Is the InterNet killing cultural expression? II

Is the InterNet killing cultural expression? II. Jan 28, 2019.

In this chart we see another perspective of quality: Critical acclaim of the top movies in Rotten Tomatoes ([Fig 3.5 [1]), that is, the scoring of the 10th best, 50th best, and 100th best film of the years shown below. Obviously, this is just what the cultural elites think, it says nothing of commercial success. But it is a way to measure quality:


Before 2000, the 100th best film score below 40; in 2016 scored 90. The 50th best film scored 72; in 2016 scored 94; and the 10th best scored in 1998 a 90, and in 2016  a 95.

How do we know that greater number of TV shows is not killing quality? That's discussed in the next post, Is the InterNet killing cultural expression? III

Previous one

References

[1]  Joel Waldfogel's Digital Reinassance. Princeton: Princeton Univ Press, 2018.

From 2017 Archives, It's Confirmed: Women Are Higher Beings

It's Confirmed: Women Are Higher Beings, by VICE Staff. Vice.com, Oct 10 2017
A new study shows how men's brains are geared towards selfishness, and women's brains towards kindness.
https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/ne7gdb/its-confirmed-women-are-higher-beings

You know how women are generous goddesses who would do anything for their friends, family members, or strangers on the street? And how men are simply… not like that? New research from the University of Zurich appears to gives a reason for this: men's brains reward selfish behaviour, whereas women's brains reward generosity.

In a series of behavioural experiments that often involved making decisions about whether or not to share money, neuroscientists examined which areas of the brain activate when "prosocial" (unselfish) decisions are made, as opposed to when selfish decisions are made.

Within a test group of 56 men and women, they found that the stratium (the brain's reward centre, which administers a delicious dopamine hit for "correct" behaviour) responds much more strongly in women when they make "prosocial" decisions than when men do so.

In contrast, selfish behaviour triggered the male stratium response much more than in females. In other words, women get rewarded for kindness, men get rewarded for being dicks. Just like in real life!

Intrigued, scientists then performed a second experiment in which they neutralised the stratium using medication that inhibits dopamine release. They found in this instance that women suddenly began to behave much more selfishly, and men became more generous.

This was a surprising finding, with lead researcher Alexander Soutschek commenting in a press release that the results "demonstrate that the brains of women and men also process generosity differently at the pharmacological level". He pointed to the need for further research, and for the need for neuroscientists to "take into account gender differences more seriously".

Now, before all the dudes reading this think they're off the hook and can't help acting in their own best interest, note that all this might have a cultural basis rather than a biological one. Soutschek said it was unlikely the differences between men's and women's brains existed inherently, and were more likely the result of ingrained social attitudes.

"The reward and learning systems in our brains work in close cooperation," he said. "Empirical studies show that girls are rewarded with praise for prosocial behavior, implying that their reward systems learn to expect a reward for helping behavior instead of selfish behavior.

"With this in mind, the gender differences that we observed in our studies could best be attributed to the different cultural expectations placed on men and women."

REM sleep’s unique associations with corticosterone regulation, apoptotic pathways, and behavior in chronic stress in mice

REM sleep’s unique associations with corticosterone regulation, apoptotic pathways, and behavior in chronic stress in mice. Mathieu Nollet, Harriet Hicks, Andrew P. McCarthy, Huihai Wu, Carla S. Möller-Levet, Emma E. Laing, Karim Malki, Nathan Lawless, Keith A. Wafford, Derk-Jan Dijk, Raphaelle Winsky-Sommerer. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jan 2019, 2018 16456. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1816456116

Significance: Sleep disturbances are common in stress-related disorders but the nature of these sleep disturbances and how they relate to changes in the stress hormone corticosterone and changes in gene expression remained unknown. Here we demonstrate that in response to chronic mild stress, rapid–eye-movement sleep (REMS), a sleep state involved in emotion regulation and fear conditioning, changed first and more so than any other measured sleep characteristic. Transcriptomic profiles related to REMS continuity and theta oscillations overlapped with those for corticosterone, as well as with predictors for anhedonia, and were enriched for apoptotic pathways. These data highlight the central role of REMS in response to stress and warrant further investigation into REMS’s involvement in stress-related mental health disorders.

Abstract: One of sleep’s putative functions is mediation of adaptation to waking experiences. Chronic stress is a common waking experience; however, which specific aspect of sleep is most responsive, and how sleep changes relate to behavioral disturbances and molecular correlates remain unknown. We quantified sleep, physical, endocrine, and behavioral variables, as well as the brain and blood transcriptome in mice exposed to 9 weeks of unpredictable chronic mild stress (UCMS). Comparing 46 phenotypic variables revealed that rapid–eye-movement sleep (REMS), corticosterone regulation, and coat state were most responsive to UCMS. REMS theta oscillations were enhanced, whereas delta oscillations in non-REMS were unaffected. Transcripts affected by UCMS in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and blood were associated with inflammatory and immune responses. A machine-learning approach controlling for unspecific UCMS effects identified transcriptomic predictor sets for REMS parameters that were enriched in 193 pathways, including some involved in stem cells, immune response, and apoptosis and survival. Only three pathways were enriched in predictor sets for non-REMS. Transcriptomic predictor sets for variation in REMS continuity and theta activity shared many pathways with corticosterone regulation, in particular pathways implicated in apoptosis and survival, including mitochondrial apoptotic machinery. Predictor sets for REMS and anhedonia shared pathways involved in oxidative stress, cell proliferation, and apoptosis. These data identify REMS as a core and early element of the response to chronic stress, and identify apoptosis and survival pathways as a putative mechanism by which REMS may mediate the response to stressful waking experiences.

Keywords: depression anhedonia EEG theta power machine learning transcriptome

Why Dutch Women are Still More Religious than Dutch Men: Explaining the Widening, Persistent Religious Gender Gap in the Netherlands Using a Multifactorial Approach

Why Dutch Women are Still More Religious than Dutch Men: Explaining the Persistent Religious Gender Gap in the Netherlands Using a Multifactorial Approach. Joris Kregting, Peer Scheepers, Paul Vermeer, Chris Hermans. Review of Religious Research, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13644-019-00364-3

Abstract: In many secular Western countries, women continue to demonstrate higher levels of religiosity than men. But why does this religious gender gap persist? In this research note, we set out to explain the religious gender gap in the Netherlands for three dimensions of religiosity: belief in God, frequency of prayer and frequency of church attendance. Using high quality national representative survey data from LISS (Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social sciences), an empirical model is built combining social and psychological determinants. We find that the experience of health restrictions, the personality trait conscientiousness and the gender orientation masculinity contribute to an explanation for the gender gap in the Netherlands regarding all three dimensions of religiosity. For belief in God and frequency of prayer, an additional psychological explanation comes from the gender orientation femininity.

Keywords: Religious gender gap The Netherlands Secularisation Social and psychological explanations

Making everyday life decisions intuitively makes people feel good, more pronounced that when they take decisions based on analysis

It was intuitive, and it felt good: a daily diary study on how people feel when making decisions. Thea Zander-Schellenberg et al, Cognition and Emotion, https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2019.1570914

ABSTRACT: In daily life, people make plenty of decisions, either intuitively or based on analysis. So far, research has examined when decision-making leads to correct or biased outcomes. In the present study, we adopted a different perspective and explored how decision-making is associated with how people feel. In an observational study, 134 healthy participants retrospectively reported on six evenings which decisions they had made during that day (total N = 3,850 decisions). They were also asked to indicate how they had felt before/after each decision. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that (a) people reported having felt better prior to intuitive as compared to analytical decisions, (b) people reported having felt better after as compared to before the decision, and (c) this increase in positive feeling was more pronounced for intuitive decisions. The latter two associations were robust to statistically controlling for the life domain in which the decisions occurred, the decisions’ importance and ease, and daily mood. The retrospective design and the single-item measure of mood are among the limitations of this study. Altogether, the results are in line with the idea that making everyday life decisions intuitively makes people feel good.

KEYWORDS: Intuition, daily diary study, everyday life decision, positive feelings

Choice between a lottery ticket with a random-looking number sequence & a ticket with a patterned sequence: Most forgo a bonus offered to switch their initial preference for a random-looking sequence

The representativeness heuristic and the choice of lottery tickets: A field experiment. Michał Wiktor Krawczyk, Joanna Rachubik. Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 2019, pp. 51–57. http://journal.sjdm.org/18/18318/jdm18318.html

The representativeness heuristic (RH) has been proposed to be at the root of several types of biases in judgment. In this project, we ask whether the RH is relevant in two kinds of choices in the context of gambling. Specifically, in a field experiment with naturalistic stimuli and a potentially extremely high monetary pay-out, we give each of our subjects a choice between a lottery ticket with a random-looking number sequence and a ticket with a patterned sequence; we subsequently offer them a small cash bonus if they switch to the other ticket. In the second task, we investigate the gambler’s fallacy, asking subjects what they believe the outcome of a fourth coin toss after a sequence of three identical outcomes will be. We find that most subjects prefer “random” sequences, and that approximately half believe in dependence between subsequent coin tosses. There is no correlation, though, between the initial choice of the lottery ticket and the prediction of the coin toss. Nonetheless, subjects who have a strong preference for certain number combinations (i.e., subjects who are willing to forgo the cash bonus and remain with their initial choice) also tend to predict a specific outcome (in particular a reversal, corresponding to the gambler’s fallacy) in the coin task.

Keywords: gambler’s fallacy, lottery choice, perception of randomness, number preferences in lotteries, representativeness heuristic
 

Tyler Cowen's comments on Eric Kaufmann's Whiteshift, Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities

Tyler Cowen's comments on Eric Kaufmann's Whiteshift, Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities. Marginal Revolution, Jan 28 2018, https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/01/eric-kaufmanns-whiteshift.html

The subtitle is Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities, and might this be the must-read book of the year?  It is "to the right" of my views on immigration policy, but still I found it informative, fascinating, and relevant on just about every page.  Here is the author's opening framing:

First, why are right-wing populists doing better than left-wing ones?  Second, why did the migration crisis boost populist-right numbers sharply while the economic crisis had no overall effect?  If we stick to data, the answer is crystal clear.  Demography and culture, not economic and political developments, hold the key to understanding the populist moment.

Kaufmann, by the way, is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck in London, but hails from Canada. [...]:

Much of this book is concerned with the clash between a rising white tribalism and an ideology I term 'left-modernism.'

If you wish to understand "all the stuff that is going on today," maybe Whiteshift is the best place to start?  Kaufmann, by the way, is not a mega-pessimist and he seems to think that "broadening the category of white" will lead to a "good enough" solution for many of the Western democracies.  Still, much of this book is disturbing, especially for readers who might consider themselves to be on the left.  Most of all, he sees "whiteness" as a legitimate cultural interest, and one which, if we deny, will lead to more overt racism rather than less.

Here is Kaufmann on Brexit, brutal but I think largely correct:

...many analysts bring a political lens to their analysis which inclines them to want to tell a story about wealth and power.  Over half the country voted Leave and we can't condemn such a large group.  So we pretend populist voters are motivated by the same things we are: economic stagnation (for fiscal conservatives) or, for left-liberals, inequality and resentment of the establishment.   

Kaufmann also has strong evidence for the "immigration backlash" hypothesis, for instance:

...a higher immigrant share is a consistent predictor of higher opposition to immigration over time...in Western Europe there is a .63 correlation between projected 2030 Muslim share and the highest poll or vote share a populist-right party has achieved.

On top of all of its other virtues, Whiteshift provides the best intellectual history of the immigration debates I have seen.  It also has the best discussion of why Canada seems to be different [...].

Kaufmann does very much argue that the left-wing values of diversity and solidarity stand very much in conflict.  How is this for an "ouch" sentence?:

Casual observation would suggest that being black in diverse San Francisco is not necessarily better than being black in white-majority Fargo [North Dakota].

By no means am I convinced by everything in this book.  I don't think European politics can handle systematized refugee camps in Europe itself (rather than Turkey and Lebanon), and most of all I am not sure that recognizing whiteness as a legitimate cultural concern will diminish rather than boost racism.  I wish he had said much more about gender, and how immigration and gender issues interact.

Nonetheless this book has more points of interest yet, including an original and persuasive take on residential clustering [...].

Full text with links at https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/01/eric-kaufmanns-whiteshift.html

Sixty-six years after B. F. Skinner proposed the idea that near-miss events might be reinforcing play in slot machines, belief in this effect has remained strong despite the non-reproducibility

Pisklak, Jeffrey M., Joshua J. H. Yong, and Marcia L. Spetch. 2019. “The Near-miss Effect in Slot Machines: Over Half a Century Later.” PsyArXiv. January 27. doi:10.31234/osf.io/md9u7

Abstract: In games of chance, a near miss is said to occur when feedback for what is otherwise a loss approximates a win. For instance, obtaining “cherry-cherry-lemon” on a slot machine could be considered a near miss. Sixty-six years after B. F. Skinner first proposed the idea that near-miss events might be reinforcing play in slot machines, belief in this ‘near-miss effect’ has remained strong despite the troublesome experimental literature. Rather than inferring its effects on behaviour, the present study reviewed and experimentally assessed the near-miss effect as it pertains to the gambling response. Experiment 1 used a tightly controlled resistance-to-extinction procedure in pigeons to evaluate the putative reinforcing effect of near misses relative to a control “far-miss” reel pattern. Experiment 2 extended Experiment 1’s procedure to human participants. The results of both failed to support the near-miss effect hypothesis. Experiment 3 used a further simplified procedure to assess the validity of the resistance-to-extinction paradigm when a probable conditional reinforcer was present on the reel stimuli. Although a clear discriminative function was obtained from the reel, subsequent testing in extinction revealed no reinforcing function of this stimulus.

Viewing their own child is associated with enhanced cerebral activation in cortical & subcortical regions, which are involved in reward & maternal motivation & promoting approach behavior as well as caregiving

Specific maternal brain responses to their own child’s face: An fMRI meta-analysis
Paola Rigo et al. Developmental Review, Volume 51, March 2019, Pages 58-69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2018.12.001

Highlights
•    Own child activates the left hemisphere more than the right hemisphere in mothers.
•    Own child activates the left VLPFC, insula, amygdala, bilateral striatum and midbrain.
•    These brain regions underlie maternal motivation, salience and emotion processing.

Abstract: How special is her own child to a mother? Research that has focused on mothers’ brain responses to their own child has revealed the involvement of multiple subcortical and cortical brain regions, but less is known about which brain regions are systematically activated across these studies. This meta-analysis aims to identify specific neural regions associated with “own child” compared to “other child”. To ensure the consistency of the types of child stimuli across studies, the analysis focused on studies using neutral to positive visual stimuli of own and other children. Viewing their own child is associated with enhanced cerebral activation in cortical and subcortical regions including the midbrain, amygdala, striatum, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and insula. These regions are involved in reward and maternal motivation and promoting approach behavior as well as caregiving. Interestingly, own child faces activate regions in the left hemisphere more than in the right hemisphere in mothers. The current results may support the better understanding of deviation from expected maternal brain responses to own child, which could further inform neurological markers for innovative parental screening and intervention.

Significantly positive effect of authors’ attractiveness on research productivity measured by citations, journal ranking, & journal impact factor; attractiveness is important even in the absence of face-to-face interactions

Fidrmuc, Jan and Boontarika Paphawasit. “Beautiful Minds : Physical Attractiveness and Research Productivity in Economics.” (2018).https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Beautiful-Minds-%3A-Physical-Attractiveness-and-in-Fidrmuc-Paphawasit/37191c89e4cef72d32edf892b317258bee5412df

Abstract: This study examines the impact of physical attractiveness of on productivity. Previous literature found a strong impact on wages and career progression, which can be either due to discrimination in favour of good-looking people or can reflect an association between attractiveness and productivity. We utilize a context where there is no or limited face-to-face interaction, academic publishing, so that scope for beauty-based discrimination should be limited. Using data on 2,800 authors who published their papers in 16 economics journals in 2012, we find a significantly positive effect of authors’ attractiveness on research productivity measured by citations, journal ranking, and journal impact factor. Other strong predictors of productivity are team size (positive effect on productivity) and work tenure (negative effect). These results are obtained with both OLS and quantile regression. Our results suggest that physical attractiveness has important benefits even in the absence of face-to-face interactions.

False news stories are perceived as a problem at the societal level, but not that much at the individual level; men overestimate their ability to spot false news stories

Gruener, Sven. 2019. “Evidence on Internet-based False News Stories and Attitudes Towards Redesigning the Information Ecosystem.” SocArXiv. January 26. doi:10.31235/osf.io/xbez

Abstract: The Internet significantly reduced the marginal costs of generating and disseminating information. With false news stories in mind, some scholars call for a redesign of our information ecosystem. This is important because functioning democracy requires well-informed individuals. The paper addresses the problem awareness of university students about false news stories with the help of a questionnaire. Our study is exploratory. Thus, we seek for interesting correlations and generate hypotheses that can be analyzed in further studies with new data. They read as follows: (i) Facebook users are more likely to be suspicious of false news stories if they are interested in political topics. People are less likely to detect false news stories the stronger they trust in others and the more emphasis they put on the opinions of others. (ii) False news stories are perceived as a problem at the societal level, but not that much at the individual level. (iii) Men more often than women believe to be in touch with false news stories; men overestimate their ability to spot false news stories. People who fear false news stories are likely to believe that they could detect such news better than the average. (iv) People see operators of platforms to be responsible against false news stories; people seem to trust less in government.