolf Degen https://twitter.com/DegenRolf
Justice was swift with ISIS... Before, “You have to have wasta —a connection to someone— for the police to take your case under consideration"
The Case of the Purloined Poultry: How ISIS Prosecuted Petty Crime. Rukmini Callimachi. The New York Times, Jul 01 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/world/middleeast/islamic-state-iraq.html
Excerpts:
TEL KAIF, Iraq — The crime scene was Stall No. 200 in a market eight miles north of Mosul, Iraq.
It was there that Zaid Imad Khalaf, 24, made a living selling chickens, scraping by next to a grocer who sold onions by the kilogram and a trader who sold flour by the scoop.
And it was there that an Islamic State soldier, one of the thousands who ruled the plains of northern Iraq, walked by and pointed to Mr. Imad’s plumpest chicken. “That one,” he said.
Mr. Imad butchered the bird, plucked it, weighed it and then asked for the 8,000 dinars he was owed, around $7. That’s when the problems started. “When he went to pull the money from his pocket he said that he only had 4,000 dinars and said he would pay me the rest tomorrow,” Mr. Imad recalled.
Normally, the story should have ended there, with a poor man being stiffed by a more powerful one.
And yet a week after the incident in 2016, Mr. Imad did something that might seem foolhardy when the rulers of your city have a reputation for unbridled brutality: He lodged a complaint for the missing $3.50 with the town’s Islamic Police station. The next day, the Islamic State fighter hurried in to pay the amount he owed.
It was a quick, neat and efficient resolution to the pettiest of problems, one which probably would have gone unheeded before the arrival of the militants.
In a terrorist version of the “broken window” school of policing, the Islamic State aggressively prosecuted minor crimes in the communities it took over, winning points with residents who were used to having to pay bribes to secure police help.
[...]
The documents show that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, was willing — even eager — to get involved in the messy details of people’s day-to-day lives, and conversely that hundreds of people trusted them to fairly resolve their issues, no matter how trivial.
With the Islamic State’s territory reduced to a fraction of what it once was, the world’s attention has moved on. Yet the records shed light on how the group managed to hold onto so much land in the first place. And with ISIS still in control of approximately 1,000 square miles in Iraq and Syria, they may also offer lessons about the battles ahead.
The records are contained in hundreds of files recovered from a cluster of buildings in the northern Iraqi town of Tel Kaif, which had housed the group’s Shorta Islamiya — its Islamic police force. Most of the papers were discovered by Iraqi security forces who liberated the area in early 2017. They in turn handed them over to The New York Times, so that their contents could be shared with the world.
Grocers, convenience store owners and traders who sold their goods on credit turned to the Islamic State government when customers failed to pay. They sought reimbursement for a cow, a bird, meat, wheat, vegetables, an oil change and a heater. One filed a report for the 150 meters of electrical wire he hadn’t been compensated for.
Farmers asked for investigations into the crops damaged by livestock. One sought compensation for the watermelons trampled by an errant sheep. Another said his newly planted field had been kicked up by a total of 21 cows. Yet another reported a shepherd who, he said, allowed his flock to graze on his land seven different times. “Each time, I forgive him and he says he won’t do it again, and then he does,” he lamented in the report.
[...]
One father came to complain that a neighbor’s child had kicked his son. (He underlined that the child doing the kicking was bigger than the child being kicked.) Another accused an acquaintance of calling him a “pimp.” Yet another came to file a complaint because he had been called a “shoe.”
Justice was swift and efficient, mostly because no one wanted to risk punishment at the hands of the militants. Yet the fact that hundreds of civilians filed complaints, including against ISIS fighters who had wronged them, suggests that at least some Iraqis believed the terrorist group would do right by them.
Even residents who suffered abuses at the hands of the militants gave them points for their policing, saying that for nonreligious disputes, they were not only fair but also willing to wade into problems that might have been brushed off by most authorities.
Would the Iraqi government have pursued the case of a stolen chicken?
“They wouldn’t have even heard this complaint because it was only for 4,000,” or $3.50, said Mr. Imad’s younger brother, Alosh Imad. “You have to have wasta — a connection to someone,” for the police to take your case under consideration, he explained. “As far as justice was concerned,” he said, “ISIS was better than the government.”
ISIS Repo
Frustrated at being repeatedly brushed off by the fighter, who surely by now had eaten his plumpest bird, Mr. Imad, the chicken seller, padlocked his stall, changed into fresh clothes and headed to the Islamic State police station on Al Bareed Street.
The procedure for filing a complaint involved several steps, and each step involved its own paperwork, the voluminous remnants of which were found at the old station.
The police station was housed in a square room, 20 feet by 20 feet.
The police chief faced Mr. Imad across a large desk. Under the circling of a Chinese-made plastic fan that sliced the thick air, he heard Mr. Imad’s complaint. Then he pulled out a form bearing the terrorist group’s name and, in the field labeled “Case Number,” jotted down: 329.
Then, in blue ink, he filled in the date — Jan. 22, 2016, Sunday, 10 a.m. — before writing down the details of the claim in neat script: “The complainant (Zaid Imad Khalaf) complains that the respondent (Bariq) owes him (4,000 Iraqi dinars) after selling him a chicken.”
Then he pulled out another form, this one a summons. It ordered the ISIS fighter to report to the precinct. “Warning: In the event you do not show up, necessary steps will be taken to punish you,” it said. The police chief then dispatched one of his agents on a scooter, Mr. Imad said, to deliver the summons.
The fighter showed up the next day and immediately paid up, according to a receipt (below).
“In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Gracious,” the statement begins. The police officer then filled in the blanks on the form: “An amount (4,000 IQD) was received from (Bariq Sibhan Younis) to be paid to (Zaid Imad Khalaf),” it said. “Remaining amount is zero.”
Both parties signed the form and put their fingerprints on it, dipping their index fingers into bright purple ink, a gesture that aped one of the bureaucratic procedures of the Iraqi government.
To ascertain the authenticity of the documents, The Times showed a cross section of them to six independent analysts who study the Islamic State, including Mara Revkin of Yale University; Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi of the Middle East Forum; and a team from West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center.
One Tel Kaif resident, Abdulwahid Abdalla, described being on the receiving end of a complaint handled by the militants.
Mr. Abdalla said he had owed his cousin about $145 for the transportation services the cousin provided to help him move some heavy materials. He had managed to pay off half but then stopped making payments because he ran out of money, he said. To his surprise, his cousin lodged a complaint against him.
The Islamic State gave him a deadline. They didn’t care if he didn’t have the money, he said, and instructed him to sell something to come up with it. So Mr. Abdalla, a carpenter, sold some beams he had been saving for a construction job at a loss.
[...]
When the dispute involved one party insulting or harming another, the Islamic State played a role not unlike that of a school principal asking an unruly pupil to apologize.
Case No. 393, for example, involved three shepherds who beat a farmer after he asked them to stop their sheep from trampling his crops. The three signed a statement saying: “I will not attack my Muslim brother Ahmed Mohammed Qadir and I will not swear at him. I will not let my sheep enter lands belonging to Muslims.”
And to make sure that the resolution had teeth, there was also an implicit threat: “In the event I do not keep my promise,” the form reads, “I expect to face any and all legal sanctions and punishments” — which meant only one thing in ISIS-controlled Iraq.
One of the Islamic State’s first priorities when capturing a new area was to win the trust and cooperation of the civilians, whose labor and good will were essential to their state, said Ms. Revkin, the Yale researcher. Among the ways it did this was by providing swift justice, which is one of the most basic functions of any state — and one that was sorely lacking under Iraq’s government.
“ISIS seemed to recognize early on that it could exploit local demands for dignity by listening to people’s complaints and problems and offering some fast solutions,” said Ms. Revkin, who has interviewed more than 200 people who lived in ISIS-controlled areas.
Now in prison, the “emir” of the police station in the village of Sahaji, which had jurisdiction over an 11-mile stretch northwest of Mosul, confirmed that the militants’ goal was to try to win over the population. In a jailhouse interview in northern Iraq, where he spoke with his hands in handcuffs while a guard looked on, he recalled how he had aggressively investigated the case of a shopkeeper who had been owed the equivalent of $4.25.
“If we succeeded in delivering justice, we knew we would win the hearts of the people,” he explained.
As word spread, residents began showing up with complaints about unpaid loans and services dating to well before ISIS came to power. Among them was a complaint for an unpaid bill of $119 from 2010 — or four years before ISIS planted its flag in Tel Kaif. “He has been asking for his money during that period, but the respondent was stalling and delaying until now,” the filing says.
There was also a three-year-old debt of $340 for electricity, a claim for $298 for a three-year-old window installation, a three-year-old unpaid meat bill of $170 and two-year-old claims for $2,115 for vegetables.
[...]
Mr. Salim, a stocky, rosy-faced 26-year-old, said he filed three complaints in the time ISIS ruled the town, one of which was recovered in the files left behind in the police station. Before the militants took over, he recalled, he struggled for over a year to get the $136 owed him by a butcher who frequented his convenience store. “It was as if I was begging him,” he said.
As soon as the Islamic State got involved, the problem disappeared. The man showed up four days later to pay back what was owed.
“It was efficient, because people were afraid of them,” Mr. Salim said. “If you hear you’ve been summoned to the ISIS police station, you’ll do everything to avoid that.”
Prosecuting Their Own
“This case was transferred to the court,” the police officer scribbled in the margin of Case No. 407, a complaint lodged by a woman who said her husband had beaten her in public.
While a majority of the cases were settled inside the police station, the records show that those the group deemed to be the most severe were sent to an Islamic tribunal.
The 87 carbon-copied, prison transfer records found in the police station are an archive of religious zeal. Citizens were thrown in jail for shaving their beards and for more obscure transgressions, like eyebrow plucking.
Men were locked up for sitting too close to a woman, for being found alone with a woman, for wearing tight clothes and even for disobeying their parents. Several were charged with mocking or slandering the Islamic State.
[...]
Reporting was contributed by Falih Hassan from Baghdad; Alaa Mohammed from Mosul; Muhammad Nashat Mahmud and Mohammed Sardar Jasim from Erbil; and Abduljabbar Yousif from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on July 2, 2018, on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: In ISIS Territory, Justice Was Swift for Petty Beefs.
Excerpts:
TEL KAIF, Iraq — The crime scene was Stall No. 200 in a market eight miles north of Mosul, Iraq.
It was there that Zaid Imad Khalaf, 24, made a living selling chickens, scraping by next to a grocer who sold onions by the kilogram and a trader who sold flour by the scoop.
And it was there that an Islamic State soldier, one of the thousands who ruled the plains of northern Iraq, walked by and pointed to Mr. Imad’s plumpest chicken. “That one,” he said.
Mr. Imad butchered the bird, plucked it, weighed it and then asked for the 8,000 dinars he was owed, around $7. That’s when the problems started. “When he went to pull the money from his pocket he said that he only had 4,000 dinars and said he would pay me the rest tomorrow,” Mr. Imad recalled.
Normally, the story should have ended there, with a poor man being stiffed by a more powerful one.
And yet a week after the incident in 2016, Mr. Imad did something that might seem foolhardy when the rulers of your city have a reputation for unbridled brutality: He lodged a complaint for the missing $3.50 with the town’s Islamic Police station. The next day, the Islamic State fighter hurried in to pay the amount he owed.
It was a quick, neat and efficient resolution to the pettiest of problems, one which probably would have gone unheeded before the arrival of the militants.
In a terrorist version of the “broken window” school of policing, the Islamic State aggressively prosecuted minor crimes in the communities it took over, winning points with residents who were used to having to pay bribes to secure police help.
[...]
The documents show that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, was willing — even eager — to get involved in the messy details of people’s day-to-day lives, and conversely that hundreds of people trusted them to fairly resolve their issues, no matter how trivial.
With the Islamic State’s territory reduced to a fraction of what it once was, the world’s attention has moved on. Yet the records shed light on how the group managed to hold onto so much land in the first place. And with ISIS still in control of approximately 1,000 square miles in Iraq and Syria, they may also offer lessons about the battles ahead.
The records are contained in hundreds of files recovered from a cluster of buildings in the northern Iraqi town of Tel Kaif, which had housed the group’s Shorta Islamiya — its Islamic police force. Most of the papers were discovered by Iraqi security forces who liberated the area in early 2017. They in turn handed them over to The New York Times, so that their contents could be shared with the world.
Grocers, convenience store owners and traders who sold their goods on credit turned to the Islamic State government when customers failed to pay. They sought reimbursement for a cow, a bird, meat, wheat, vegetables, an oil change and a heater. One filed a report for the 150 meters of electrical wire he hadn’t been compensated for.
Farmers asked for investigations into the crops damaged by livestock. One sought compensation for the watermelons trampled by an errant sheep. Another said his newly planted field had been kicked up by a total of 21 cows. Yet another reported a shepherd who, he said, allowed his flock to graze on his land seven different times. “Each time, I forgive him and he says he won’t do it again, and then he does,” he lamented in the report.
[...]
One father came to complain that a neighbor’s child had kicked his son. (He underlined that the child doing the kicking was bigger than the child being kicked.) Another accused an acquaintance of calling him a “pimp.” Yet another came to file a complaint because he had been called a “shoe.”
Justice was swift and efficient, mostly because no one wanted to risk punishment at the hands of the militants. Yet the fact that hundreds of civilians filed complaints, including against ISIS fighters who had wronged them, suggests that at least some Iraqis believed the terrorist group would do right by them.
Even residents who suffered abuses at the hands of the militants gave them points for their policing, saying that for nonreligious disputes, they were not only fair but also willing to wade into problems that might have been brushed off by most authorities.
Would the Iraqi government have pursued the case of a stolen chicken?
“They wouldn’t have even heard this complaint because it was only for 4,000,” or $3.50, said Mr. Imad’s younger brother, Alosh Imad. “You have to have wasta — a connection to someone,” for the police to take your case under consideration, he explained. “As far as justice was concerned,” he said, “ISIS was better than the government.”
ISIS Repo
Frustrated at being repeatedly brushed off by the fighter, who surely by now had eaten his plumpest bird, Mr. Imad, the chicken seller, padlocked his stall, changed into fresh clothes and headed to the Islamic State police station on Al Bareed Street.
The procedure for filing a complaint involved several steps, and each step involved its own paperwork, the voluminous remnants of which were found at the old station.
The police station was housed in a square room, 20 feet by 20 feet.
The police chief faced Mr. Imad across a large desk. Under the circling of a Chinese-made plastic fan that sliced the thick air, he heard Mr. Imad’s complaint. Then he pulled out a form bearing the terrorist group’s name and, in the field labeled “Case Number,” jotted down: 329.
Then, in blue ink, he filled in the date — Jan. 22, 2016, Sunday, 10 a.m. — before writing down the details of the claim in neat script: “The complainant (Zaid Imad Khalaf) complains that the respondent (Bariq) owes him (4,000 Iraqi dinars) after selling him a chicken.”
Then he pulled out another form, this one a summons. It ordered the ISIS fighter to report to the precinct. “Warning: In the event you do not show up, necessary steps will be taken to punish you,” it said. The police chief then dispatched one of his agents on a scooter, Mr. Imad said, to deliver the summons.
The fighter showed up the next day and immediately paid up, according to a receipt (below).
“In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Gracious,” the statement begins. The police officer then filled in the blanks on the form: “An amount (4,000 IQD) was received from (Bariq Sibhan Younis) to be paid to (Zaid Imad Khalaf),” it said. “Remaining amount is zero.”
Both parties signed the form and put their fingerprints on it, dipping their index fingers into bright purple ink, a gesture that aped one of the bureaucratic procedures of the Iraqi government.
To ascertain the authenticity of the documents, The Times showed a cross section of them to six independent analysts who study the Islamic State, including Mara Revkin of Yale University; Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi of the Middle East Forum; and a team from West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center.
One Tel Kaif resident, Abdulwahid Abdalla, described being on the receiving end of a complaint handled by the militants.
Mr. Abdalla said he had owed his cousin about $145 for the transportation services the cousin provided to help him move some heavy materials. He had managed to pay off half but then stopped making payments because he ran out of money, he said. To his surprise, his cousin lodged a complaint against him.
The Islamic State gave him a deadline. They didn’t care if he didn’t have the money, he said, and instructed him to sell something to come up with it. So Mr. Abdalla, a carpenter, sold some beams he had been saving for a construction job at a loss.
[...]
When the dispute involved one party insulting or harming another, the Islamic State played a role not unlike that of a school principal asking an unruly pupil to apologize.
Case No. 393, for example, involved three shepherds who beat a farmer after he asked them to stop their sheep from trampling his crops. The three signed a statement saying: “I will not attack my Muslim brother Ahmed Mohammed Qadir and I will not swear at him. I will not let my sheep enter lands belonging to Muslims.”
And to make sure that the resolution had teeth, there was also an implicit threat: “In the event I do not keep my promise,” the form reads, “I expect to face any and all legal sanctions and punishments” — which meant only one thing in ISIS-controlled Iraq.
One of the Islamic State’s first priorities when capturing a new area was to win the trust and cooperation of the civilians, whose labor and good will were essential to their state, said Ms. Revkin, the Yale researcher. Among the ways it did this was by providing swift justice, which is one of the most basic functions of any state — and one that was sorely lacking under Iraq’s government.
“ISIS seemed to recognize early on that it could exploit local demands for dignity by listening to people’s complaints and problems and offering some fast solutions,” said Ms. Revkin, who has interviewed more than 200 people who lived in ISIS-controlled areas.
Now in prison, the “emir” of the police station in the village of Sahaji, which had jurisdiction over an 11-mile stretch northwest of Mosul, confirmed that the militants’ goal was to try to win over the population. In a jailhouse interview in northern Iraq, where he spoke with his hands in handcuffs while a guard looked on, he recalled how he had aggressively investigated the case of a shopkeeper who had been owed the equivalent of $4.25.
“If we succeeded in delivering justice, we knew we would win the hearts of the people,” he explained.
As word spread, residents began showing up with complaints about unpaid loans and services dating to well before ISIS came to power. Among them was a complaint for an unpaid bill of $119 from 2010 — or four years before ISIS planted its flag in Tel Kaif. “He has been asking for his money during that period, but the respondent was stalling and delaying until now,” the filing says.
There was also a three-year-old debt of $340 for electricity, a claim for $298 for a three-year-old window installation, a three-year-old unpaid meat bill of $170 and two-year-old claims for $2,115 for vegetables.
[...]
Mr. Salim, a stocky, rosy-faced 26-year-old, said he filed three complaints in the time ISIS ruled the town, one of which was recovered in the files left behind in the police station. Before the militants took over, he recalled, he struggled for over a year to get the $136 owed him by a butcher who frequented his convenience store. “It was as if I was begging him,” he said.
As soon as the Islamic State got involved, the problem disappeared. The man showed up four days later to pay back what was owed.
“It was efficient, because people were afraid of them,” Mr. Salim said. “If you hear you’ve been summoned to the ISIS police station, you’ll do everything to avoid that.”
Prosecuting Their Own
“This case was transferred to the court,” the police officer scribbled in the margin of Case No. 407, a complaint lodged by a woman who said her husband had beaten her in public.
While a majority of the cases were settled inside the police station, the records show that those the group deemed to be the most severe were sent to an Islamic tribunal.
The 87 carbon-copied, prison transfer records found in the police station are an archive of religious zeal. Citizens were thrown in jail for shaving their beards and for more obscure transgressions, like eyebrow plucking.
Men were locked up for sitting too close to a woman, for being found alone with a woman, for wearing tight clothes and even for disobeying their parents. Several were charged with mocking or slandering the Islamic State.
[...]
Reporting was contributed by Falih Hassan from Baghdad; Alaa Mohammed from Mosul; Muhammad Nashat Mahmud and Mohammed Sardar Jasim from Erbil; and Abduljabbar Yousif from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on July 2, 2018, on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: In ISIS Territory, Justice Was Swift for Petty Beefs.
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
65% of Americans believe they are above average in intelligence: Results of two nationally representative surveys
65% of Americans believe they are above average in intelligence: Results of two nationally representative surveys. Patrick R. Heck, Daniel J. Simons, Christopher F. Chabris. PLOS One, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200103
Abstract: Psychologists often note that most people think they are above average in intelligence. We sought robust, contemporary evidence for this “smarter than average” effect by asking Americans in two independent samples (total N = 2,821) whether they agreed with the statement, “I am more intelligent than the average person.” After weighting each sample to match the demographics of U.S. census data, we found that 65% of Americans believe they are smarter than average, with men more likely to agree than women. However, overconfident beliefs about one’s intelligence are not always unrealistic: more educated people were more likely to think their intelligence is above average. We suggest that a tendency to overrate one’s cognitive abilities may be a stable feature of human psychology.
Abstract: Psychologists often note that most people think they are above average in intelligence. We sought robust, contemporary evidence for this “smarter than average” effect by asking Americans in two independent samples (total N = 2,821) whether they agreed with the statement, “I am more intelligent than the average person.” After weighting each sample to match the demographics of U.S. census data, we found that 65% of Americans believe they are smarter than average, with men more likely to agree than women. However, overconfident beliefs about one’s intelligence are not always unrealistic: more educated people were more likely to think their intelligence is above average. We suggest that a tendency to overrate one’s cognitive abilities may be a stable feature of human psychology.
Rattner in TNYT: The Myth of Corporate America’s Short-Term Thinking
The Myth of Corporate America’s Short-Term Thinking. Steven Rattner. The New York Times Jul 02 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/opinion/corporate-stock-buyback-short-term-profit.html
American companies, according to their critics, are so focused on making quick profits that they have abdicated building for the long term. That idea has captivated policymakers, commentators and even some leading business executives.
The complaint has reached a fevered pitch amid news that companies are diverting much of their proceeds from the recent tax cut into buying back record amounts of their own shares.
But there is little evidence to back up the idea that American businesses are overly focused on short-term boosts to profits and stock prices.
The easiest path for companies to goose earnings would be to cut back on investment. However, business investment has remained between 11 percent and 15 percent of gross domestic product since 1970. Last year, corporate investment, which includes structures, equipment and the like, totaled 12.6 percent (https://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?reqid=19&step=3&isuri=1&1910=x&0=-99&1921=survey&1903=14&1904=1970&1905=2018&1906=a&1911=0#reqid=19&step=3&isuri=1&1910=x&0=-99&1921=survey&1903=14&1904=1970&1905=2018&1906=a&1911=0) of G.D.P.
Included in those investments is corporate spending on research and development — an undertaking with a long payback — which has reached its highest (http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHtml.cfm?reqid=19&step=3&isuri=1&1910=X&0=-99&1921=survey&1903=14&1904=1970&1905=2018&1906=A&1911=0) ever percentage of G.D.P. and has become a more important part of overall investment.
I have spent three decades analyzing, advising and investing in companies, and I believe American businesses are as willing to fund worthy projects as they have ever been. Investors are fully prepared to back companies focused on the long term. Far from penalizing public companies building for the future, the stock market often rewards them.
Consider America’s five largest public companies by market capitalization: Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft and Facebook. All have been investing heavily, and all sport heady valuations.
Amazon, in particular, often appears almost disdainful of profits; last year, it earned just $3 billion on its vast $178 billion of revenues. With a stock market capitalization of $805 billion, that gives it a price to earnings ratio of 268. By comparison, the average S&P 500 company trades at 21 times earnings. On the smaller end, many biotech companies, which often have no revenues, let alone any profits, also trade at handsome (some would say absurd) valuations.
Away from the public markets, a towering wall of venture capital — hardly a short-term investment strategy — stands ready to fund pretty much any vaguely promising new idea.
That brings us back to the stock repurchases. Yes, they often bump up share prices. But they are really a consequence of the vast cash reserves — $2.4 trillion and rising — held by American companies. When top executives don’t see more attractive investment opportunities, at least not in the United States, it can be a prudent use of that cash to buy back shares in their own companies.
As companies return capital to shareholders through buybacks or dividends, the money doesn’t disappear. Its recipients typically reinvest it in other opportunities. That’s not short-term thinking; that’s efficiency.
Advocates of the recent tax legislation say it will provide more incentives for American companies to invest at home. I’d certainly welcome that. But taxes are only part of the equation. Businesses must also see the possibility of attractive returns, which are not always readily available in our relatively slow-growth economy.
That’s why many American companies see greater opportunity to expand abroad. Between 2000 and 2015, American multinationals hired 4.3 million people in the United States but added 6.2 million jobs overseas.
Meanwhile, spending on factories and equipment in the United States has become a less important part of overall business investment, consistent with the decline in manufacturing’s share as companies shift production to lower-cost countries.
Decrying “short-termism” is hardly a new phenomenon. A Harvard Business Review article pronounced that American business is “servicing existing markets rather than creating new ones” and is devoted to “short-term returns and management by the numbers.”
That was in 1980. Nine years later, Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, declared that “America looks 10 minutes ahead; Japan looks 10 years.”
Today, American technology firms are, of course, dominant, while Sony is a shadow of its former self.
Across the spectrum, companies in the United States continue to lead the developed world, and profits are at record levels. If American business had been short-term focused since 1980, profits would be falling, not rising, and our companies would be faltering.
Recently, the Business Roundtable — corporate America’s pre-eminent trade organization — called for eliminating quarterly earnings guidance as a means of reducing short-termism. Such recommendations are, at best, a distraction. Only 28 percent of major companies even provide quarterly guidance, and those forecasts help set investors’ expectations and smooth market volatility.
The Business Roundtable should make it a higher priority to call for tighter corporate governance. While the “buddy system” of picking directors has subsided considerably, boards are often still too compliant. Executive compensation (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/business/top-ceo-pay-packages.html), which has grown exponentially faster than workers’ pay, is out of control and should be more closely tied to long-term performance.
Shareholders should be able to nominate directors more easily. To better represent owners, the roles of chairman and chief executive officer should be split, as they are in many European companies.
But corporate executives recoil from those ideas. They prefer to complain about equity markets that often swiftly punish laggards. Isn’t that what investors are supposed to do?
American companies, according to their critics, are so focused on making quick profits that they have abdicated building for the long term. That idea has captivated policymakers, commentators and even some leading business executives.
The complaint has reached a fevered pitch amid news that companies are diverting much of their proceeds from the recent tax cut into buying back record amounts of their own shares.
But there is little evidence to back up the idea that American businesses are overly focused on short-term boosts to profits and stock prices.
The easiest path for companies to goose earnings would be to cut back on investment. However, business investment has remained between 11 percent and 15 percent of gross domestic product since 1970. Last year, corporate investment, which includes structures, equipment and the like, totaled 12.6 percent (https://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?reqid=19&step=3&isuri=1&1910=x&0=-99&1921=survey&1903=14&1904=1970&1905=2018&1906=a&1911=0#reqid=19&step=3&isuri=1&1910=x&0=-99&1921=survey&1903=14&1904=1970&1905=2018&1906=a&1911=0) of G.D.P.
Included in those investments is corporate spending on research and development — an undertaking with a long payback — which has reached its highest (http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHtml.cfm?reqid=19&step=3&isuri=1&1910=X&0=-99&1921=survey&1903=14&1904=1970&1905=2018&1906=A&1911=0) ever percentage of G.D.P. and has become a more important part of overall investment.
I have spent three decades analyzing, advising and investing in companies, and I believe American businesses are as willing to fund worthy projects as they have ever been. Investors are fully prepared to back companies focused on the long term. Far from penalizing public companies building for the future, the stock market often rewards them.
Consider America’s five largest public companies by market capitalization: Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft and Facebook. All have been investing heavily, and all sport heady valuations.
Amazon, in particular, often appears almost disdainful of profits; last year, it earned just $3 billion on its vast $178 billion of revenues. With a stock market capitalization of $805 billion, that gives it a price to earnings ratio of 268. By comparison, the average S&P 500 company trades at 21 times earnings. On the smaller end, many biotech companies, which often have no revenues, let alone any profits, also trade at handsome (some would say absurd) valuations.
Away from the public markets, a towering wall of venture capital — hardly a short-term investment strategy — stands ready to fund pretty much any vaguely promising new idea.
That brings us back to the stock repurchases. Yes, they often bump up share prices. But they are really a consequence of the vast cash reserves — $2.4 trillion and rising — held by American companies. When top executives don’t see more attractive investment opportunities, at least not in the United States, it can be a prudent use of that cash to buy back shares in their own companies.
As companies return capital to shareholders through buybacks or dividends, the money doesn’t disappear. Its recipients typically reinvest it in other opportunities. That’s not short-term thinking; that’s efficiency.
Advocates of the recent tax legislation say it will provide more incentives for American companies to invest at home. I’d certainly welcome that. But taxes are only part of the equation. Businesses must also see the possibility of attractive returns, which are not always readily available in our relatively slow-growth economy.
That’s why many American companies see greater opportunity to expand abroad. Between 2000 and 2015, American multinationals hired 4.3 million people in the United States but added 6.2 million jobs overseas.
Meanwhile, spending on factories and equipment in the United States has become a less important part of overall business investment, consistent with the decline in manufacturing’s share as companies shift production to lower-cost countries.
Decrying “short-termism” is hardly a new phenomenon. A Harvard Business Review article pronounced that American business is “servicing existing markets rather than creating new ones” and is devoted to “short-term returns and management by the numbers.”
That was in 1980. Nine years later, Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, declared that “America looks 10 minutes ahead; Japan looks 10 years.”
Today, American technology firms are, of course, dominant, while Sony is a shadow of its former self.
Across the spectrum, companies in the United States continue to lead the developed world, and profits are at record levels. If American business had been short-term focused since 1980, profits would be falling, not rising, and our companies would be faltering.
Recently, the Business Roundtable — corporate America’s pre-eminent trade organization — called for eliminating quarterly earnings guidance as a means of reducing short-termism. Such recommendations are, at best, a distraction. Only 28 percent of major companies even provide quarterly guidance, and those forecasts help set investors’ expectations and smooth market volatility.
The Business Roundtable should make it a higher priority to call for tighter corporate governance. While the “buddy system” of picking directors has subsided considerably, boards are often still too compliant. Executive compensation (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/business/top-ceo-pay-packages.html), which has grown exponentially faster than workers’ pay, is out of control and should be more closely tied to long-term performance.
Shareholders should be able to nominate directors more easily. To better represent owners, the roles of chairman and chief executive officer should be split, as they are in many European companies.
But corporate executives recoil from those ideas. They prefer to complain about equity markets that often swiftly punish laggards. Isn’t that what investors are supposed to do?
Again, "no evidence of loss aversion": Cheating, incentives, and money manipulation
Cheating, incentives, and money manipulation. Gary Charness, Celia Blanco-Jimenez, Lara Ezquerra, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara. Experimental Economics, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10683-018-9584-1
Abstract: We use different incentive schemes to study truth-telling in a die-roll task when people are asked to reveal the number rolled privately. We find no significant evidence of cheating when there are no financial incentives associated with the reports, but do find evidence of such when the reports determine financial gains or losses (in different treatments). We find no evidence of loss aversion in the standard case in which subjects receive their earnings in a sealed envelope at the end of the session. When subjects manipulate the possible earnings, we find evidence of less cheating, particularly in the loss setting; in fact, there is no significant difference in behavior between the non-incentivized case and the loss setting with money manipulation. We interpret our findings in terms of the moral cost of cheating and differences in the perceived trust and beliefs in the gain and the loss frames.
h/t: Rolf Degen https://twitter.com/DegenRolf
Abstract: We use different incentive schemes to study truth-telling in a die-roll task when people are asked to reveal the number rolled privately. We find no significant evidence of cheating when there are no financial incentives associated with the reports, but do find evidence of such when the reports determine financial gains or losses (in different treatments). We find no evidence of loss aversion in the standard case in which subjects receive their earnings in a sealed envelope at the end of the session. When subjects manipulate the possible earnings, we find evidence of less cheating, particularly in the loss setting; in fact, there is no significant difference in behavior between the non-incentivized case and the loss setting with money manipulation. We interpret our findings in terms of the moral cost of cheating and differences in the perceived trust and beliefs in the gain and the loss frames.
h/t: Rolf Degen https://twitter.com/DegenRolf
Gender difference in time use decreased 1965-1995, remained constant since; differences in social attitudes by political ideology & income increased over the last four decades; whites and non-whites have converged somewhat on attitudes but have diverged in consumer behavior
Coming Apart? Cultural Distances in the United States over Time. Marianne Bertrand, Emir Kamenica. NBER Working Paper No. 24771, www.nber.org/papers/w24771
Abstract: We analyze temporal trends in cultural distance between groups in the US defined by income, education, gender, race, and political ideology. We measure cultural distance between two groups as the ability to infer an individual's group based on his or her (i) media consumption, (ii) consumer behavior, (iii) time use, or (iv) social attitudes. Gender difference in time use decreased between 1965 and 1995 and has remained constant since. Differences in social attitudes by political ideology and income have increased over the last four decades. Whites and non-whites have converged somewhat on attitudes but have diverged in consumer behavior. For all other demographic divisions and cultural dimensions, cultural distance has been broadly constant over time.
Abstract: We analyze temporal trends in cultural distance between groups in the US defined by income, education, gender, race, and political ideology. We measure cultural distance between two groups as the ability to infer an individual's group based on his or her (i) media consumption, (ii) consumer behavior, (iii) time use, or (iv) social attitudes. Gender difference in time use decreased between 1965 and 1995 and has remained constant since. Differences in social attitudes by political ideology and income have increased over the last four decades. Whites and non-whites have converged somewhat on attitudes but have diverged in consumer behavior. For all other demographic divisions and cultural dimensions, cultural distance has been broadly constant over time.
A paper shopping list includes more items than a digital shopping list, & products on the first are less hedonic than those on the second list; also, the use of a digital shopping list leads to more unplanned & hedonic purchases in the store
Write or Type? How a Paper versus a Digital Shopping List Influences the Way Consumers Plan and Shop. Yanliu Huang and Zhen Yang. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/698877
Abstract: This research examines how a traditional handwritten paper shopping list differs from a digital shopping list created on smart devices in influencing consumers’ planning and shopping behavior. We propose that a paper shopping list includes more items than a digital shopping list, and products on a paper shopping list are less hedonic than those on a digital shopping list. Furthermore, the use of a digital shopping list leads to more unplanned and hedonic purchases in the store, while the use of a paper shopping list results in more planned purchases. We also discuss psychological processes underlying these effects. We conduct three studies in which we manipulate shopping list type and track consumers’ actual purchases to provide support for our hypotheses.
Abstract: This research examines how a traditional handwritten paper shopping list differs from a digital shopping list created on smart devices in influencing consumers’ planning and shopping behavior. We propose that a paper shopping list includes more items than a digital shopping list, and products on a paper shopping list are less hedonic than those on a digital shopping list. Furthermore, the use of a digital shopping list leads to more unplanned and hedonic purchases in the store, while the use of a paper shopping list results in more planned purchases. We also discuss psychological processes underlying these effects. We conduct three studies in which we manipulate shopping list type and track consumers’ actual purchases to provide support for our hypotheses.
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