Why the Days Seem Shorter as We Get Older. Adrian Bejan. European Review, Mar 18 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1062798718000741
Abstract:
Why does it feel that the time passes faster as we get older? What is
the physical basis for the impression that some days are slower than
others? Why do we tend to focus on the unusual (the surprise), not on
the ever present? This article unveils the physics basis for these
common observations. The reason is that the measurable ‘clock time’ is
not the same as the time perceived by the human mind. The ‘mind time’ is
a sequence of images, i.e. reflections of nature that are fed by
stimuli from sensory organs. The rate at which changes in mental images
are perceived decreases with age, because of several physical features
that change with age: saccades frequency, body size, pathways
degradation, etc. The misalignment between mental-image time and clock
time serves to unite the voluminous observations of this phenomenon in
the literature with the constructal law of evolution of flow
architecture, as physics.
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Perceptions
Among the most common human perceptions is that time passes faster as an indivi-dual becomes older. The days become shorter, and so do the years. We all have storiesof this kind, from the long days of childhood and the never-ending class hours inelementary school, to days, months and years that now pass in a blur. The mostcommon sayings convey this impression: Timesflies; Where did the time go?; Lastyear was yesterday; Growing up took forever; A watched pot never boils; etc.More subtle, and worth questioning is the impression that some days appear to passmore slowly than others. The‘slower’days are full of productivity, events, and mem-ories of what happened. If you did not notice this difference between slow days and fastdays, then you should pay attention to it, because in this difference lies the explanationfor the lifelong puzzle sketched in the preceding paragraph. The hint is that productivedays happen when the body and mind are rested, after periods of regular sleep, when inthe morning you look in the mirror and you see a younger you, not a tired you.Athletes learn the hard way the correlation between good rest and the speed of thepassing time. Lack of rest makes you miss plays, unable to anticipate, unable to seethe ball before it arrives. While sleep walking, the game is over before you know it.
Young students learn the same physical truth while taking exams during afixedtime interval. The rested mind has more time to go through the problems, tofindmistakes, to go back to the beginning, and try again. Lack of sleep, due to crammingthe night before the exam, makes the time pass faster during the exam period.Cramming does not pay, but rest does, which is why the good coach rests the teambefore the big game.Here is why this is important to you, the reader. Today, many young peopleexperience time distortion because they spend too much time on social media. Thishas serious consequences, ranging from sleep deprivation to mood changes andmental disorder. This is why an understanding of the physics basis of how humansperceive the passing of time is essential.PhysicsTime represents perceived changes in stimuli (observed facts), such as visual images.1,2The human mind perceives reality (nature, physics) through images that occur as visualinputs reach the cortex. The mind senses‘time change’when the perceived image chan-ges. The time arrow in physics is the goal-oriented sequence of changes inflow config-uration, the direction dictated by the constructal law.1-11The present is different from thepast because the mental viewing has changed, not because somebody’s clock rings.The‘clock time’that unites all the liveflow systems, animate and inanimate, ismeasurable. The day–night period lasts 24 hours on allwatches, wall clocks and belltowers. Yet, physical time is not mind time. The time that you perceive is not thesame as the time perceived by another. Why? Because the young mind receives moreimages during one day than the same mind in old age. Said another way, if thelifespan is measured in terms of the number of images perceived during life, then thefrequency of mental images at young age is greater than in old age (Figure 1). Hereis why this should be:
Figure 1.The misalignment between perceived time and clock time during lifetime.
The sensory inputs that travel into the human body to become mental images–‘reflections’of reality in the human mind–are intermittent. They occur at certaintime intervals (t1), and must travel the body length scale (L) with a certain speed (V).In the case of vision,t1is the time interval between successive saccades. The timerequired by one mental image to travel from a sensory organ to the cortex is of ordert2~L/V. During life, the body length scale (L) increases in proportion with the bodymassMraised to the power 1/3, and, like all growth phenomena, the body massincreases over time in S-curve fashion,12monotonically, slow–fast–slow, cf.Figure 2.
Figure 2.All growth phenomena (spreading, collecting) exhibit an S-shaped historycurve8: fourflow systems where the size of theflow space increases monotonically,slow–fast–slow.
Figure 3.The length of theflow path increases as the body size and complexityincrease.9
The length traveled by inputs from external sensors to the cortex is actually greaterthanL, and it increases with age. The reason is that the complexity of theflow pathneeded by one signal to reach one point on the cortex increases as the brain grows andthe complexity of the tree-shapedflow paths increase, cf. Figure 3.13The broad trend then is thatLincreases with age. At the same time,Vdecreasesbecause of the ageing (degradation) of theflow paths. The key feature is that thephysical time (the combined effect oft1andt2) required by the occurrence of one mentalimage increases monotonically during the life of the individual. The frequency ofmental images decreases monotonically, and non-uniformly (i.e. not at constant rate).This trend is illustrated qualitatively in Figure 1. Two summarizing conclusions follow.(i) More of the recorded mental images should be from youth.(ii) The‘speed’of the time perceived by the human mind should increaseover life. The rate at which the physical time clock‘ticks’during onechange in the mental image increases with age.ReviewThe misalignment of the clock ticks and the changes perceived by the mind (Figure 1)brings together numerous observations and measurements accumulated in the lit-erature, especially in the study of vision and cognition.First, to define the terms, Fischer and Weber explain that during natural viewingconditions a normal adult subject makes 3–5 saccades in a second separated by per-iods of 200-300 ms during which the eyes do not make large or fast movements.14These periods are usually called‘fixations’. If the retinal image, as a whole, is pre-vented from moving (by successful voluntary attempts not to move the eyes, or bytechnical means), vision rapidly becomes blurred and the perception of the retinalimage fades away completely within 10 seconds. Fischer and Weber14explain that thehighly inhomogeneous structure of the primate retina, with an extremely high densityof receptor and ganglion cells in the center, a specialized fovea, and a rapid decline ofthe cell densities toward the periphery, makes it almost impossible to have a homogeneous and simultaneous percept of the total visualfield without somehowmoving the fovea to different positions and acquiring and integrating informationfrom these successive‘looks’. The existence of a fovea requires both eye movementsand periods offixation, that is, the active suppression of saccadic eye movements.Although the reaction times of saccades is relatively stable (200–250 ms),15theinfantfixation times are shorter than in adults. In primates, there is a constant rela-tionship between the duration, peak velocity and amplitude of saccadic eye move-ment,16–18known as the‘main sequence’, in which saccade trajectories have evolvedtoward optimizing the trade-off between accuracy and duration (speed) of the eyemovement. This is also in accord with the physics basis for the human preference fordisplays shaped in‘golden-ratio’rectangular frames, which is the shape that isscanned the fastest by the two human eyes.2As a result of an interaction betweenafferent, central and efferent neural processes we perceive a complete and stablevisualfield, which can serve as a frame within which we see motion and within whichwe move ourselves or parts of our body.14Bahill and Stark showed that fatigue can produce overlapping saccades in whichthe high-frequency saccadic bursts should show large pauses, glissades in which thehigh-frequency bursts should be much shorter than appropriate for the size of theintended saccades, and low-velocity, long-duration, non-Main Sequence saccades inwhich the mononeuronal bursts should be of lower frequency and longer durationthan normal.19When the saccadic eye movement system fatigues, saccades becomeslower, and the neurological control signal stratagem changes. The term fatigue isused in a broad sense, as it was by McFarland:‘a group of phenomena associatedwith impairment, or loss, of efficiency and skill’.20The intuitive view that the world is processed as a seamless stream of ongoingperception has been challenged in the current literature. Herzoget al. discussedexperimental evidence supporting the view that perception might be discrete, furthersupporting evidence for discrete theories.21Visual information processing is similarto a sample and hold mechanism in engineering, as in analog/digital converters.Herzoget al. also noted that the brain functions such that we consciously perceiveonly the most plausible solution, and not a confusing manifold of possibilities thatoccur during unconscious processing.21The unconscious feature integration period isthe period of sense-making. The discrete conscious perception is followed byunconscious processing over time. These two modes of absorbing inputs from thesurroundings are analogous to all otherflows from point (e.g. eye) to volume (e.g.brain).1Observing fast and then letting it sink in slowly, is the same dynamicflowdesign as the long and fast, and short and slow that inhabits all nature,1animate andinanimate. Conscious perception and the unconscious processing that follows are the‘invasion’and‘consolidation’phases of the universal S-curve phenomenon.12Cicchiniet al. review the classical model of time perception, which considers asingle centralized clock that ticks at a constant rate.22They point out that muchexperimental evidence seems to cast doubt on this model. The ability to pay‘atten-tion’could modulate the tick rate and hence the duration of the events.23Manystudies found that the most surprising stimulus within a train of events is perceived longer, probably because it engages more transient attention or because the event isless predictable. Brunoet al. show that the apparent duration of moving visual objectsis greater at higher than at lower speeds.24Pöppelet al. argued that cognitive processes cannot be understood without theirtemporal dynamics; furthermore, certain logistical problems the brain has to deal withrequire an understanding of temporal processing.25Eaglemanet al. discussed theflash-lag illusion, where aflash and a moving object in the same location appear to beoffset.26They proposed an alternative in which visual awareness is neither predictivenor online but is postdictive, so that the percept attributed to the time of theflash is afunction of events that happen in the ~ 80 ms after theflash. Interpolation of the past isthe only framework that provides a unified explanation for theflash-lag phenomenon.VanRullen and Koch reconciled the unduly abandoned topic of discrete percep-tion with current views and advances in neuroscience.27Hainlineet al. showed thatfor both infants and adults, linear relationships were found between the peak velo-cities of fast eye movements and their amplitudes (main sequences).28With regard to the effect of aging, Sharpe and Zackon investigated horizontalsaccades in young, middle-aged and elderly normal subjects.29Saccades were elicitedin response to three target conditions: predictable amplitude direct and timing;unpredictable amplitudes and directions at regular intervals; and unpredictably timedtargets of predictable amplitude and direction. Peak velocities were significantlyreduced in the elderly when target amplitude and direction were predictable. Latencieswere prolonged in the elderly under all conditions. Saccadic accuracy was significantlydecreased in elderly subjects. Support for the thesis that age-related cognitive slowing isglobal is provided by Myersonet al.30Although older adults perform worse thanyounger adults in complex decision-making scenarios, prior experience should be takeninto account in aging studies.31
Conclusion
Summing up, we conclude that the perceived misalignment between mental-imagetime and clock time (Figure 1) is in accord with and unifies the growing number ofobservations that describe aspects of this phenomenon in the literature. The physicsbasis is captured by the constructal law of evolution in nature (see Figures 2 and 3).
Acknowledgement
Professor Adrian Bejan’s research was supported by the US National ScienceFoundation.
Thursday, March 21, 2019
In rats, no sex difference found in reward-guided associative learning, but females were more sensitive to probabilistic punishment (but less sensitive when punishment could be avoided with certainty)
Sex differences in reward- and punishment-guided actions. Tara G. Chowdhury et al. bioRxiv, Mar 18 2019. https://doi.org/10.1101/581546
ABSTRACT: Differences in the prevalence and presentation of psychiatric illnesses in men and women suggest that neurobiological sex differences confer vulnerability or resilience in these disorders. Rodent behavioral models are critical for understanding the mechanisms of these differences. Reward processing and punishment avoidance are fundamental dimensions of the symptoms of psychiatric disorders. Here we explored sex differences along these dimensions using multiple and distinct behavioral paradigms. We found no sex difference in reward-guided associative learning but a faster punishment-avoidance learning in females. After learning, females were more sensitive than males to probabilistic punishment but less sensitive when punishment could be avoided with certainty. No sex differences were found in reward-guided cognitive flexibility. Thus, sex differences in goal-directed behaviors emerged selectively when there was an aversive context. These differences were critically sensitive to whether the punishment was certain or unpredictable. Our findings with these new paradigms provide conceptual and practical tools for investigating brain mechanisms that account for sex differences in susceptibility to anxiety and impulsivity. They may also provide insight for understanding the evolution of sex-specific optimal behavioral strategies in dynamic environments.
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ABSTRACT: Differences in the prevalence and presentation of psychiatric illnesses in men and women suggest that neurobiological sex differences confer vulnerability or resilience in these disorders. Rodent behavioral models are critical for understanding the mechanisms of these differences. Reward processing and punishment avoidance are fundamental dimensions of the symptoms of psychiatric disorders. Here we explored sex differences along these dimensions using multiple and distinct behavioral paradigms. We found no sex difference in reward-guided associative learning but a faster punishment-avoidance learning in females. After learning, females were more sensitive than males to probabilistic punishment but less sensitive when punishment could be avoided with certainty. No sex differences were found in reward-guided cognitive flexibility. Thus, sex differences in goal-directed behaviors emerged selectively when there was an aversive context. These differences were critically sensitive to whether the punishment was certain or unpredictable. Our findings with these new paradigms provide conceptual and practical tools for investigating brain mechanisms that account for sex differences in susceptibility to anxiety and impulsivity. They may also provide insight for understanding the evolution of sex-specific optimal behavioral strategies in dynamic environments.
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INTRODUCTION
Men
and women show different rates of diagnosis, symptomology, and
treatment responsivity in most brain disorders. For instance, men are
more commonly diagnosed with schizophrenia, four times more likely to
suffer from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (Rowland, Lesesne, & Abramowitz, 2002), and twice as likely to be currently abusing illicit drugs (Abuse, 2013). On the other hand, major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety disorders are more common in women (Cyranowski, Frank, Young, & Shear, 2000). These patterns suggest that biological sex differences may underlie the disparities in vulnerability to these illnesses.
Reward-seeking
and punishment-avoidance behaviors are fundamental to motivation, and
are critical components of the pathophysiology of most psychiatric
illnesses. For example, studies have shown that patients with depressive
disorders (Pizzagalli et al., 2009), schizophrenia (Juckel, 2016; Kirsch, Ronshausen, Mier, & Gallhofer, 2007; Schlagenhauf et al., 2008), as well as ADHD (Scheres, Milham, Knutson, & Castellanos, 2007; Strohle et al., 2008)
have modified brain responses to reward. In particular, major
depression is associated with both a hyposensitivity to rewarding
stimuli and hypersensitivity to punishment, and associated imaging
findings are correlated with increasing frequency of depressive episodes
(Kumar et al., 2018).
Importantly, disorders where reward and aversive responding are
differently affected also show different incidences and symptom profiles
in women versus men. For example, in anxiety disorders there is an
increased avoidance of aversive stimuli that is more pronounced in women
(Sheynin et al., 2014).
Similarly, in MDD, men are more likely to exhibit symptoms of
aggression, substance abuse, and risky behavior, while females report
higher rates of sleep disturbance, stress, and anhedonia (L. A. Martin, Neighbors, & Griffith, 2013).
Similarly, it appears that sex influences substance abuse patterns,
with women more likely than men to cite stress as the reason for
initiating or relapsing drug use (Becker, McClellan, & Reed, 2017).
Finally,
in ADHD, females diagnosed with the disorder more frequently experience
comorbid anxiety and depression. These findings suggest that distinct
responses to punishment may explain some of the observed sex differences
in both the prevalence and expression of mental disorders.
Animal
models are critical for understanding the behavioral neuroscience of
sex differences, allowing assessment of motivated behaviors relevant to
psychiatric disorders. Animal behavioral models, however, have been
primarily developed and characterized with only male subjects.
Additionally, these models often assess reward and punishment
contingencies in separate tasks and constructs. In naturalistic
environments, appetitive and aversive contexts and outcomes are often
intertwined, and the ability to accurately assess and respond to these
conflicting situations is critical for optimal decision-making. Females
have been shown to respond differently than males to punishing stimuli (Denti & Epstein, 1972; Gruene, Flick, Stefano, Shea, & Shansky, 2015; Orsini, Willis, Gilbert, Bizon, & Setlow, 2016; Voulo & Parsons, 2017) as well as stress (Bangasser & Valentino, 2014; McEwen, 2014);
however, little is known about how sex differences translate to tasks
that involve both reward and punishment in the same behavioral series.
Here, we investigate sex differences in multiple rodent behavioral tasks
involving motivated behaviors (defined as behaviors where actions are
guided by action-outcome contingencies) that integrate reward-seeking
and punishment avoidance.
In the first task, the
Punishment Risk Task (PRT), a rewarded action was associated with an
escalating probability of punishment (Park & Moghaddam, 2017).
Thus, action-reward contingency was certain but different blocks in the
same behavioral series were associated with varying probability of
receiving a shock after action execution. This task assesses behavior in
response to unpredictability and perception of potential threats, which
is relevant to human models of anxiety (Cornwell, Garrido, Overstreet, Pine, & Grillon, 2017).
Human sex differences in prevalence and expression of anxiety-related
behaviors suggest that males and females may respond differently to
anxiety-provoking situations. This task, therefore, allowed us to
compare motivated actions in male and female rats within a context of
anxiety.
A second novel task, the Approach Avoid Task
(AAT) measured actions to seek reward or avoid punishment during the
same behavioral session. Rats were given simultaneous access to two
distinct actions (lever-press or nose-poke), and two discriminative
stimuli (a light or tone cue) signaled the trial type, either approach,
in which a specific action was reinforced with a pellet, or avoidance,
in which the other action prevented onset of a foot-shock. This task is
relevant to symptoms of brain disorders such as anxiety, substance
abuse, and MDD, which are associated with differences in processing of
rewarding and punishing contexts (Dombrovski, Szanto, Clark, Reynolds, & Siegle, 2013; McCabe, Woffindale, Harmer, & Cowen, 2012).
In addition to comparing learning and performance of male and female
rats in this task, we conducted two experiments to gauge the impact of
traditional models of anxiety in the context of this paradigm. These
included measuring (1) the dose-response effect of a pharmacological
model of anxiety (anxiogenic drug FG7142) on performance of the AAT and
(2) elevated plus maze (EPM) performance of animals that had undergone
training on the AAT compared to naïve animals.
Finally,
we characterized sex differences in reward-motivated tasks that required
behavioral inhibition and flexibility. Most disorders with higher
prevalence in men than women (autism, ADHD, schizophrenia) involve
impaired behavioral inhibition and flexibility. In addition, male
predisposition to compulsive behavior may contribute to the higher rates
of substance abuse and dependence in men [20]. To investigate these
constructs, we used two operant tests of cognitive flexibility: reversal
learning and extradimensional shifting. Both tasks required subjects to
update behavior in response to changing rules.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
More Empathic Responses for Pain in Facial Muscles Are Modulated by Actor’s Disattractiveness and Being Female, & Perspective Taken by Observer
Empathic Responses for Pain in Facial Muscles Are Modulated by Actor’s Attractiveness and Gender, and Perspective Taken by Observer. Kamila Jankowiak-Siuda, Anna Duszyk, Aleksandra Dopierała, Krzysztof Bujwid, Krystyna Rymarczyk and Anna Grabowska. Front. Psychol., March 21 2019. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00624
Subject: Although empathy for pain is an often studied phenomenon, only few studies employing electromyography (EMG) have investigated either emotional responses to the pain of others or factors that modulate these responses. The present study investigated whether the sex and attractiveness of persons experiencing pain affected muscle activity associated with empathy for pain, the corrugator supercili (CS) and orbicularis oculi (OO) muscles, in male and female participants in two conditions: adopting a perspective of “the other” or “the self.” Fifty one participants (27 females) watched movies showing situations that included the expression of pain, with female and male and more and less attractive actors under both conditions, while the CS and OO EMG were recorded. Perspective did not affect CS muscle activity, but OO muscle activity tended to be higher in women than men under the imagine-self condition. CS muscle activity, but not OO muscle activity, was modulated by the actors’ gender and attractiveness. CS muscle activity was stronger in response to the pain of less attractive than more attractive actors, and to the pain of female actors compared to male actors. Moreover, a positive correlation was found between empathic concern, as a trait, and CS muscle activity, but only in the imagine-self condition.
Introduction
One hundred and fifteen years ago, having described empathy as Einfühlung (“feeling into”), Theodor Lipps suggested that the perception of emotions of other persons triggers analogous emotions in the observer (Montag et al., 2008). The phenomenon assumes the existence of autonomic and somatic reactions in the observer leading to similar emotions, so-called “inner imitation.” Emotional mimicry can be considered an expression of imitation. This phenomenon is also an aspect of contemporary concepts of empathy, such as the perception-action model (PAM) of empathy (Preston and de Waal, 2002). PAM posits that the perception of the emotional state of others leads to the automatic activation of a representation of the same emotion in the observer, including autonomic and somatic reactions. Thus, PAM points to emotional mimicry as the most primal component of empathy (Hatfield et al., 1992; Preston and de Waal, 2002). This idea has received support from findings showing that the prevention of motor imitation of facial expressions makes recognizing emotions and affective sharing difficult (Sonnby-Borgström, 2002; Oberman et al., 2007; Dimberg et al., 2011). However, recent studies have revealed that facial mimicry is a more dynamic process than initially assumed (Sato et al., 2008; Rymarczyk et al., 2016a). Some studies indicate that facial mimicry depends on a number of modulating factors (Hess and Fischer, 2014; Seibt et al., 2015). The reaction of facial muscles to basic emotions depends on the sex or other characteristics of the observer. For example, the facial muscles have a noticeably greater reaction to basic emotions in highly empathic people (Dimberg et al., 2011; Balconi and Canavesio, 2016; Rymarczyk et al., 2016b). In addition, the reaction of the facial muscles is altered by levels of oxytocin (Korb et al., 2016). The type of the stimulus (dynamic vs. static) (Weyers et al., 2006; Sato et al., 2008; Rymarczyk et al., 2016a,b, 2018) also affects the reaction of the facial muscles to basic emotions.
Only a few studies using electromyography (EMG) have investigated emotional responses to the pain of others and the factors that modulate these reactions. Sun et al. (2015) showed that the activity of the corrugator supercili (CS) muscle increased in a group of research subjects who watched a short movie clip in which a person experienced pain (needle sticking), in comparison with a group who watched only part of the same movie (needle sticking the finger). Lamm et al. (2008) showed that the activity of the orbicularis oculi (OO) muscle was higher in study participants who watched a movie showing reactions to pain and who were instructed to imagine that they had experienced the pain (the “imagine-self” perspective), as compared to the “imagine-others” perspective (imagine what the person in the movie feels). In addition, Lepron et al. (2015) showed how a sense of responsibility for the suffering of another person affects emotional mimicry. Greater activity was observed in the OO and CS muscles and greater discomfort was reported by subjects who felt greater responsibility for other people’s pain, compared to subjects in the lesser responsibility condition.
In essence, two muscles (the CS and OO) may have special significance for the processing of empathy with pain. It should be noted that Lamm et al. (2008) and Sun et al. (2015) found positive correlations between the activity of the CS and OO muscles with scales measuring empathy, i.e., empathic concern (feeling compassion for others) and perspective taking (tendency to take another person’s perspective), from the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) (Davis, 1980).
Attractiveness is considered an important factor in social cognition for perceiving and empathizing with the pain of others (Jankowiak-Siuda et al., 2015). Research has shown that attractiveness has a particularly strong relationship with the reactions of the facial muscles of observers. For example, the attractiveness of a person’s face was found to be negatively correlated with the activation of the CS and the legator labii superioris (LLS) while viewing photographs of attractive and unattractive people (Principe and Langlois, 2011). Less attractive faces activated the LLS and CS more strongly. Neither the gender of the observer nor the gender of the person in the photograph were related to the activity of these facial muscles (Principe and Langlois, 2011). To date no relationship has been found between the reactions of the facial muscles of observers empathizing with a suffering person and the gender or attractiveness of the person suffering from pain. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to examine whether the gender or attractiveness of a person experiencing pain affects the activity of muscles associated with empathy for pain (the CS and OO) in male and female participants. In addition, the study measured the correlations of the electrical activity of the CS and OO facial muscles with the three empathy dimensions of the IRI (Davis, 1980): empathic concern, personal distress (feelings directed toward oneself), and perspective taking.
The perception of pain and empathy depends on adopting perspectives – whether we imagine how another person feels (“imagine-others”) or how we would feel (“imagine-self”) (Batson et al., 1997; Lamm et al., 2008). Imagining others evokes empathic concern, whereas imagining the self produces both empathic concern and personal distress; however, the latter is more in the way of egoistic negative emotions (Batson et al., 2003; Lamm et al., 2007). Thus, it is interesting to test whether perspective taking affects the activity of the CS and OO muscles when the attractiveness of the target varies. Based on available research findings we predict CS activity to be higher when observing unattractive women, no matter what perspective was adopted. However, we also predict OO activity to be higher for the imagine-self perspective than for the imagine-others perspective. Finally, we expect positive correlations between CS activity and empathic concern and between OO activity and perspective-taking.
The participants in the present study were shown dynamic pain stimuli in movies showing natural, everyday situations, in which they saw the whole body and the facial expressions of pain of actors (the targets) and the location of the injury. These stimuli were used because they have higher ecological validity than movies showing only the injured body part or expressions that mimic pain (Sun et al., 2015). Moreover, Sun et al. (2015) suggest that such situations are more likely to elicit empathy for pain. The present research measured relative changes in the activity of the CS and OO muscles during consecutive scenes. This enabled us to determine how the activity of the muscles changed in different scenes (showing the target’s neutral facial expression, the action leading to the pain, the actual pain stimulus, and the target’s facial expression of pain) depending on the sex and attractiveness of the target and the perspective taken by the observer.
Subject: Although empathy for pain is an often studied phenomenon, only few studies employing electromyography (EMG) have investigated either emotional responses to the pain of others or factors that modulate these responses. The present study investigated whether the sex and attractiveness of persons experiencing pain affected muscle activity associated with empathy for pain, the corrugator supercili (CS) and orbicularis oculi (OO) muscles, in male and female participants in two conditions: adopting a perspective of “the other” or “the self.” Fifty one participants (27 females) watched movies showing situations that included the expression of pain, with female and male and more and less attractive actors under both conditions, while the CS and OO EMG were recorded. Perspective did not affect CS muscle activity, but OO muscle activity tended to be higher in women than men under the imagine-self condition. CS muscle activity, but not OO muscle activity, was modulated by the actors’ gender and attractiveness. CS muscle activity was stronger in response to the pain of less attractive than more attractive actors, and to the pain of female actors compared to male actors. Moreover, a positive correlation was found between empathic concern, as a trait, and CS muscle activity, but only in the imagine-self condition.
Introduction
One hundred and fifteen years ago, having described empathy as Einfühlung (“feeling into”), Theodor Lipps suggested that the perception of emotions of other persons triggers analogous emotions in the observer (Montag et al., 2008). The phenomenon assumes the existence of autonomic and somatic reactions in the observer leading to similar emotions, so-called “inner imitation.” Emotional mimicry can be considered an expression of imitation. This phenomenon is also an aspect of contemporary concepts of empathy, such as the perception-action model (PAM) of empathy (Preston and de Waal, 2002). PAM posits that the perception of the emotional state of others leads to the automatic activation of a representation of the same emotion in the observer, including autonomic and somatic reactions. Thus, PAM points to emotional mimicry as the most primal component of empathy (Hatfield et al., 1992; Preston and de Waal, 2002). This idea has received support from findings showing that the prevention of motor imitation of facial expressions makes recognizing emotions and affective sharing difficult (Sonnby-Borgström, 2002; Oberman et al., 2007; Dimberg et al., 2011). However, recent studies have revealed that facial mimicry is a more dynamic process than initially assumed (Sato et al., 2008; Rymarczyk et al., 2016a). Some studies indicate that facial mimicry depends on a number of modulating factors (Hess and Fischer, 2014; Seibt et al., 2015). The reaction of facial muscles to basic emotions depends on the sex or other characteristics of the observer. For example, the facial muscles have a noticeably greater reaction to basic emotions in highly empathic people (Dimberg et al., 2011; Balconi and Canavesio, 2016; Rymarczyk et al., 2016b). In addition, the reaction of the facial muscles is altered by levels of oxytocin (Korb et al., 2016). The type of the stimulus (dynamic vs. static) (Weyers et al., 2006; Sato et al., 2008; Rymarczyk et al., 2016a,b, 2018) also affects the reaction of the facial muscles to basic emotions.
Only a few studies using electromyography (EMG) have investigated emotional responses to the pain of others and the factors that modulate these reactions. Sun et al. (2015) showed that the activity of the corrugator supercili (CS) muscle increased in a group of research subjects who watched a short movie clip in which a person experienced pain (needle sticking), in comparison with a group who watched only part of the same movie (needle sticking the finger). Lamm et al. (2008) showed that the activity of the orbicularis oculi (OO) muscle was higher in study participants who watched a movie showing reactions to pain and who were instructed to imagine that they had experienced the pain (the “imagine-self” perspective), as compared to the “imagine-others” perspective (imagine what the person in the movie feels). In addition, Lepron et al. (2015) showed how a sense of responsibility for the suffering of another person affects emotional mimicry. Greater activity was observed in the OO and CS muscles and greater discomfort was reported by subjects who felt greater responsibility for other people’s pain, compared to subjects in the lesser responsibility condition.
In essence, two muscles (the CS and OO) may have special significance for the processing of empathy with pain. It should be noted that Lamm et al. (2008) and Sun et al. (2015) found positive correlations between the activity of the CS and OO muscles with scales measuring empathy, i.e., empathic concern (feeling compassion for others) and perspective taking (tendency to take another person’s perspective), from the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) (Davis, 1980).
Attractiveness is considered an important factor in social cognition for perceiving and empathizing with the pain of others (Jankowiak-Siuda et al., 2015). Research has shown that attractiveness has a particularly strong relationship with the reactions of the facial muscles of observers. For example, the attractiveness of a person’s face was found to be negatively correlated with the activation of the CS and the legator labii superioris (LLS) while viewing photographs of attractive and unattractive people (Principe and Langlois, 2011). Less attractive faces activated the LLS and CS more strongly. Neither the gender of the observer nor the gender of the person in the photograph were related to the activity of these facial muscles (Principe and Langlois, 2011). To date no relationship has been found between the reactions of the facial muscles of observers empathizing with a suffering person and the gender or attractiveness of the person suffering from pain. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to examine whether the gender or attractiveness of a person experiencing pain affects the activity of muscles associated with empathy for pain (the CS and OO) in male and female participants. In addition, the study measured the correlations of the electrical activity of the CS and OO facial muscles with the three empathy dimensions of the IRI (Davis, 1980): empathic concern, personal distress (feelings directed toward oneself), and perspective taking.
The perception of pain and empathy depends on adopting perspectives – whether we imagine how another person feels (“imagine-others”) or how we would feel (“imagine-self”) (Batson et al., 1997; Lamm et al., 2008). Imagining others evokes empathic concern, whereas imagining the self produces both empathic concern and personal distress; however, the latter is more in the way of egoistic negative emotions (Batson et al., 2003; Lamm et al., 2007). Thus, it is interesting to test whether perspective taking affects the activity of the CS and OO muscles when the attractiveness of the target varies. Based on available research findings we predict CS activity to be higher when observing unattractive women, no matter what perspective was adopted. However, we also predict OO activity to be higher for the imagine-self perspective than for the imagine-others perspective. Finally, we expect positive correlations between CS activity and empathic concern and between OO activity and perspective-taking.
The participants in the present study were shown dynamic pain stimuli in movies showing natural, everyday situations, in which they saw the whole body and the facial expressions of pain of actors (the targets) and the location of the injury. These stimuli were used because they have higher ecological validity than movies showing only the injured body part or expressions that mimic pain (Sun et al., 2015). Moreover, Sun et al. (2015) suggest that such situations are more likely to elicit empathy for pain. The present research measured relative changes in the activity of the CS and OO muscles during consecutive scenes. This enabled us to determine how the activity of the muscles changed in different scenes (showing the target’s neutral facial expression, the action leading to the pain, the actual pain stimulus, and the target’s facial expression of pain) depending on the sex and attractiveness of the target and the perspective taken by the observer.
Female economists are at some notable points less convinced of market solutions and have more trust in the government in serving the public interest
Values of Economists Matter in the Art and Science of Economics. Hendrik P. van Dalen. Kyklos, March 15 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/kykl.12208
Summary: What role do personal values play in the practice of economists? By means of a survey among economists working inside and outside academia in the Netherlands, we present novel insights on their personal values, how these differ from the average citizen, and how values impact their economic views and their methodological choices. Three overarching values summarize the value structure of economists: achievement, serving the public interest, and conformity to rules. Subsequent tests are performed to see whether these values affect (1) their opinion on economic propositions and (2) their attitudes towards methodological principles in economics. For the majority of economic propositions, personal values matter. Especially the value of serving the public interest has a strong effect on their economic view. Furthermore, it seems that economists who value achievement are the ones who are more likely to embrace mainstream methodological principles: thinking predominantly in terms of efficiency, rationality, and competition, believing that economic knowledge is objective and transparently produced and in agreement with Milton Friedman's view on positive economics. Female economists are at some notable points less convinced of market solutions and have more trust in the government in serving the public interest.
1 Introduction
“All scientific work has to be based on value premises. There is no view without a viewpoint.” Gunnar Myrdal (1972)
Economists have been trained to think that their science should be Wertfrei, free of value judgements. Economics is concerned with ‘what is’ rather than ‘what ought to be’ (Coats 1964; Heilbroner 1973; Colander 2001). In large part, this stance may be derived from reading Lionel Robbins’ classic book An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1932). Still, economists do make policy recommendations involving value judgements or at least tacitly invoke ethical principles in making policy statements (Heilbroner 1973; Wight 2017) and some judgements of economists may unwittingly be affected by their personal values. Because of its tacit nature, it is hard to see or detect whether values actually matter, i.e. how do economists weight their values in making judgements. To the best of my knowledge, this article is the first to make the personal value structure of economists explicit (along the lines set out by social psychologist Schwartz (1994)). And subsequently, we examine how these values affect statements and attitudes on methodological principles in economics.
The intermingling of facts, theory and values is practiced by most economists when they judge a situation or try to give policy advice. It is essentially the art of political economy, as John Neville Keynes (1891) once described this grey area between positive and normative economics. And in this area values play a prominent role (Colander and Su 2015). However, these insights do not seem to be shared by most economists. Some ascribe these blind spots to the fact that modern economists lack a firm historical education (Blaug 2001; Colander 2011) or they look down upon economic methodology (Lawson 1994). Or perhaps because the professionals that are most well adapted to studying this aspect – economic methodologists ‐ stick to only criticizing economists. Indeed the lament of Hausman (1989) on the state of economic methodology is directly related to this point and captures the intentions of the current paper: “Although methodologists may find much to criticize, they had better begin by understanding as thoroughly as they can how economists go about their business and why they do what they do.”
Most economists would claim that their judgement or advice is based on Science, without invoking any value judgements. In other words, values do not enter the equation because it would make economists appear less ‘scientific’ and it would suggest that economic policy is ‘just a matter of taste’. This paper tries to uncover the role that values play in making positive and normative claims about the economy as well as explaining attitudes with respect to methodological principles and scientific norms, and hence it is written in exactly the spirit of Hausman's lament (1989). When economics is what economists do, one can learn a lot from the flourishing industry of the economics of economics or the sociology of knowledge literature. Numerous authors over time have added insights into how the economics profession functions, ranging from the sociology and institutional structure of the economics profession (Frey and Eichenberger 1993; Coats 1997; Coats 2005; Fourcade 2006; Fourcade 2009) to the registration of the consensus among economists (Frey et al. 1984; Gordon and Dahl 2013), a focus on elite economists and their education (Klamer and Colander 1990; Colander 2005), or discovering how an economic education changes behavior (Frey and Meier 2003). However, none of these studies have faced the issue of measuring the values of economists directly. 1
In modern tracts on economic methodology (Boumans and Davis 2015) the issue of value‐laden economics is an important issue, but empirical proof of how the economics profession is affected by this issue is conspicuously absent. In short, this paper focuses on a lacuna in the economics literature that might improve our understanding of “how economists go about their business”.
The method of analysis is a survey among economists, working inside and outside academia in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is a country that has achieved a top position within the economics hierarchy in Europe (Kalaitzidakis et al. 2003; Lubrano et al. 2003) and it could function as an appropriate case study for other countries as well because most universities outside the Ivy League have similar ambitions in moving up the various rankings. Furthermore, one should that note of the fact that economics at Dutch universities is certainly no longer a Dutch affair: 43 percent of the Dutch economics faculty consists of foreign born members (Rathenau Institute 2018) and most classes are taught in English.
The traditional null hypothesis to put to the test would be the one that is tacitly taught in economics namely that economic science is free of value judgements. The absence of value judgements will be operationalized by us as the thesis that personal values of economists do not affect their views or attitudes. We will test this hypothesis by focusing on two sets of variables: (1) the positive or normative statements made by economists as they are often used in studies on the consensus of dissensus among economists (Frey et al. 1983; Alston et al. 1992; Fuller and Geide‐Stevenson 2007); and (2) their attitude towards methodological principles in economics. The measurement of personal values relies on the value characterization of Schwartz (2012); a method that is often applied to European or worldwide surveys of individual countries. Because these general population data are available the current survey among economists also offers the possibility of comparing the differences between economists and the average citizen. It is sometimes claimed that economists have estranged themselves from the general public or laypeople. Economists tend to stress efficiency whereas in every day practice people value equity or fairness, as Rees (1993) once noted. Some research focuses on and shows differences of opinion between laypeople and economists but no research on differences in values. Research by Sapienza and Zingales (2013) shows that the opinion of the general public differs quite markedly from economists on technical issues and the reason for this divergence is that laypeople do not trust every link in the economist's logic because actors like governments or market participants are distrusted. And Johnston and Ballard (2016) show in a different setup how economists in the US are met with distrust when it concerns highly salient and polarized issues.
This paper makes three novel contributions. The first contribution is that personal values of the economists differ distinctly from the average citizen: economists in general care less about traditions or rules, they care less about the environment and they are more set on serving the public interest. This applies to both the academic and applied economists. However, at some points the academic economist differs from the applied economist. In particular creativity or innovation and being successful are valued far more by the academic economist. In other words, the academic economist is more oriented towards individual self‐enhancement than the applied economist.
The second contribution is the observation that values matter when it comes to making economic statements, although the influence of values is virtually absent when it concerns statements on monetary issues. And the third contribution is a demonstration that personal values also affect the attitude of academic economists towards methodological principals, and the importance attached to certain assumptions in economic theory. Self‐centered economists who prize ‘achievement’ are more likely to have ‘mainstream’ ideas about economics as a science: thinking solely in terms of efficiency, believing that economic knowledge is objective and transparently produced and in agreement with Friedman's (1953) view on positive economics. Furthermore, they also attach greater importance to the assumption of rationality and perfect competition.
The setup of this paper is as follows. In the next section we discuss how values of economists may impinge on their world view and their attitudes towards scientific principles applied in economics. In the subsequent section we will present the method and data used to test the relationship between values and economic and methodological statements, to be followed by the results of these tests. The final section concludes with a short summary and discussion.
2 The Values of Economists
Values in general express what people believe to be good or bad or what they believe that should or should not be done. In social psychology it is well established how important values are. They not only guide us to select actions and interpret events, values also affect people's focus of attention, the way they interpret information and values can explain their attitudes, decisions and behavior (Verplanken and Holland 2002; Schwartz 2012). If this insight is true, values may also help to interpret how economists make judgements and why their attitudes and decisions in their profession differ. Differences of opinion among economists can exist with respect to how they think about the functioning of markets, governments, families and its agents. These evaluations may to some extent be based on personal valuations about what an economist feels is good or bad. For instance, some may see the freedom to choose and the pursuit of enlightened self‐interest as the cornerstone of making capitalism work. Other economists may see self‐interest as the cause of market failures in the ordinary business of life and value the public interest more highly.
Modern economists may perceive values as the use of an extra‐scientific source in economic discourse. Something that should not belong in economics as a science. Samuelson (1947) is quite clear in his classic Foundations of Economic Analysis why values do not belong in the ‘science department’: “Wishful thinking is a powerful deterrent of good analysis and description, and ethical conclusions cannot be derived in the same way that scientific hypotheses are inferred or verified.” (p. 220). However, the use of values is, of course, not a novel element. Political economists of the past, like Mill and Senior, made a distinction between the art and science of political economy. They acknowledged that the science of economics does not give you sufficient guidance in giving policy advice. As Senior (1836) expressed this stance: “the business of the Political Economist is neither to recommend nor to dissuade, but to state general principles, which it is fatal to neglect, but neither advisable, nor perhaps practicable, to use as the sole, or even the principle guides to the actual conduct of affairs.” (Senior 1836, p. 2‐3) In moving from the science to the art of economics extra‐scientific elements creep in, such as ethical premises. Later, John Neville Keynes (1891) made a more refined distinction in three sections: (1) a “positive science” with the object of establishing uniformities; (2) a “normative or regulative science” with the object of determining ideals; and (3) the “art” of economics, a system of rules for the attainment of given ends and the economists who preoccupied with this art tried to formulate “precepts” or, in modern‐day terms, policy advice. However, with the appearance of Robbins’ (1932) Essay it became more or less an article of faith to refrain from value judgements and the proper economist dedicated to the cause of science, high theory, should focus on the task to understand choice and behavior as reflection of scarce means in search of given ends. What most economists forgot (see, e.g., Ng 1972) was that Robbins was preoccupied in his Essay with ‘high theory’ and economics as a pure science and not with the art of economics (cf. Colander 2009).
Paying attention to the fact that economists have values is done in a strand within economic methodology that has called into question economics’ scientific character. Values permeate in every aspect of economic science (Wilber 1994). This literature deals with the impact of values and ethical judgements on economics as a science and that value neutrality is an unlikely state of affairs. According to Wilber (1994, 2004) the value neutrality argument hinges on two tenets. The first tenet is the one taught to most students and is based on the belief that one cannot derive a normative statement from a positive statement (better known as Hume's guillotine, cf. Blaug 1992), fact and value, descriptive and prescriptive statements need to be separated, cut by the ‘blade of the guillotine’. In the world of John Stuart Mill this separation was quite evident as political economy was understood to be a separate but inexact science. To derive policy recommendations based on this narrow view would be a sign of negating the complexity of society. The second tenet supports the first tenet by claiming that economists have objective access to the empirical world through their sense experience, and because of this access economists “as scientists need not concern themselves with ‘what ought to be’.” (Wilber 1994). This second tenet is the weak spot. This objectivity argument has been rejected by Kuhn (1970). He argued that the empirical world can only be known through the filter of a theory; facts about the real world are thus always theory laden. Worldviews influence the paradigm with which one works and value judgements are closely associated with one's own worldview. Theories must remain coherent with this world view and this world view shapes the questions asked, models used, methods chosen, facts presented, etc. In short, this is exactly what Myrdal (1972) was arguing about when he said that values permeate in every corner of economic science:
“… valuations enter into research from the start to the finish: determining the approach, the definition of the concepts, used and thus the facts observed, the way of drawing inferences, and even the manner of presenting conclusions reached.” (1972, p. 162)
In that respect one can understand why Myrdal (1973) was very supportive of studying the sociological and psychological mechanisms at work within the economics profession and to see how economists go about in their daily activities to uncover, what McCloskey (1983) calls, the rhetoric of economics. A view similar to that of Myrdal can be found in Boulding (1969) who argues that “knowledge of the social sciences is an essential part of the social system itself, hence objectivity in the sense of investigating a world which is unchanged by the investigation of it is an absurdity.” And he goes on to claim why values matter: “as science moves from pure knowledge towards control, that is, toward creating what it knows, what it creates becomes a problem of ethical choice, and will depend on the common values of the societies in which the scientific subculture is embedded.” (p.3) In short, values permeate every aspect of the way economists work.
We will first focus on a domain– views or judgements on economic topics ‐ by the following (null) hypothesis to reflect the tacit belief among modern economists (cf. Colander and Su 2015) that values do not matter when they express their positive or their normative views:
Hypothesis on the values‐views nexus: The personal values of economists do not affect either their positive or normative economic views.
A second domain in which values permeate economics concerns the attitudes towards methodological principles and the norms of science. The reason for including this domain is simply related to the argument made by Myrdal (1972) that values permeate in every corner of practicing economics and not just economic judgements as in the first hypothesis. He suggests that ascribing to a particular way of practicing economics – one's methodological principles ‐ is also influenced by one's values. For instance, embracing self‐centered values may be traded off against the value of serving the public interest of science. This trade‐off process could be pushed in the direction of self‐centeredness as most universities use an up‐or‐out system to grant tenure or prizes in general. The key factor in this system are publications and citations generating a publish‐or‐perish culture (van Dalen et al. 2012; Stephan 2012a; Stephan 2012b; Seeber et al. 2019). Success in science is solely defined in terms individual academic success and may set in motion a drive towards self‐centeredness or an inward turn in which economics is the queen of the social sciences, academic economists no longer have an ambition to function as gatekeepers of a public debate or who do not engage in organizational citizenship behavior. Some note that this internal directedness (Colander 2015; Fourcade et al. 2015) may well be the Achilles’ heel of economics. A case in point may well be the recent Great Recession. In the midst of the crisis Krugman (2009) challenged (mainly) economists with a Chicago background on sowing the seeds for the crisis by making economics a beautiful but irrelevant science. Economists had mistaken mathematical beauty for truth and have lost sight of reality in assessing the state of economies. The criticism of Krugman and the ensuing debate (Cochrane 2011; Colander 2011) suggests that methodological principles on the application of theory to policy lay at heart in the answer to how economists got it wrong. Especially the way economists have come to practice ‘positive economics’ in macroeconomics and in finance has blinded economists, according to Krugman. Although, he does not mention it explicitly, the essay on The Methodology of Positive Economics by Friedman (1953) has played a pivotal role in developing economics as an exact science and it certainly is not restricted to economists with a Chicago background. To stay away from value judgements Friedman downplayed the role of values very early on in his essay: “differences about economics policy among disinterested citizens derive predominantly from different predictions about the economic consequences of taking action [..] rather than from fundamental differences in basic values.” (p. 5). Instead he focused on developing positive economics: theories should be judged by their predictions not by the realism of their assumptions.
Friedman's economic methodology has ever since its publication been fiercely debated. To name two criticisms that are relevant in this regard is, first, the objection made by Hausman (1994). He argues that the instrumentalist approach of Friedman precludes serious research in examining the realism of assumptions. ‘Why look under the hood?’ is the implicit message of Friedman. A second and different critique is expressed by Coase (1994) who remarks that the essay of Friedman is not so much a positive theory but a normative theory: “What we are given is not a theory of how economists, in fact, choose between competing theories, but [..] how they ought to choose.” Economists ‐ according to Coase ‐ do not use “valid and meaningful predictions about phenomena not yet observed” as their sole criterion. Many economists do not test theories in their papers at all. Most of the work of pure theory economists consists of “logical constructions based on assumptions about human nature”. And their scientific efforts can best be described as “measurements of an effect, the nature of which was already well established but of which the magnitude was unknown” (Coase 1994). Economists and many other social scientists are unsophisticated positivists (Colander and Su 2015).
The second part of this paper aims first to discover (1) the attitudes economists share with respect to scientific working principles, as they are sometimes summed up in the Mertonian norms of science (Merton 1979); and (2) their assessment of key theoretical assumptions in understanding today's society. We will subsequently test to see whether personal values affect these two elements of scientific practice. The second null hypothesis that we will use as our guide is the following:
Hypothesis on the values‐principles nexus: The personal values of economists do not affect scientific working principles and their assessment of assumptions in understanding modern‐day society.
6 Conclusions and Discussion
“Valuations enter into research from the start to the finish” (Myrdal 1972, p. 162).
Economists are often seen by laypeople as a quarrelsome lot who agree to disagree. To know the world of economists and the forces that impinge on the choices they make is of some importance for anyone trying to understand developments in economics and economic policy. This paper has taken the novel and exploratory route by assessing the effects of (personal) values of economists on their view on methodology and the state of the economy. Three general findings stand out.
First, the personal values of economists differ from the man in the street. In particular, economists attach more importance to serving the public interest than the average citizen and the economist is less attached to the status quo, or to put it differently, the economist does not value rules or traditions and the academic economist is someone who values creativity more than the average citizen or the applied economist.
Second, for the majority of economic positive and normative propositions about economic issues personal values matter. Indirectly, these findings affirm what Gunnar Myrdal always claimed: “There is no view without a viewpoint”. Especially the value to serve the public interest has a strong effect on the perception of how the world works, or how it should be changed. It is only in monetary policy matters that values do not seem to matter a lot.
And third, with respect to methodological issues, it seems that economists who value achievement are the ones who are more likely to embrace mainstream methodological principles in economics: thinking predominantly in terms of efficiency, rationality and competition, believing that economic knowledge is objective and transparently produced and agreement with Friedman's view on positive economics.
6.1 Discussion
These findings are not without limitations and should be interpreted with some care. In particular, the personal values as measured in this paper are assumed to be exogenous. Given the extensive experience with research that has been carried out with the Schwartz approach to values this seem like a reasonable assumption, but the question of value formation should not be neglected. For instance, we have noted that economists differ in their values at some crucial points with the average citizen, but the intriguing question is how have economists come to adopt or acquired their values? Is it socialization or is it a question of self‐selection? Gandal et al. (2005) provide some evidence of values for students that suggests that self‐selection is present into the study of economics, where self enhancement is valued more than serving the interests of others by economics students. However, they do not focus on or examine the issue of socialization to dominant group values or education experience. There is a large of body of experimental literature focused on the minds of students that seem to suggest both forces – selection and socialization ‐ are at work (Carter and Irons 1991; Frey and Meier 2003).
Although the picture presented in this paper of economists is limited to one moment in time, the findings are intriguing and warrant some further discussion. The findings may shed light, doubt and may reinforce preconceptions of how the world of economists works. In closing I want to make two remarks on the possible implications of these findings.
First of all, the divergence in values between academic economists and the average citizen helps one to understand why economists with the best of intentions have a hard time convincing the general public. For instance, Barr and Diamond (2009) once discussed the skills that are needed to make a credible pension reform. Such reforms are too often top‐down technical design issues, whereas communication and implementation of a reform is an equally important part of effective reform. The fact that the average citizen likes stability and traditions, whereas the average economist is always on the lookout for improving and changing the status quo is a revealing fact. It helps one understand why economists are perceived as arrogant number‐crunchers, just like in the days of Charles Dickens when political economists were seen as dismal scientists.
Second, ‘achievement’ values are positively associated with economists embracing mainstream principles or having mainstream opinions. This is a novel and important finding as it suggests how ‘normal economic science’ is connected with a particular type of economist, who is focused on his or her own achievements. It is important because it might shed some light on the concerns of insiders (Colander 2011; Osterloh and Frey 2015; Heckman and Moktan 2018) on how the character of economics has changed and has become more focused on internal questions. A likely force seems to be the publish‐or‐perish culture that many sciences have implemented as their selection mechanism. And economics has (more than other disciplines) a tendency to focus on publications and citations as indicators of the quality of ideas. Osterloh and Frey (2015) urge universities to back away from such ranking games as these games end up substituting a ‘taste for science’ by a ‘taste for publication’. ‘Taste’ is here an appropriate phrase as it suggests that values are key in making a science work. Science has this unique mixture where public goods are produced by individuals who are triggered to produce knowledge by means of a non‐market reward system that appeals to their intrinsic motivation (Dasgupta and David 1994). Naturally, economists are influenced by a mix of values. But by making publications and citations the only coin worth having in science, a non‐market reward system is being replaced by a market‐reward system. And under those circumstances one should not be surprised to see the unintended consequence of such a publish‐or‐perish culture materialize. Mimicry could be the result as young and aspiring economists try to adapt to their environment and follow the rules and customs that make the likelihood of publication in top‐tier journals greater or of obtaining grants. Economists who favor and strive for individual success are perhaps also the ones who dislike acting in the public interest, because doing jobs or tasks that have a public good nature generally do not earn the credits deans playing the ‘ranking game’ would like to see. One of the consequences may be that the value structure of economists may change, as one is almost forced to act as an ‘achiever’ and the group may become more homogenous. The basic dangers of a drive towards a homogenous group of economists is uniformity in approach, outlook and advice. Fourcade et al. (2015) and Heckman and Moktan (2018) have registered these tendencies and as Heckman and Moktan note: “The current system of publication and reward does not encourage creativity. It delays the publication and dissemination of new ideas. It centralizes power in the hands of a small group of editors, prevents open discussion and stifles dissent and debate.” It is perhaps the old insight and warning of Kerr (1975) that surfaces in academia: whoever wants to attain A (read: creativity) by rewarding B (read: publication), will not attain A, but will end up with B.
Summary: What role do personal values play in the practice of economists? By means of a survey among economists working inside and outside academia in the Netherlands, we present novel insights on their personal values, how these differ from the average citizen, and how values impact their economic views and their methodological choices. Three overarching values summarize the value structure of economists: achievement, serving the public interest, and conformity to rules. Subsequent tests are performed to see whether these values affect (1) their opinion on economic propositions and (2) their attitudes towards methodological principles in economics. For the majority of economic propositions, personal values matter. Especially the value of serving the public interest has a strong effect on their economic view. Furthermore, it seems that economists who value achievement are the ones who are more likely to embrace mainstream methodological principles: thinking predominantly in terms of efficiency, rationality, and competition, believing that economic knowledge is objective and transparently produced and in agreement with Milton Friedman's view on positive economics. Female economists are at some notable points less convinced of market solutions and have more trust in the government in serving the public interest.
1 Introduction
“All scientific work has to be based on value premises. There is no view without a viewpoint.” Gunnar Myrdal (1972)
Economists have been trained to think that their science should be Wertfrei, free of value judgements. Economics is concerned with ‘what is’ rather than ‘what ought to be’ (Coats 1964; Heilbroner 1973; Colander 2001). In large part, this stance may be derived from reading Lionel Robbins’ classic book An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1932). Still, economists do make policy recommendations involving value judgements or at least tacitly invoke ethical principles in making policy statements (Heilbroner 1973; Wight 2017) and some judgements of economists may unwittingly be affected by their personal values. Because of its tacit nature, it is hard to see or detect whether values actually matter, i.e. how do economists weight their values in making judgements. To the best of my knowledge, this article is the first to make the personal value structure of economists explicit (along the lines set out by social psychologist Schwartz (1994)). And subsequently, we examine how these values affect statements and attitudes on methodological principles in economics.
The intermingling of facts, theory and values is practiced by most economists when they judge a situation or try to give policy advice. It is essentially the art of political economy, as John Neville Keynes (1891) once described this grey area between positive and normative economics. And in this area values play a prominent role (Colander and Su 2015). However, these insights do not seem to be shared by most economists. Some ascribe these blind spots to the fact that modern economists lack a firm historical education (Blaug 2001; Colander 2011) or they look down upon economic methodology (Lawson 1994). Or perhaps because the professionals that are most well adapted to studying this aspect – economic methodologists ‐ stick to only criticizing economists. Indeed the lament of Hausman (1989) on the state of economic methodology is directly related to this point and captures the intentions of the current paper: “Although methodologists may find much to criticize, they had better begin by understanding as thoroughly as they can how economists go about their business and why they do what they do.”
Most economists would claim that their judgement or advice is based on Science, without invoking any value judgements. In other words, values do not enter the equation because it would make economists appear less ‘scientific’ and it would suggest that economic policy is ‘just a matter of taste’. This paper tries to uncover the role that values play in making positive and normative claims about the economy as well as explaining attitudes with respect to methodological principles and scientific norms, and hence it is written in exactly the spirit of Hausman's lament (1989). When economics is what economists do, one can learn a lot from the flourishing industry of the economics of economics or the sociology of knowledge literature. Numerous authors over time have added insights into how the economics profession functions, ranging from the sociology and institutional structure of the economics profession (Frey and Eichenberger 1993; Coats 1997; Coats 2005; Fourcade 2006; Fourcade 2009) to the registration of the consensus among economists (Frey et al. 1984; Gordon and Dahl 2013), a focus on elite economists and their education (Klamer and Colander 1990; Colander 2005), or discovering how an economic education changes behavior (Frey and Meier 2003). However, none of these studies have faced the issue of measuring the values of economists directly. 1
In modern tracts on economic methodology (Boumans and Davis 2015) the issue of value‐laden economics is an important issue, but empirical proof of how the economics profession is affected by this issue is conspicuously absent. In short, this paper focuses on a lacuna in the economics literature that might improve our understanding of “how economists go about their business”.
The method of analysis is a survey among economists, working inside and outside academia in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is a country that has achieved a top position within the economics hierarchy in Europe (Kalaitzidakis et al. 2003; Lubrano et al. 2003) and it could function as an appropriate case study for other countries as well because most universities outside the Ivy League have similar ambitions in moving up the various rankings. Furthermore, one should that note of the fact that economics at Dutch universities is certainly no longer a Dutch affair: 43 percent of the Dutch economics faculty consists of foreign born members (Rathenau Institute 2018) and most classes are taught in English.
The traditional null hypothesis to put to the test would be the one that is tacitly taught in economics namely that economic science is free of value judgements. The absence of value judgements will be operationalized by us as the thesis that personal values of economists do not affect their views or attitudes. We will test this hypothesis by focusing on two sets of variables: (1) the positive or normative statements made by economists as they are often used in studies on the consensus of dissensus among economists (Frey et al. 1983; Alston et al. 1992; Fuller and Geide‐Stevenson 2007); and (2) their attitude towards methodological principles in economics. The measurement of personal values relies on the value characterization of Schwartz (2012); a method that is often applied to European or worldwide surveys of individual countries. Because these general population data are available the current survey among economists also offers the possibility of comparing the differences between economists and the average citizen. It is sometimes claimed that economists have estranged themselves from the general public or laypeople. Economists tend to stress efficiency whereas in every day practice people value equity or fairness, as Rees (1993) once noted. Some research focuses on and shows differences of opinion between laypeople and economists but no research on differences in values. Research by Sapienza and Zingales (2013) shows that the opinion of the general public differs quite markedly from economists on technical issues and the reason for this divergence is that laypeople do not trust every link in the economist's logic because actors like governments or market participants are distrusted. And Johnston and Ballard (2016) show in a different setup how economists in the US are met with distrust when it concerns highly salient and polarized issues.
This paper makes three novel contributions. The first contribution is that personal values of the economists differ distinctly from the average citizen: economists in general care less about traditions or rules, they care less about the environment and they are more set on serving the public interest. This applies to both the academic and applied economists. However, at some points the academic economist differs from the applied economist. In particular creativity or innovation and being successful are valued far more by the academic economist. In other words, the academic economist is more oriented towards individual self‐enhancement than the applied economist.
The second contribution is the observation that values matter when it comes to making economic statements, although the influence of values is virtually absent when it concerns statements on monetary issues. And the third contribution is a demonstration that personal values also affect the attitude of academic economists towards methodological principals, and the importance attached to certain assumptions in economic theory. Self‐centered economists who prize ‘achievement’ are more likely to have ‘mainstream’ ideas about economics as a science: thinking solely in terms of efficiency, believing that economic knowledge is objective and transparently produced and in agreement with Friedman's (1953) view on positive economics. Furthermore, they also attach greater importance to the assumption of rationality and perfect competition.
The setup of this paper is as follows. In the next section we discuss how values of economists may impinge on their world view and their attitudes towards scientific principles applied in economics. In the subsequent section we will present the method and data used to test the relationship between values and economic and methodological statements, to be followed by the results of these tests. The final section concludes with a short summary and discussion.
2 The Values of Economists
Values in general express what people believe to be good or bad or what they believe that should or should not be done. In social psychology it is well established how important values are. They not only guide us to select actions and interpret events, values also affect people's focus of attention, the way they interpret information and values can explain their attitudes, decisions and behavior (Verplanken and Holland 2002; Schwartz 2012). If this insight is true, values may also help to interpret how economists make judgements and why their attitudes and decisions in their profession differ. Differences of opinion among economists can exist with respect to how they think about the functioning of markets, governments, families and its agents. These evaluations may to some extent be based on personal valuations about what an economist feels is good or bad. For instance, some may see the freedom to choose and the pursuit of enlightened self‐interest as the cornerstone of making capitalism work. Other economists may see self‐interest as the cause of market failures in the ordinary business of life and value the public interest more highly.
Modern economists may perceive values as the use of an extra‐scientific source in economic discourse. Something that should not belong in economics as a science. Samuelson (1947) is quite clear in his classic Foundations of Economic Analysis why values do not belong in the ‘science department’: “Wishful thinking is a powerful deterrent of good analysis and description, and ethical conclusions cannot be derived in the same way that scientific hypotheses are inferred or verified.” (p. 220). However, the use of values is, of course, not a novel element. Political economists of the past, like Mill and Senior, made a distinction between the art and science of political economy. They acknowledged that the science of economics does not give you sufficient guidance in giving policy advice. As Senior (1836) expressed this stance: “the business of the Political Economist is neither to recommend nor to dissuade, but to state general principles, which it is fatal to neglect, but neither advisable, nor perhaps practicable, to use as the sole, or even the principle guides to the actual conduct of affairs.” (Senior 1836, p. 2‐3) In moving from the science to the art of economics extra‐scientific elements creep in, such as ethical premises. Later, John Neville Keynes (1891) made a more refined distinction in three sections: (1) a “positive science” with the object of establishing uniformities; (2) a “normative or regulative science” with the object of determining ideals; and (3) the “art” of economics, a system of rules for the attainment of given ends and the economists who preoccupied with this art tried to formulate “precepts” or, in modern‐day terms, policy advice. However, with the appearance of Robbins’ (1932) Essay it became more or less an article of faith to refrain from value judgements and the proper economist dedicated to the cause of science, high theory, should focus on the task to understand choice and behavior as reflection of scarce means in search of given ends. What most economists forgot (see, e.g., Ng 1972) was that Robbins was preoccupied in his Essay with ‘high theory’ and economics as a pure science and not with the art of economics (cf. Colander 2009).
Paying attention to the fact that economists have values is done in a strand within economic methodology that has called into question economics’ scientific character. Values permeate in every aspect of economic science (Wilber 1994). This literature deals with the impact of values and ethical judgements on economics as a science and that value neutrality is an unlikely state of affairs. According to Wilber (1994, 2004) the value neutrality argument hinges on two tenets. The first tenet is the one taught to most students and is based on the belief that one cannot derive a normative statement from a positive statement (better known as Hume's guillotine, cf. Blaug 1992), fact and value, descriptive and prescriptive statements need to be separated, cut by the ‘blade of the guillotine’. In the world of John Stuart Mill this separation was quite evident as political economy was understood to be a separate but inexact science. To derive policy recommendations based on this narrow view would be a sign of negating the complexity of society. The second tenet supports the first tenet by claiming that economists have objective access to the empirical world through their sense experience, and because of this access economists “as scientists need not concern themselves with ‘what ought to be’.” (Wilber 1994). This second tenet is the weak spot. This objectivity argument has been rejected by Kuhn (1970). He argued that the empirical world can only be known through the filter of a theory; facts about the real world are thus always theory laden. Worldviews influence the paradigm with which one works and value judgements are closely associated with one's own worldview. Theories must remain coherent with this world view and this world view shapes the questions asked, models used, methods chosen, facts presented, etc. In short, this is exactly what Myrdal (1972) was arguing about when he said that values permeate in every corner of economic science:
“… valuations enter into research from the start to the finish: determining the approach, the definition of the concepts, used and thus the facts observed, the way of drawing inferences, and even the manner of presenting conclusions reached.” (1972, p. 162)
In that respect one can understand why Myrdal (1973) was very supportive of studying the sociological and psychological mechanisms at work within the economics profession and to see how economists go about in their daily activities to uncover, what McCloskey (1983) calls, the rhetoric of economics. A view similar to that of Myrdal can be found in Boulding (1969) who argues that “knowledge of the social sciences is an essential part of the social system itself, hence objectivity in the sense of investigating a world which is unchanged by the investigation of it is an absurdity.” And he goes on to claim why values matter: “as science moves from pure knowledge towards control, that is, toward creating what it knows, what it creates becomes a problem of ethical choice, and will depend on the common values of the societies in which the scientific subculture is embedded.” (p.3) In short, values permeate every aspect of the way economists work.
We will first focus on a domain– views or judgements on economic topics ‐ by the following (null) hypothesis to reflect the tacit belief among modern economists (cf. Colander and Su 2015) that values do not matter when they express their positive or their normative views:
Hypothesis on the values‐views nexus: The personal values of economists do not affect either their positive or normative economic views.
A second domain in which values permeate economics concerns the attitudes towards methodological principles and the norms of science. The reason for including this domain is simply related to the argument made by Myrdal (1972) that values permeate in every corner of practicing economics and not just economic judgements as in the first hypothesis. He suggests that ascribing to a particular way of practicing economics – one's methodological principles ‐ is also influenced by one's values. For instance, embracing self‐centered values may be traded off against the value of serving the public interest of science. This trade‐off process could be pushed in the direction of self‐centeredness as most universities use an up‐or‐out system to grant tenure or prizes in general. The key factor in this system are publications and citations generating a publish‐or‐perish culture (van Dalen et al. 2012; Stephan 2012a; Stephan 2012b; Seeber et al. 2019). Success in science is solely defined in terms individual academic success and may set in motion a drive towards self‐centeredness or an inward turn in which economics is the queen of the social sciences, academic economists no longer have an ambition to function as gatekeepers of a public debate or who do not engage in organizational citizenship behavior. Some note that this internal directedness (Colander 2015; Fourcade et al. 2015) may well be the Achilles’ heel of economics. A case in point may well be the recent Great Recession. In the midst of the crisis Krugman (2009) challenged (mainly) economists with a Chicago background on sowing the seeds for the crisis by making economics a beautiful but irrelevant science. Economists had mistaken mathematical beauty for truth and have lost sight of reality in assessing the state of economies. The criticism of Krugman and the ensuing debate (Cochrane 2011; Colander 2011) suggests that methodological principles on the application of theory to policy lay at heart in the answer to how economists got it wrong. Especially the way economists have come to practice ‘positive economics’ in macroeconomics and in finance has blinded economists, according to Krugman. Although, he does not mention it explicitly, the essay on The Methodology of Positive Economics by Friedman (1953) has played a pivotal role in developing economics as an exact science and it certainly is not restricted to economists with a Chicago background. To stay away from value judgements Friedman downplayed the role of values very early on in his essay: “differences about economics policy among disinterested citizens derive predominantly from different predictions about the economic consequences of taking action [..] rather than from fundamental differences in basic values.” (p. 5). Instead he focused on developing positive economics: theories should be judged by their predictions not by the realism of their assumptions.
Friedman's economic methodology has ever since its publication been fiercely debated. To name two criticisms that are relevant in this regard is, first, the objection made by Hausman (1994). He argues that the instrumentalist approach of Friedman precludes serious research in examining the realism of assumptions. ‘Why look under the hood?’ is the implicit message of Friedman. A second and different critique is expressed by Coase (1994) who remarks that the essay of Friedman is not so much a positive theory but a normative theory: “What we are given is not a theory of how economists, in fact, choose between competing theories, but [..] how they ought to choose.” Economists ‐ according to Coase ‐ do not use “valid and meaningful predictions about phenomena not yet observed” as their sole criterion. Many economists do not test theories in their papers at all. Most of the work of pure theory economists consists of “logical constructions based on assumptions about human nature”. And their scientific efforts can best be described as “measurements of an effect, the nature of which was already well established but of which the magnitude was unknown” (Coase 1994). Economists and many other social scientists are unsophisticated positivists (Colander and Su 2015).
The second part of this paper aims first to discover (1) the attitudes economists share with respect to scientific working principles, as they are sometimes summed up in the Mertonian norms of science (Merton 1979); and (2) their assessment of key theoretical assumptions in understanding today's society. We will subsequently test to see whether personal values affect these two elements of scientific practice. The second null hypothesis that we will use as our guide is the following:
Hypothesis on the values‐principles nexus: The personal values of economists do not affect scientific working principles and their assessment of assumptions in understanding modern‐day society.
6 Conclusions and Discussion
“Valuations enter into research from the start to the finish” (Myrdal 1972, p. 162).
Economists are often seen by laypeople as a quarrelsome lot who agree to disagree. To know the world of economists and the forces that impinge on the choices they make is of some importance for anyone trying to understand developments in economics and economic policy. This paper has taken the novel and exploratory route by assessing the effects of (personal) values of economists on their view on methodology and the state of the economy. Three general findings stand out.
First, the personal values of economists differ from the man in the street. In particular, economists attach more importance to serving the public interest than the average citizen and the economist is less attached to the status quo, or to put it differently, the economist does not value rules or traditions and the academic economist is someone who values creativity more than the average citizen or the applied economist.
Second, for the majority of economic positive and normative propositions about economic issues personal values matter. Indirectly, these findings affirm what Gunnar Myrdal always claimed: “There is no view without a viewpoint”. Especially the value to serve the public interest has a strong effect on the perception of how the world works, or how it should be changed. It is only in monetary policy matters that values do not seem to matter a lot.
And third, with respect to methodological issues, it seems that economists who value achievement are the ones who are more likely to embrace mainstream methodological principles in economics: thinking predominantly in terms of efficiency, rationality and competition, believing that economic knowledge is objective and transparently produced and agreement with Friedman's view on positive economics.
6.1 Discussion
These findings are not without limitations and should be interpreted with some care. In particular, the personal values as measured in this paper are assumed to be exogenous. Given the extensive experience with research that has been carried out with the Schwartz approach to values this seem like a reasonable assumption, but the question of value formation should not be neglected. For instance, we have noted that economists differ in their values at some crucial points with the average citizen, but the intriguing question is how have economists come to adopt or acquired their values? Is it socialization or is it a question of self‐selection? Gandal et al. (2005) provide some evidence of values for students that suggests that self‐selection is present into the study of economics, where self enhancement is valued more than serving the interests of others by economics students. However, they do not focus on or examine the issue of socialization to dominant group values or education experience. There is a large of body of experimental literature focused on the minds of students that seem to suggest both forces – selection and socialization ‐ are at work (Carter and Irons 1991; Frey and Meier 2003).
Although the picture presented in this paper of economists is limited to one moment in time, the findings are intriguing and warrant some further discussion. The findings may shed light, doubt and may reinforce preconceptions of how the world of economists works. In closing I want to make two remarks on the possible implications of these findings.
First of all, the divergence in values between academic economists and the average citizen helps one to understand why economists with the best of intentions have a hard time convincing the general public. For instance, Barr and Diamond (2009) once discussed the skills that are needed to make a credible pension reform. Such reforms are too often top‐down technical design issues, whereas communication and implementation of a reform is an equally important part of effective reform. The fact that the average citizen likes stability and traditions, whereas the average economist is always on the lookout for improving and changing the status quo is a revealing fact. It helps one understand why economists are perceived as arrogant number‐crunchers, just like in the days of Charles Dickens when political economists were seen as dismal scientists.
Second, ‘achievement’ values are positively associated with economists embracing mainstream principles or having mainstream opinions. This is a novel and important finding as it suggests how ‘normal economic science’ is connected with a particular type of economist, who is focused on his or her own achievements. It is important because it might shed some light on the concerns of insiders (Colander 2011; Osterloh and Frey 2015; Heckman and Moktan 2018) on how the character of economics has changed and has become more focused on internal questions. A likely force seems to be the publish‐or‐perish culture that many sciences have implemented as their selection mechanism. And economics has (more than other disciplines) a tendency to focus on publications and citations as indicators of the quality of ideas. Osterloh and Frey (2015) urge universities to back away from such ranking games as these games end up substituting a ‘taste for science’ by a ‘taste for publication’. ‘Taste’ is here an appropriate phrase as it suggests that values are key in making a science work. Science has this unique mixture where public goods are produced by individuals who are triggered to produce knowledge by means of a non‐market reward system that appeals to their intrinsic motivation (Dasgupta and David 1994). Naturally, economists are influenced by a mix of values. But by making publications and citations the only coin worth having in science, a non‐market reward system is being replaced by a market‐reward system. And under those circumstances one should not be surprised to see the unintended consequence of such a publish‐or‐perish culture materialize. Mimicry could be the result as young and aspiring economists try to adapt to their environment and follow the rules and customs that make the likelihood of publication in top‐tier journals greater or of obtaining grants. Economists who favor and strive for individual success are perhaps also the ones who dislike acting in the public interest, because doing jobs or tasks that have a public good nature generally do not earn the credits deans playing the ‘ranking game’ would like to see. One of the consequences may be that the value structure of economists may change, as one is almost forced to act as an ‘achiever’ and the group may become more homogenous. The basic dangers of a drive towards a homogenous group of economists is uniformity in approach, outlook and advice. Fourcade et al. (2015) and Heckman and Moktan (2018) have registered these tendencies and as Heckman and Moktan note: “The current system of publication and reward does not encourage creativity. It delays the publication and dissemination of new ideas. It centralizes power in the hands of a small group of editors, prevents open discussion and stifles dissent and debate.” It is perhaps the old insight and warning of Kerr (1975) that surfaces in academia: whoever wants to attain A (read: creativity) by rewarding B (read: publication), will not attain A, but will end up with B.
We humans are so defective that even a collective effort like wikipedia outperforms us: "Our findings are the first to demonstrate Wikipedia’s superiority over individuals when it comes to hindsight bias"
Wikipedia outperforms individuals when it comes to hindsight bias. Aileen Oeberst, Ina von der Beck, Ulrike Cress, Steffen Nestler. Psychological Research, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-019-01165-7
Abstract: Hindsight bias—the tendency to overestimate in hindsight what one knew in foresight—is a robust and pervasive human error. A recent study with Wikipedia articles, however, found evidence for a hindsight bias only for disasters but not for any other event category (e.g., elections). Although this might suggest Wikipedia articles to be less biased than individuals, alternative explanations had not been ruled out. The present study set out to answer this question by comparing individuals’ and Wikipedia’s representation of the very same event in foresight and hindsight. In particular, we made use of a state election and surveyed one part of participants before and after the outcome and had other participants rate the corresponding Wikipedia article versions with regard to the extent to which the article was suggestive of a particular outcome and presented it as foreseeable and inevitable. In line with prior research and our hypotheses, we found a hindsight bias at the individual level but not in Wikipedia articles. Applying Bayesian statistics, there was substantial support for the null hypothesis (i.e., no hindsight bias) in Wikipedia. By controlling for the potential impact of participants’ own hindsight bias on their article ratings we can rule out alternative explanations of our findings. Therefore, our findings are the first to demonstrate Wikipedia’s superiority over individuals when it comes to hindsight bias.
Abstract: Hindsight bias—the tendency to overestimate in hindsight what one knew in foresight—is a robust and pervasive human error. A recent study with Wikipedia articles, however, found evidence for a hindsight bias only for disasters but not for any other event category (e.g., elections). Although this might suggest Wikipedia articles to be less biased than individuals, alternative explanations had not been ruled out. The present study set out to answer this question by comparing individuals’ and Wikipedia’s representation of the very same event in foresight and hindsight. In particular, we made use of a state election and surveyed one part of participants before and after the outcome and had other participants rate the corresponding Wikipedia article versions with regard to the extent to which the article was suggestive of a particular outcome and presented it as foreseeable and inevitable. In line with prior research and our hypotheses, we found a hindsight bias at the individual level but not in Wikipedia articles. Applying Bayesian statistics, there was substantial support for the null hypothesis (i.e., no hindsight bias) in Wikipedia. By controlling for the potential impact of participants’ own hindsight bias on their article ratings we can rule out alternative explanations of our findings. Therefore, our findings are the first to demonstrate Wikipedia’s superiority over individuals when it comes to hindsight bias.
In a variety of mammalian species, mothers & others care for and/or carry deceased newborns, & sometimes other conspecifics. The rationale for such behavior remains elusive; here, the author tries to give an evolutionary explanation
A comparative perspective on the evolution of mammalian reactions to dead conspecifics. Fred B. Bercovitch. Primates, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10329-019-00722-3
Abstract: In a variety of mammalian species, mothers and others care for and/or carry deceased newborns, and sometimes other conspecifics. The rationale for such behavior remains elusive. Based upon field observations of olive baboon (Papio anubis), African elephant (Loxodonta africana), and Thornicroft’s giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) responses to recently dead conspecifics, combined with reports in the literature, a hypothesis is proposed to account for this activity. Among female mammals, lifetime reproductive success is more dependent upon rearing, than production, of offspring. The successful nurturing of progeny is associated with a strong maternal–offspring bond. One of the most important chemicals involved in both lactation and mother–infant bonding is oxytocin, a tiny molecule that has a lengthy evolutionary history and is implicated in the formation of social bonds across mammals. Evolution has extended the impact of oxytocin by adopting it beyond the original mother–infant bond to the establishment of social bonds that are required among group-living animals. Hence, sociality is a consequence of the same fundamental biological mediator of mother–offspring bonding, and this intricate connection between physiology and behavior has produced a situation where sometimes animals will care for or carry dead companions. Ways to test this hypothesis, as well as a potential way to refute it, are proposed.
Keywords: Olive baboon African elephant Giraffe Sociality Maternal–offspring bond Oxytocin Thanatology
Abstract: In a variety of mammalian species, mothers and others care for and/or carry deceased newborns, and sometimes other conspecifics. The rationale for such behavior remains elusive. Based upon field observations of olive baboon (Papio anubis), African elephant (Loxodonta africana), and Thornicroft’s giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) responses to recently dead conspecifics, combined with reports in the literature, a hypothesis is proposed to account for this activity. Among female mammals, lifetime reproductive success is more dependent upon rearing, than production, of offspring. The successful nurturing of progeny is associated with a strong maternal–offspring bond. One of the most important chemicals involved in both lactation and mother–infant bonding is oxytocin, a tiny molecule that has a lengthy evolutionary history and is implicated in the formation of social bonds across mammals. Evolution has extended the impact of oxytocin by adopting it beyond the original mother–infant bond to the establishment of social bonds that are required among group-living animals. Hence, sociality is a consequence of the same fundamental biological mediator of mother–offspring bonding, and this intricate connection between physiology and behavior has produced a situation where sometimes animals will care for or carry dead companions. Ways to test this hypothesis, as well as a potential way to refute it, are proposed.
Keywords: Olive baboon African elephant Giraffe Sociality Maternal–offspring bond Oxytocin Thanatology
The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-extension in German-speaking countries -- there is no positive influence of ethical reflection on moral action
The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-extension in German-speaking countries. Philipp Schönegger & Johannes Wagner. Philosophical Psychology, Mar 19 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2019.1587912
ABSTRACT: What is the relation between ethical reflection and moral behavior? Does professional reflection on ethical issues positively impact moral behaviors? To address these questions, Schwitzgebel and Rust empirically investigated if philosophy professors engaged with ethics on a professional basis behave any morally better or, at least, more consistently with their expressed values than do non-ethicist professors. Findings from their original US-based sample indicated that neither is the case, suggesting that there is no positive influence of ethical reflection on moral action. In the study at hand, we attempted to cross-validate this pattern of results in the German-speaking countries and surveyed 417 professors using a replication-extension research design. Our results indicate a successful replication of the original effect that ethicists do not behave any morally better compared to other academics across the vast majority of normative issues. Yet, unlike the original study, we found mixed results on normative attitudes generally. On some issues, ethicists and philosophers even expressed more lenient attitudes. However, one issue on which ethicists not only held stronger normative attitudes but also reported better corresponding moral behaviors was vegetarianism.
KEYWORDS: Experimental philosophy, replication-extension, moral attitudes, moral behavior
ABSTRACT: What is the relation between ethical reflection and moral behavior? Does professional reflection on ethical issues positively impact moral behaviors? To address these questions, Schwitzgebel and Rust empirically investigated if philosophy professors engaged with ethics on a professional basis behave any morally better or, at least, more consistently with their expressed values than do non-ethicist professors. Findings from their original US-based sample indicated that neither is the case, suggesting that there is no positive influence of ethical reflection on moral action. In the study at hand, we attempted to cross-validate this pattern of results in the German-speaking countries and surveyed 417 professors using a replication-extension research design. Our results indicate a successful replication of the original effect that ethicists do not behave any morally better compared to other academics across the vast majority of normative issues. Yet, unlike the original study, we found mixed results on normative attitudes generally. On some issues, ethicists and philosophers even expressed more lenient attitudes. However, one issue on which ethicists not only held stronger normative attitudes but also reported better corresponding moral behaviors was vegetarianism.
KEYWORDS: Experimental philosophy, replication-extension, moral attitudes, moral behavior
The longer something is thought to exist, the better it is evaluated; happens even with aesthetic judgments of art & nature, that were also positively affected by time in existence
Longer is better. Scott Eidelman, Jennifer Pattershall, Christian S. Crandall. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 46, Issue 6, November 2010, Pages 993-998. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.07.008
Abstract: The longer something is thought to exist, the better it is evaluated. In Study 1, participants preferred an existing university requirement over an alternative; this pattern was more pronounced when the existing requirement was said to be in place for a longer period of time. In Study 2, participants rated acupuncture more favorably as a function of how old the practice was described. Aesthetic judgments of art (Study 3) and nature (Study 4) were also positively affected by time in existence, as were gustatory evaluations of an edible consumer good (Study 5). Features of the research designs argue against mere exposure, loss aversion, and rational inference as explanations for these findings. Instead, time in existence seems to operate as a heuristic; longer means better.
Check also Chapter Two - The Intuitive Traditionalist: How Biases for Existence and Longevity Promote the Status Quo. Scott Eidelman, Christian S. Crandall. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 50, 2014, Pages 53-104. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800284-1.00002-3
Abstract: The longer something is thought to exist, the better it is evaluated. In Study 1, participants preferred an existing university requirement over an alternative; this pattern was more pronounced when the existing requirement was said to be in place for a longer period of time. In Study 2, participants rated acupuncture more favorably as a function of how old the practice was described. Aesthetic judgments of art (Study 3) and nature (Study 4) were also positively affected by time in existence, as were gustatory evaluations of an edible consumer good (Study 5). Features of the research designs argue against mere exposure, loss aversion, and rational inference as explanations for these findings. Instead, time in existence seems to operate as a heuristic; longer means better.
Check also Chapter Two - The Intuitive Traditionalist: How Biases for Existence and Longevity Promote the Status Quo. Scott Eidelman, Christian S. Crandall. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 50, 2014, Pages 53-104. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800284-1.00002-3
Abstract: People tend to like things the way they are. All other things being equal, there is a widespread bias in favor of the status quo. We describe two forms this bias may take: people assume that (1) mere existence makes things good and right (the existence bias) and (2) the longer something is thought to exist, the better and more right it is judged to be (the longevity bias). We take care to distinguish existence and longevity biases from other forms of status quo preference. Our research emphasizes people's automatic, heuristic tendency to ascribe existence and longevity to inherent features. We describe how existence and longevity biases contribute to status quo maintenance and political ideology; we also show how these biases provide novel explanatory power for incumbency effects, social norms, and the legitimization of inequality. We conclude with a consideration of exceptions to what appears to be a general rule: people assume that the status quo is good, right, and the way things ought to be.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Women have a clear preference for multitasking, show higher self-rated multitasking abilities, & consider multitasking to be more important in everyday life than men
Gender Differences in Polychronicity. André J. Szameitat and Moska Hayati, Front. Psychol., March 20 2019. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00597
Abstract: Polychronicity refers to a personal preference to engage in multitasking. In the current study, we investigated whether male and female participants differed in polychronicity. For this, 167 participants filled out an online questionnaire assessing polychronicity in a variety of ways, including the Multitasking Preference Inventory (MPI). Results showed that women were consistently more polychronic than men. We also found that women showed higher self-rated multitasking abilities, reported to spend more time multitasking, and considered multitasking to be more important in everyday life than men. We conclude that in our sample, which mainly consisted of University students in the United Kingdom, polychronicity shows a significant gender difference.
Introduction
Polychronicity refers to the preference for multitasking, i.e., to perform one or more tasks concurrently, in contrast to performing only one single task at a time (Poposki and Oswald, 2010). We employ an individualistic definition focussed solely on the individual preference of a person for multitasking, while explicitly leaving out cultural aspects, such as more general time-management, punctuality, or expectations about others’ preferences for multitasking. It is important to note that polychronicity refers to a personal preference, and not to actual multitasking behavior such as multitasking abilities or the amount of time spent multitasking per day (König and Waller, 2010).
Several reasons led to a considerable interest in understanding polychronicity in more detail. For instance, polychronicity is often considered to be a trait, and thus can be seen as a rather stable characteristic to describe personality (Slocombe and Bluedorn, 1999). Furthermore, it has been proposed that virtually every job nowadays requires some form of multitasking, leading to an interest in polychronicity from organizational and managerial perspectives (Bühner et al., 2006; Szameitat et al., 2015). For instance, it has been shown that polychronicity has a unique contribution in explaining job performance (Kantrowitz et al., 2012) and that it modulates the relationship between actual multitasking abilities and job performance (Sanderson et al., 2013).
Due to this relevance of polychronicity, a proper understanding of its determinants is beneficial. A number of studies aimed at identifying variables which may affect polychronicity, such as culture (Adams and van Eerde, 2010; König and Waller, 2010), personality traits (Bhattacharyya et al., 2015), or work-family interface (Korabik et al., 2016). However, we are not aware of any study which has focussed on testing for gender as a factor, i.e., the question whether men and women differ in polychronicity. While gender is occasionally reported as a variable, we are not aware of a study which actually found gender differences with respect to polychronicity.
This finding is somewhat surprising, because there is a strong and widespread belief in the general public that women are better than men at multitasking (Strobach and Woszidlo, 2015; Szameitat et al., 2015). In a previous study of us (Szameitat et al., 2015), we observed some initial evidence (unpublished data) that women might show higher polychronicity than men. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to follow up this initial observation and to test whether there is a gender difference in polychronicity, i.e., the preference to multitask.
The variety of previous studies which did not observe gender effects in polychronicity in terms of participant samples and methodology lets it seem futile to engage in a discussion for potential reasons why no gender effects were observed so far. Thus, we decided to base the current online questionnaire study on one of the most recent developments in assessing polychronicity, the Multitasking Preference Inventory (MPI). The MPI is most suited to assess individual-level polychronicity, while previous measures often also assessed cultural-level polychronicity. The MPI focusses rather strongly on a work environment, e.g., by using terms such as “tasks”, “work on projects,” and “assignments.”
To broaden the focus beyond the work environment, we complemented the MPI by a number of self-developed questions targeting everyday activities (termed “Everyday Multitasking Scenarios”; EMS). We would like to point out that we did not intend to develop a new measure for polychronicity. We merely intended to follow up the incidental observation in our previous data that the nature of the items (work focussed vs everyday activity focussed) might affect whether gender difference can be observed. For this, we generated a questionnaire with a similar structure to the MPI but which takes examples not from the work context but more from everyday life, in particular also from the life as a university student (our main sample). When formulating the questions, we made sure that it is about a preference for multitasking and not about the activity itself (e.g., by using the phrase “I like to…”).
Furthermore, we added a question which aimed at providing more in-depth information about what drives peoples’ preference for multitasking. Often, people assume (rightly or not) that multitasking saves time, i.e., one would be finished earlier or would get more work done in the same amount of time. Thus, it might be that people score high on polychronicity because they think that multitasking is more efficient although they actually may dislike multitasking. Alternatively, people may actually just enjoy multitasking while being oblivious to whether it is more efficient – or a combination of both. To our knowledge, previous definitions of polychronicity as the preference for multitasking did not define what exactly drives this preference. For instance, the MPI uses both wordings in its items, i.e., whether one prefers or likes multitasking. To control for this interpretation, we firstly included a question which asks for polychronicity by explicitly instructing participants that multitasking would not save any time. In addition, we included a direct and explicit question, i.e., “How much do you like multitasking?” These two questions should provide a good insight into the preference for multitasking in terms of liking or enjoyment.
In addition to these questions aiming to assess polychronicity, we assessed further aspects of peoples’ views on multitasking which might be useful in understanding the polychronicity data. In more detail, to test whether there is an explicit stereotype that women would prefer multitasking, we asked “How much do you think women prefer multitasking more than men?” Because polychronicity is often discussed in relation to actual multitasking behavior, we presented two questions about participants’ self-rated multitasking abilities and time spent on it (“How good do you think you are at multitasking?” and “How many hours per day do you think you spend on multitasking?”). Finally, to assess the perceived relevance of multitasking we asked “How important do you think multitasking is in everyday life?”
Taken together, the aim of the current study was to test whether gender effects in polychronicity can be observed.
Abstract: Polychronicity refers to a personal preference to engage in multitasking. In the current study, we investigated whether male and female participants differed in polychronicity. For this, 167 participants filled out an online questionnaire assessing polychronicity in a variety of ways, including the Multitasking Preference Inventory (MPI). Results showed that women were consistently more polychronic than men. We also found that women showed higher self-rated multitasking abilities, reported to spend more time multitasking, and considered multitasking to be more important in everyday life than men. We conclude that in our sample, which mainly consisted of University students in the United Kingdom, polychronicity shows a significant gender difference.
Introduction
Polychronicity refers to the preference for multitasking, i.e., to perform one or more tasks concurrently, in contrast to performing only one single task at a time (Poposki and Oswald, 2010). We employ an individualistic definition focussed solely on the individual preference of a person for multitasking, while explicitly leaving out cultural aspects, such as more general time-management, punctuality, or expectations about others’ preferences for multitasking. It is important to note that polychronicity refers to a personal preference, and not to actual multitasking behavior such as multitasking abilities or the amount of time spent multitasking per day (König and Waller, 2010).
Several reasons led to a considerable interest in understanding polychronicity in more detail. For instance, polychronicity is often considered to be a trait, and thus can be seen as a rather stable characteristic to describe personality (Slocombe and Bluedorn, 1999). Furthermore, it has been proposed that virtually every job nowadays requires some form of multitasking, leading to an interest in polychronicity from organizational and managerial perspectives (Bühner et al., 2006; Szameitat et al., 2015). For instance, it has been shown that polychronicity has a unique contribution in explaining job performance (Kantrowitz et al., 2012) and that it modulates the relationship between actual multitasking abilities and job performance (Sanderson et al., 2013).
Due to this relevance of polychronicity, a proper understanding of its determinants is beneficial. A number of studies aimed at identifying variables which may affect polychronicity, such as culture (Adams and van Eerde, 2010; König and Waller, 2010), personality traits (Bhattacharyya et al., 2015), or work-family interface (Korabik et al., 2016). However, we are not aware of any study which has focussed on testing for gender as a factor, i.e., the question whether men and women differ in polychronicity. While gender is occasionally reported as a variable, we are not aware of a study which actually found gender differences with respect to polychronicity.
This finding is somewhat surprising, because there is a strong and widespread belief in the general public that women are better than men at multitasking (Strobach and Woszidlo, 2015; Szameitat et al., 2015). In a previous study of us (Szameitat et al., 2015), we observed some initial evidence (unpublished data) that women might show higher polychronicity than men. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to follow up this initial observation and to test whether there is a gender difference in polychronicity, i.e., the preference to multitask.
The variety of previous studies which did not observe gender effects in polychronicity in terms of participant samples and methodology lets it seem futile to engage in a discussion for potential reasons why no gender effects were observed so far. Thus, we decided to base the current online questionnaire study on one of the most recent developments in assessing polychronicity, the Multitasking Preference Inventory (MPI). The MPI is most suited to assess individual-level polychronicity, while previous measures often also assessed cultural-level polychronicity. The MPI focusses rather strongly on a work environment, e.g., by using terms such as “tasks”, “work on projects,” and “assignments.”
To broaden the focus beyond the work environment, we complemented the MPI by a number of self-developed questions targeting everyday activities (termed “Everyday Multitasking Scenarios”; EMS). We would like to point out that we did not intend to develop a new measure for polychronicity. We merely intended to follow up the incidental observation in our previous data that the nature of the items (work focussed vs everyday activity focussed) might affect whether gender difference can be observed. For this, we generated a questionnaire with a similar structure to the MPI but which takes examples not from the work context but more from everyday life, in particular also from the life as a university student (our main sample). When formulating the questions, we made sure that it is about a preference for multitasking and not about the activity itself (e.g., by using the phrase “I like to…”).
Furthermore, we added a question which aimed at providing more in-depth information about what drives peoples’ preference for multitasking. Often, people assume (rightly or not) that multitasking saves time, i.e., one would be finished earlier or would get more work done in the same amount of time. Thus, it might be that people score high on polychronicity because they think that multitasking is more efficient although they actually may dislike multitasking. Alternatively, people may actually just enjoy multitasking while being oblivious to whether it is more efficient – or a combination of both. To our knowledge, previous definitions of polychronicity as the preference for multitasking did not define what exactly drives this preference. For instance, the MPI uses both wordings in its items, i.e., whether one prefers or likes multitasking. To control for this interpretation, we firstly included a question which asks for polychronicity by explicitly instructing participants that multitasking would not save any time. In addition, we included a direct and explicit question, i.e., “How much do you like multitasking?” These two questions should provide a good insight into the preference for multitasking in terms of liking or enjoyment.
In addition to these questions aiming to assess polychronicity, we assessed further aspects of peoples’ views on multitasking which might be useful in understanding the polychronicity data. In more detail, to test whether there is an explicit stereotype that women would prefer multitasking, we asked “How much do you think women prefer multitasking more than men?” Because polychronicity is often discussed in relation to actual multitasking behavior, we presented two questions about participants’ self-rated multitasking abilities and time spent on it (“How good do you think you are at multitasking?” and “How many hours per day do you think you spend on multitasking?”). Finally, to assess the perceived relevance of multitasking we asked “How important do you think multitasking is in everyday life?”
Taken together, the aim of the current study was to test whether gender effects in polychronicity can be observed.
The Lost Ones: the Opportunities and Outcomes of Non-College Educated Americans Born in the 1960s
The Lost Ones: the Opportunities and Outcomes of Non-College Educated Americans Born in the 1960s. Margherita Borella, Mariacristina De Nardi, Fang Yang. NBER Working Paper No. 25661. March 2019. https://www.nber.org/papers/w25661
Abstract: White, non-college-educated Americans born in the 1960s face shorter life expectancies, higher medical expenses, and lower wages per unit of human capital compared with those born in the 1940s, and men's wages declined more than women's. After documenting these changes, we use a life-cycle model of couples and singles to evaluate their effects. The drop in wages depressed the labor supply of men and increased that of women, especially in married couples. Their shorter life expectancy reduced their retirement savings but the increase in out-of-pocket medical expenses increased them by more. Welfare losses, measured a one-time asset compensation are 12.5%, 8%, and 7.2% of the present discounted value of earnings for single men, couples, and single women, respectively. Lower wages explain 47-58% of these losses, shorter life expectancies 25-34%, and higher medical expenses account for the rest.
Abstract: White, non-college-educated Americans born in the 1960s face shorter life expectancies, higher medical expenses, and lower wages per unit of human capital compared with those born in the 1940s, and men's wages declined more than women's. After documenting these changes, we use a life-cycle model of couples and singles to evaluate their effects. The drop in wages depressed the labor supply of men and increased that of women, especially in married couples. Their shorter life expectancy reduced their retirement savings but the increase in out-of-pocket medical expenses increased them by more. Welfare losses, measured a one-time asset compensation are 12.5%, 8%, and 7.2% of the present discounted value of earnings for single men, couples, and single women, respectively. Lower wages explain 47-58% of these losses, shorter life expectancies 25-34%, and higher medical expenses account for the rest.
Even if it depressed average labor productivity growth, continued growth in female employment since the early 1990s would have significantly improved economic performance in the US
Changing Business Cycles: The Role of Women's Employment. Stefania Albanesi. NBER Working Paper No. 25655. March 2019. https://www.nber.org/papers/w25655
Abstract: This paper studies the impact of changing trends in female labor supply on productivity, TFP growth and aggregate business cycles. We find that the growth in women’s labor supply and relative productivity added substantially to TFP growth from the early 1980s, even if it depressed average labor productivity growth, contributing to the 1970s productivity slowdown. We also show that the lower cyclicality of female hours and their growing share can account for a large fraction of the reduced cyclicality of aggregate hours during the great moderation, as well as the decline in the correlation between average labor productivity and hours. Finally, we show that the discontinued growth in female labor supply starting in the 1990s played a substantial role in the jobless recoveries following the 1990-1991, 2001 and 2007-2009 recessions. Moreover, it depressed aggregate hours, output growth and male wages during the late 1990s and mid 2000s expansions. These results suggest that continued growth in female employment since the early 1990s would have significantly improved economic performance in the United States.
Abstract: This paper studies the impact of changing trends in female labor supply on productivity, TFP growth and aggregate business cycles. We find that the growth in women’s labor supply and relative productivity added substantially to TFP growth from the early 1980s, even if it depressed average labor productivity growth, contributing to the 1970s productivity slowdown. We also show that the lower cyclicality of female hours and their growing share can account for a large fraction of the reduced cyclicality of aggregate hours during the great moderation, as well as the decline in the correlation between average labor productivity and hours. Finally, we show that the discontinued growth in female labor supply starting in the 1990s played a substantial role in the jobless recoveries following the 1990-1991, 2001 and 2007-2009 recessions. Moreover, it depressed aggregate hours, output growth and male wages during the late 1990s and mid 2000s expansions. These results suggest that continued growth in female employment since the early 1990s would have significantly improved economic performance in the United States.
It may be that males conform to certain gender & social norms in greater degree that females do to avoid being represented or perceived as female and/or a lower-power member of society
The gender conformity conundrum: The effects of irrelevant gender norms on public conformity. Matthew F. Carter, Timothy M. Franz, Jordan L. Gruschow & Alyssa M. VanRyne. The Journal of Social Psychology, Mar 18 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2019.1586636
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this experiment was to examine influences of gender norms on gender-role conformity. This series of two studies tests whether females or males are more likely to conform to public norms. To test this, we attached men’s and women’s bathroom-type signs to exit doors from a café at a private academic institution in upstate New York. We then unobtrusively observed whether individuals chose to exit through the door matching their gender. We found that, in both studies, males conformed more to their gender-role sign than did females. This suggests that conformity to certain gender and social norms has greater influence on males, and that these norms have a substantial power over decisions in social settings. In addition, it may be that some males conform to these norms to avoid being represented or perceived as female and/or a lower-power member of society.
KEYWORDS: Bathroom signs, conformity, gender norms, social norms
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this experiment was to examine influences of gender norms on gender-role conformity. This series of two studies tests whether females or males are more likely to conform to public norms. To test this, we attached men’s and women’s bathroom-type signs to exit doors from a café at a private academic institution in upstate New York. We then unobtrusively observed whether individuals chose to exit through the door matching their gender. We found that, in both studies, males conformed more to their gender-role sign than did females. This suggests that conformity to certain gender and social norms has greater influence on males, and that these norms have a substantial power over decisions in social settings. In addition, it may be that some males conform to these norms to avoid being represented or perceived as female and/or a lower-power member of society.
KEYWORDS: Bathroom signs, conformity, gender norms, social norms
As expected, we found a positive association between childhood musical enrichment & musical achievement in adulthood; the relative importance of genetic influences increased with more musical enrichment
Wesseldijk, L. W., Mosing, M. A., & Ullén, F. (2019). Gene–environment interaction in expertise: The importance of childhood environment for musical achievement. Developmental Psychology. Mar 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000726
Abstract: Both genes and the environment are important for individual differences in expertise, but little is known about gene–environment interactions underlying domain-specific achievement. Here we explored this issue in a large Swedish twin cohort (N = 6,610), using moderator modeling with musical expertise as a model domain. Specifically, we tested whether musical enrichment of the childhood environment moderates adult musical achievement, as well as the magnitude of genetic and nongenetic influences on individual differences in achievement. Musical achievement was measured using the Creative Achievement Questionnaire and enrichment of the childhood environment was indexed with a principal component derived from the number of music records in the family home, number of individuals in the family environment playing an instrument, frequency of concert visits, and music education before the age of 12. As expected, we found a positive association between childhood musical enrichment and musical achievement in adulthood. Interestingly, however, the total variance in musical achievement as well as the relative importance of genetic influences increased with a higher level of musical enrichment. Estimates of genetic and environmental influences as well as the magnitude of the environmental moderation differed for men and women. These findings suggest that, in line with recent multifactorial models of expert performance, a musically enriched childhood environment amplifies individual differences, an effect which is largely driven by an increase in the importance of genetic factors.
Abstract: Both genes and the environment are important for individual differences in expertise, but little is known about gene–environment interactions underlying domain-specific achievement. Here we explored this issue in a large Swedish twin cohort (N = 6,610), using moderator modeling with musical expertise as a model domain. Specifically, we tested whether musical enrichment of the childhood environment moderates adult musical achievement, as well as the magnitude of genetic and nongenetic influences on individual differences in achievement. Musical achievement was measured using the Creative Achievement Questionnaire and enrichment of the childhood environment was indexed with a principal component derived from the number of music records in the family home, number of individuals in the family environment playing an instrument, frequency of concert visits, and music education before the age of 12. As expected, we found a positive association between childhood musical enrichment and musical achievement in adulthood. Interestingly, however, the total variance in musical achievement as well as the relative importance of genetic influences increased with a higher level of musical enrichment. Estimates of genetic and environmental influences as well as the magnitude of the environmental moderation differed for men and women. These findings suggest that, in line with recent multifactorial models of expert performance, a musically enriched childhood environment amplifies individual differences, an effect which is largely driven by an increase in the importance of genetic factors.
A household moving from one US city to another tends to pay a rent level that is closer to the city of origin, relative to comparable locals; this is due to the interaction between memory and attention
Memory and Reference Prices: an Application to Rental Choice. Pedro Bordalo, Nicola Gennaioli, Andrei Shleifer. NBER Working Paper No. 25650, March 2019. https://www.nber.org/papers/w25650
Abstract: Simonsohn and Loewenstein (SL 2006) present evidence that a household moving from one US city to another tends to pay a rent level that is closer to the city of origin, relative to comparable locals. Building on “Memory, Attention, and Choice” (BGS 2019), we show that these effects emerge from the interaction between memory and attention. In our model, memory is a database of experiences such as rents. The current rent cues recall of past rents, giving rise to a rental norm. A large discrepancy between the current rent and the memory-based norm surprises and attracts the mover’s attention, distorting choice. Thus, when rents in Pittsburgh cue recall of rent experiences in San Francisco, they look surprisingly cheap by comparison, leading the household to spend more. We revisit the SL evidence in light of the model. Besides generating the basic SL findings, our model yields two new predictions, which we test and confirm using 20 additional years of data.
Abstract: Simonsohn and Loewenstein (SL 2006) present evidence that a household moving from one US city to another tends to pay a rent level that is closer to the city of origin, relative to comparable locals. Building on “Memory, Attention, and Choice” (BGS 2019), we show that these effects emerge from the interaction between memory and attention. In our model, memory is a database of experiences such as rents. The current rent cues recall of past rents, giving rise to a rental norm. A large discrepancy between the current rent and the memory-based norm surprises and attracts the mover’s attention, distorting choice. Thus, when rents in Pittsburgh cue recall of rent experiences in San Francisco, they look surprisingly cheap by comparison, leading the household to spend more. We revisit the SL evidence in light of the model. Besides generating the basic SL findings, our model yields two new predictions, which we test and confirm using 20 additional years of data.
The female and male offspring of lesbian parents were significantly more to likely to report same-sex attraction, sexual minority identity, and same-sex experience
Sexual Attraction, Sexual Identity, and Same-Sex Sexual Experiences of Adult Offspring in the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study. Nanette Gartrell, Henny Bos, Audrey Koh. Archives of Sexual Behavior, March 19 2019, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-1434-5
Abstract: The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study has followed offspring with sexual minority parents from conception into adulthood. It was initiated in 1986, and it has a 92% retention rate to date. In the current investigation, the 25-year-old offspring answered questions about sexual attraction, sexual identity, and sexual experiences; their responses were compared with those of same-age adults from a population-based survey. The analytic samples consisted of 76 offspring of lesbian parents and 76 demographically matched participants from the National Survey of Family Growth. All 152 respondents were 25 years old, 48.7% were female, 90.8% identified as White, 9.2% were people of color, and all had attended at least some college. Although most respondents in each sample identified as “heterosexual or straight,” compared to their matched counterparts in the population-based survey, the female and male offspring of lesbian parents were significantly more to likely to report same-sex attraction, sexual minority identity, and same-sex experience. These findings suggest that adult offspring from planned lesbian families may be more likely than their peers to demonstrate diversity in sexual attraction, identity, and expression.
Keywords: U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study Adult offspring Sexual attraction Sexual orientation identity Same-sex sexual experiences Sexual minorities
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Introduction
Approximately six million children and adults in the U.S. have a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB), or transgender parent (Gates & The Williams Institute UCLA School of Law, 2013). Although research has shown that the psychological health of adults is unrelated to the sexual identity of their parents (Gartrell, Bos, & Koh, 2018; Golombok & Badger, 2010; Golombok & Tasker, 1996; Tasker & Golombok, 1995), data on the sexual attractions, orientations, and experiences of adults who were born into sexual minority parent families are limited (Golombok & Badger, 2010). The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS)—the largest, longest-running, prospective study of planned lesbian families—provides a unique opportunity to assess the sexuality of these adult offspring (Gartrell et al., 2018; Gartrell, Bos, & Goldberg, 2011, 2012). In the 1970s, lesbian mothers who came out in the context of heterosexual relationships began to seek legal custody of their children during divorce proceedings (Hunter & Polikoff, 1976). Custody was often denied based on the assumption that lesbian mothers could influence the gender or sexual identity of their children (Golombok, 2015). The ensuing half century brought increased public acceptance and legal recognition of LGB people and parentage. Research revealed that the children of sexual minority parents were comparable in gender development to those raised by heterosexual parents, at the same time that non-traditional gender role behavior became more widely embraced (Golombok, 2015). Studies have also found that female and male sexual minorities have some notable differences: Females are more likely to identify as bisexual than exclusively lesbian, whereas males are more likely identify as exclusively gay (Savin-Williams & Vrangalova, 2013). In addition, females are more likely to fluctuate in their identities, attractions, and behavior over time (Diamond, 2007a, 2008; Diamond, Dickenson, & Blair, 2017; Johns, Zimmerman, & Bauermeister, 2013). Theories on the origins of sexual attraction, orientation, and behavior are that a variety of factors—hormonal, genetic, nonsocial environmental (e.g., in utero influences), and social environmental (e.g., social learning and cognitive behavioral)— may play a role (cf. Bailey et al., 2016, for a review). Among possible hormonal influences, prenatal androgen levels have been shown to be linked with adult gender and sexual identity (Hines, 2010, 2011). For example, adult females with congenital adrenal hyperplasia who were exposed to unusually high levels of androgens in utero are more likely to identify as male, and less likely to identify as heterosexual, than females without overexposure to fetal androgen (Hines 2010). Also, there is evidence that prenatal androgens affect the ratio of index to ring finger length, and that gynephilic women demonstrate ratios more frequently found in males (Grimbos, Dawood, Burriss, Zucker, & Puts, 2010). Whether females who later identify as lesbian were exposed to high levels of androgens in utero is unknown; likewise, there is no information about the in utero exposures of their biological children. Other research suggests that genetic factors may be influential. In a population-based Swedish study, Långström, Rahman, Carlström, and Lichtenstein (2010) found that genetically identical monozygotic twins showed more concordance in samesex sexual behavior than did dizygotic twins or other siblings. Based on these and similar findings, it has been suggested that sexual minority parents may be more likely to produce sexual minority offspring because of shared genetics (Goldberg, 2010). The strongest evidence in support of nonsocial environmental theory is that gay men tend to have more biological older brothers than heterosexual or lesbian individuals (Blanchard & VanderLaan, 2015; Bogaert et al., 2018). This fraternal birthorder effect has been found cross-culturally. It is hypothesized to be associated with the development of maternal antibodies to the Y chromosome, and exposure of the male fetus to these antibodies in utero. However, there are no data associating a fraternal birth-order effect with the offspring of sexual minority parents. Finally, social environmental theory posits that social learning or cognitive behavior may influence the sexual identity of offspring. According to social learning theory, adults who grow up with sexual minority parents might have more expansive perspectives on gender and sexuality than those raised in heterosexual-parent families, because parents of the former are less likely to discourage them from exploring nonbinary gender identities or non-heterosexual relationships (Bos & Sandfort, 2010; Gartrell et al., 1999; Goldberg, 2007, 2010; Golombok, 2015). Sexual minority parents may also model gender nonconforming interests, dress, and behavior, thereby encouraging more fluidity in gendered role behavior (Goldberg, 2007, 2010; Golombok, 2015) Cognitive behavior theorists focus on the prevailing attitudes in the culture at large, noting the potential impact of growing up in environments that are accepting or rejecting of diversity in gender and sexuality (Golombok, 2015). Evidence against social environmental theories in males is the finding that genetic male infants who were surgically changed into girls at birth, and then strongly socialized as girls, continue to be gynephilic (Bailey et al., 2016). Despite a body of research on sexual minority parent families (Bos & Sandfort, 2010; Gartrell et al., 2011; Goldberg & Gartrell, 2014; Golombok, 2015; Green, Mandel, Hotvedt, Gray, & Smith, 1986), relatively few investigations have focused specifically on the sexuality of adult offspring who were raised in these family forms. In 1991–1992, Tasker and Golombok (1995) and Golombok and Tasker (1996) carried out the second phase of a longitudinal convenience sample study on post-divorce lesbian mother families in the UK that began when the children—conceived in heterosexual relationships—were, on average, 9.5 years old. When the average age of these offspring was 23.5 years, the researchers interviewed 25 with lesbian mothers and 21 with single heterosexual mothers. Psychological well-being was not associated with family type. There were also no differences by family type in the proportions of offspring who reported same-sex attraction, identified as lesbian/gay/bisexual, or indicated on the Kinsey scale that they were not exclusively heterosexual. The only sexual minorities among the offspring were two lesbian daughters of lesbian mothers. None of those who reported sexual attraction to both females and males identified as bisexual. The offspring of lesbian mothers were significantly more likely to have to have had same-sex sexual contact, and to have considered the possibility of same-sex attraction or a same-sex sexual relationship. Using the Wave I dataset (1994–1995; students in grades 7 through 12) of the U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), Wainright, Russell, and Patterson (2004) compared psychosocial adjustment, school outcomes, and romantic relationships in 44 adolescents from same-sex parent households with a demographically matched sample of 44 adolescents from different-sex parent households. Analyses revealed no differences in the personal, family, or school adjustment of the 12- to 18-yearolds based on family type. Additionally, no significant differences in the two samples were found in the percentages of adolescents who had engaged in sexual intercourse or had a recent romantic relationship. The Add Health data use stipulations did not permit a comparison of same-sex attractions or same-sex romantic relationships because too few adolescents reported such experiences. In addition, no information was available about the parents’ sexual identity, their methods of child conception, or the duration of time that the adolescents lived in a same-sex parent household. In 2005, Goldberg (2007) surveyed a convenience sample of adults with lesbian/gay/bisexual parents, most of whom lived in the U.S. This qualitative study involved semi-structured telephone interviews with 46 adults—36 women and 10 men—ranging in age from 19 to 50 (M = 30). Most participants grew up with lesbian or bisexual mothers, though their paths to motherhood (biological, adoption, or fostering) were not specified. Nearly all of those with gay fathers had never lived with them, but saw them regularly. Almost a third of participants viewed sexuality as fluid and dynamic—existing on a continuum—rather than as a binary construct. They also felt that their parents helped them to have more flexible ideas about sexuality and gender. Some participants indicated that having a sexual minority parent led them to question their own sexuality, to think deeply about binary constructs, and to view the process of sexual exploration as normative. Bos and Sandfort (2010) examined psychosocial adjustment, gender identity, and anticipated future heterosexual romantic involvement in 8- to 12-year-old offspring of lesbian and heterosexual parents. This investigation was the second phase of a Dutch longitudinal study in which planned lesbian families were recruited through community outreach and a fertility clinic. Comparing the 63 offspring of lesbian parents with 68 offspring of heterosexual parents revealed no differences in psychosocial adjustment. However, the offspring of lesbian parents felt less compelled to conform to gender stereotypes, were less likely to view their own gender as superior, and were more uncertain about the prospect of future heterosexual romance. Golombok and Badger (2010) conducted the only comparative study of young adults from planned lesbian families that contained questions on sexuality. A volunteer sample of 18 offspring from lesbian mother families was compared with 20 from single heterosexual mother families and 32 from two-parent heterosexual families. This was the third phase in a longitudinal study of fatherless, female-headed UK families that began when the offspring were, on average, 6 years old. At Phase III, the average ages of the offspring in the three family types ranged from 18 to 19.5 years. Reported differences were that the offspring in female-headed homes had more positive family relationships, demonstrated greater psychological well-being, and were more likely to have begun dating than those from heterosexual-parent families. Only one female with lesbian parents identified as bisexual, and all remaining offspring identified as heterosexual. The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) began in 1986 with a goal of prospectively following a cohort of planned lesbian families in which the offspring were among the first generation conceived through donor insemination by lesbian-identified women (Gartrell et al., 1996). When compared with peers in representative samples, the NLLFS offspring fared as well, or better, in psychological adjustment and quality of life (Gartrell & Bos, 2010; Gartrell et al., 2018; van Gelderen, Bos, Gartrell, Hermanns, & Perrin, 2012). Data on the sexuality of the NLLFS offspring were first collected during the fifth wave, when they were 17 years old. The offspring reported on sexual identity, and same- and different-sex sexual contact. On the Kinsey scale, 48.6% of the adolescent girls and 21.6% of the adolescent boys indicated that they were not exclusively heterosexual (Gartrell et al., 2011). Of the girls, 15.4% acknowledged same-sex sexual experiences, as did 5.6% of the boys. However, when compared with an age- and gender-matched sample from the 2006–2008 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), the NLLFS adolescents were no more likely than the NSFG adolescents to have had these experiences (Gartrell et al., 2012). The first generation of offspring who were conceived by lesbian mothers through donor insemination has now entered adulthood in substantial numbers (Goldberg, Conron, & The Williams Institute UCLA School of Law, 2018; Golombok, 2015). Genetic and social environmental theories predict that these offspring might be more likely than their peers to identify as sexual minorities and to report same-sex attractions, yet no comparative study to date, including the fifth wave of the NLLFS, found this to be the case. The sixth wave of the NLLFS provides a unique opportunity to assess the sexuality of these offspring as adults (Gartrell et al., 2011, 2012, 2018). At 25 years of age, the NLLFS offspring were older than participants in the two prior comparative studies of sexuality in offspring from planned lesbian families (Gartrell et al., 2011; Golombok & Badger, 2010). Also, there is evidence that sexual identity stabilizes at a later age among mostly heterosexual individuals (Calzo, Masyn, Austin, Jun, & Corliss, 2017). Moreover, the NLLFS has the largest sample size of any ongoing longitudinal study on planned sexual minority parent families. The NSFG is an ongoing population-based study focusing on the health and family life of noninstitutionalized adolescents and adults in the U.S. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). In assessing the well-being and sexuality of the NLLFS offspring (Gartrell & Bos, 2010; Gartrell et al., 2011, 2012, 2018), nationally representative databases such as the NSFG have been used because the recruitment criteria for these surveys are unrelated to parental sexual identity, thus minimizing potential sampling bias. The 2013–2015 NSFG was chosen for the present investigation because a subset of participants was the same age as the NLLFS adult offspring at the time of data collection. In addition, the NSFG survey contained questions pertaining to sexual attraction, identity, and behavior that could be selected and administered to the 25-year-old NLLFS offspring. The aim of the current study was to compare the responses of NLLFS adult offspring with those of NSFG participants on sexual attraction, sexual identity, and same-sex sexual experience.
Abstract: The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study has followed offspring with sexual minority parents from conception into adulthood. It was initiated in 1986, and it has a 92% retention rate to date. In the current investigation, the 25-year-old offspring answered questions about sexual attraction, sexual identity, and sexual experiences; their responses were compared with those of same-age adults from a population-based survey. The analytic samples consisted of 76 offspring of lesbian parents and 76 demographically matched participants from the National Survey of Family Growth. All 152 respondents were 25 years old, 48.7% were female, 90.8% identified as White, 9.2% were people of color, and all had attended at least some college. Although most respondents in each sample identified as “heterosexual or straight,” compared to their matched counterparts in the population-based survey, the female and male offspring of lesbian parents were significantly more to likely to report same-sex attraction, sexual minority identity, and same-sex experience. These findings suggest that adult offspring from planned lesbian families may be more likely than their peers to demonstrate diversity in sexual attraction, identity, and expression.
Keywords: U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study Adult offspring Sexual attraction Sexual orientation identity Same-sex sexual experiences Sexual minorities
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Introduction
Approximately six million children and adults in the U.S. have a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB), or transgender parent (Gates & The Williams Institute UCLA School of Law, 2013). Although research has shown that the psychological health of adults is unrelated to the sexual identity of their parents (Gartrell, Bos, & Koh, 2018; Golombok & Badger, 2010; Golombok & Tasker, 1996; Tasker & Golombok, 1995), data on the sexual attractions, orientations, and experiences of adults who were born into sexual minority parent families are limited (Golombok & Badger, 2010). The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS)—the largest, longest-running, prospective study of planned lesbian families—provides a unique opportunity to assess the sexuality of these adult offspring (Gartrell et al., 2018; Gartrell, Bos, & Goldberg, 2011, 2012). In the 1970s, lesbian mothers who came out in the context of heterosexual relationships began to seek legal custody of their children during divorce proceedings (Hunter & Polikoff, 1976). Custody was often denied based on the assumption that lesbian mothers could influence the gender or sexual identity of their children (Golombok, 2015). The ensuing half century brought increased public acceptance and legal recognition of LGB people and parentage. Research revealed that the children of sexual minority parents were comparable in gender development to those raised by heterosexual parents, at the same time that non-traditional gender role behavior became more widely embraced (Golombok, 2015). Studies have also found that female and male sexual minorities have some notable differences: Females are more likely to identify as bisexual than exclusively lesbian, whereas males are more likely identify as exclusively gay (Savin-Williams & Vrangalova, 2013). In addition, females are more likely to fluctuate in their identities, attractions, and behavior over time (Diamond, 2007a, 2008; Diamond, Dickenson, & Blair, 2017; Johns, Zimmerman, & Bauermeister, 2013). Theories on the origins of sexual attraction, orientation, and behavior are that a variety of factors—hormonal, genetic, nonsocial environmental (e.g., in utero influences), and social environmental (e.g., social learning and cognitive behavioral)— may play a role (cf. Bailey et al., 2016, for a review). Among possible hormonal influences, prenatal androgen levels have been shown to be linked with adult gender and sexual identity (Hines, 2010, 2011). For example, adult females with congenital adrenal hyperplasia who were exposed to unusually high levels of androgens in utero are more likely to identify as male, and less likely to identify as heterosexual, than females without overexposure to fetal androgen (Hines 2010). Also, there is evidence that prenatal androgens affect the ratio of index to ring finger length, and that gynephilic women demonstrate ratios more frequently found in males (Grimbos, Dawood, Burriss, Zucker, & Puts, 2010). Whether females who later identify as lesbian were exposed to high levels of androgens in utero is unknown; likewise, there is no information about the in utero exposures of their biological children. Other research suggests that genetic factors may be influential. In a population-based Swedish study, Långström, Rahman, Carlström, and Lichtenstein (2010) found that genetically identical monozygotic twins showed more concordance in samesex sexual behavior than did dizygotic twins or other siblings. Based on these and similar findings, it has been suggested that sexual minority parents may be more likely to produce sexual minority offspring because of shared genetics (Goldberg, 2010). The strongest evidence in support of nonsocial environmental theory is that gay men tend to have more biological older brothers than heterosexual or lesbian individuals (Blanchard & VanderLaan, 2015; Bogaert et al., 2018). This fraternal birthorder effect has been found cross-culturally. It is hypothesized to be associated with the development of maternal antibodies to the Y chromosome, and exposure of the male fetus to these antibodies in utero. However, there are no data associating a fraternal birth-order effect with the offspring of sexual minority parents. Finally, social environmental theory posits that social learning or cognitive behavior may influence the sexual identity of offspring. According to social learning theory, adults who grow up with sexual minority parents might have more expansive perspectives on gender and sexuality than those raised in heterosexual-parent families, because parents of the former are less likely to discourage them from exploring nonbinary gender identities or non-heterosexual relationships (Bos & Sandfort, 2010; Gartrell et al., 1999; Goldberg, 2007, 2010; Golombok, 2015). Sexual minority parents may also model gender nonconforming interests, dress, and behavior, thereby encouraging more fluidity in gendered role behavior (Goldberg, 2007, 2010; Golombok, 2015) Cognitive behavior theorists focus on the prevailing attitudes in the culture at large, noting the potential impact of growing up in environments that are accepting or rejecting of diversity in gender and sexuality (Golombok, 2015). Evidence against social environmental theories in males is the finding that genetic male infants who were surgically changed into girls at birth, and then strongly socialized as girls, continue to be gynephilic (Bailey et al., 2016). Despite a body of research on sexual minority parent families (Bos & Sandfort, 2010; Gartrell et al., 2011; Goldberg & Gartrell, 2014; Golombok, 2015; Green, Mandel, Hotvedt, Gray, & Smith, 1986), relatively few investigations have focused specifically on the sexuality of adult offspring who were raised in these family forms. In 1991–1992, Tasker and Golombok (1995) and Golombok and Tasker (1996) carried out the second phase of a longitudinal convenience sample study on post-divorce lesbian mother families in the UK that began when the children—conceived in heterosexual relationships—were, on average, 9.5 years old. When the average age of these offspring was 23.5 years, the researchers interviewed 25 with lesbian mothers and 21 with single heterosexual mothers. Psychological well-being was not associated with family type. There were also no differences by family type in the proportions of offspring who reported same-sex attraction, identified as lesbian/gay/bisexual, or indicated on the Kinsey scale that they were not exclusively heterosexual. The only sexual minorities among the offspring were two lesbian daughters of lesbian mothers. None of those who reported sexual attraction to both females and males identified as bisexual. The offspring of lesbian mothers were significantly more likely to have to have had same-sex sexual contact, and to have considered the possibility of same-sex attraction or a same-sex sexual relationship. Using the Wave I dataset (1994–1995; students in grades 7 through 12) of the U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), Wainright, Russell, and Patterson (2004) compared psychosocial adjustment, school outcomes, and romantic relationships in 44 adolescents from same-sex parent households with a demographically matched sample of 44 adolescents from different-sex parent households. Analyses revealed no differences in the personal, family, or school adjustment of the 12- to 18-yearolds based on family type. Additionally, no significant differences in the two samples were found in the percentages of adolescents who had engaged in sexual intercourse or had a recent romantic relationship. The Add Health data use stipulations did not permit a comparison of same-sex attractions or same-sex romantic relationships because too few adolescents reported such experiences. In addition, no information was available about the parents’ sexual identity, their methods of child conception, or the duration of time that the adolescents lived in a same-sex parent household. In 2005, Goldberg (2007) surveyed a convenience sample of adults with lesbian/gay/bisexual parents, most of whom lived in the U.S. This qualitative study involved semi-structured telephone interviews with 46 adults—36 women and 10 men—ranging in age from 19 to 50 (M = 30). Most participants grew up with lesbian or bisexual mothers, though their paths to motherhood (biological, adoption, or fostering) were not specified. Nearly all of those with gay fathers had never lived with them, but saw them regularly. Almost a third of participants viewed sexuality as fluid and dynamic—existing on a continuum—rather than as a binary construct. They also felt that their parents helped them to have more flexible ideas about sexuality and gender. Some participants indicated that having a sexual minority parent led them to question their own sexuality, to think deeply about binary constructs, and to view the process of sexual exploration as normative. Bos and Sandfort (2010) examined psychosocial adjustment, gender identity, and anticipated future heterosexual romantic involvement in 8- to 12-year-old offspring of lesbian and heterosexual parents. This investigation was the second phase of a Dutch longitudinal study in which planned lesbian families were recruited through community outreach and a fertility clinic. Comparing the 63 offspring of lesbian parents with 68 offspring of heterosexual parents revealed no differences in psychosocial adjustment. However, the offspring of lesbian parents felt less compelled to conform to gender stereotypes, were less likely to view their own gender as superior, and were more uncertain about the prospect of future heterosexual romance. Golombok and Badger (2010) conducted the only comparative study of young adults from planned lesbian families that contained questions on sexuality. A volunteer sample of 18 offspring from lesbian mother families was compared with 20 from single heterosexual mother families and 32 from two-parent heterosexual families. This was the third phase in a longitudinal study of fatherless, female-headed UK families that began when the offspring were, on average, 6 years old. At Phase III, the average ages of the offspring in the three family types ranged from 18 to 19.5 years. Reported differences were that the offspring in female-headed homes had more positive family relationships, demonstrated greater psychological well-being, and were more likely to have begun dating than those from heterosexual-parent families. Only one female with lesbian parents identified as bisexual, and all remaining offspring identified as heterosexual. The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) began in 1986 with a goal of prospectively following a cohort of planned lesbian families in which the offspring were among the first generation conceived through donor insemination by lesbian-identified women (Gartrell et al., 1996). When compared with peers in representative samples, the NLLFS offspring fared as well, or better, in psychological adjustment and quality of life (Gartrell & Bos, 2010; Gartrell et al., 2018; van Gelderen, Bos, Gartrell, Hermanns, & Perrin, 2012). Data on the sexuality of the NLLFS offspring were first collected during the fifth wave, when they were 17 years old. The offspring reported on sexual identity, and same- and different-sex sexual contact. On the Kinsey scale, 48.6% of the adolescent girls and 21.6% of the adolescent boys indicated that they were not exclusively heterosexual (Gartrell et al., 2011). Of the girls, 15.4% acknowledged same-sex sexual experiences, as did 5.6% of the boys. However, when compared with an age- and gender-matched sample from the 2006–2008 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), the NLLFS adolescents were no more likely than the NSFG adolescents to have had these experiences (Gartrell et al., 2012). The first generation of offspring who were conceived by lesbian mothers through donor insemination has now entered adulthood in substantial numbers (Goldberg, Conron, & The Williams Institute UCLA School of Law, 2018; Golombok, 2015). Genetic and social environmental theories predict that these offspring might be more likely than their peers to identify as sexual minorities and to report same-sex attractions, yet no comparative study to date, including the fifth wave of the NLLFS, found this to be the case. The sixth wave of the NLLFS provides a unique opportunity to assess the sexuality of these offspring as adults (Gartrell et al., 2011, 2012, 2018). At 25 years of age, the NLLFS offspring were older than participants in the two prior comparative studies of sexuality in offspring from planned lesbian families (Gartrell et al., 2011; Golombok & Badger, 2010). Also, there is evidence that sexual identity stabilizes at a later age among mostly heterosexual individuals (Calzo, Masyn, Austin, Jun, & Corliss, 2017). Moreover, the NLLFS has the largest sample size of any ongoing longitudinal study on planned sexual minority parent families. The NSFG is an ongoing population-based study focusing on the health and family life of noninstitutionalized adolescents and adults in the U.S. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). In assessing the well-being and sexuality of the NLLFS offspring (Gartrell & Bos, 2010; Gartrell et al., 2011, 2012, 2018), nationally representative databases such as the NSFG have been used because the recruitment criteria for these surveys are unrelated to parental sexual identity, thus minimizing potential sampling bias. The 2013–2015 NSFG was chosen for the present investigation because a subset of participants was the same age as the NLLFS adult offspring at the time of data collection. In addition, the NSFG survey contained questions pertaining to sexual attraction, identity, and behavior that could be selected and administered to the 25-year-old NLLFS offspring. The aim of the current study was to compare the responses of NLLFS adult offspring with those of NSFG participants on sexual attraction, sexual identity, and same-sex sexual experience.
Our results provide no evidence that minimum wage increases reduce crime, but increases property crime arrests among those ages 16-24; a $15 wage could generate criminal externalities of $2.4 bn
Do Minimum Wage Increases Reduce Crime? Zachary S. Fone, Joseph J. Sabia, Resul Cesur. NBER Working Paper No. 25647, March 2019. https://www.nber.org/papers/w25647
Abstract: An April 2016 Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) report advocated raising the minimum wage to deter crime. This recommendation rests on the assumption that minimum wage hikes increase the returns to legitimate labor market work while generating minimal adverse employment effects. This study comprehensively assesses the impact of minimum wages on crime using data from the 1998-2016 Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY). Our results provide no evidence that minimum wage increases reduce crime. Instead, we find that raising the minimum wage increases property crime arrests among those ages 16-to-24, with an estimated elasticity of 0.2. This result is strongest in counties with over 100,000 residents and persists when we use longitudinal data to isolate workers for whom minimum wages bind. Our estimates suggest that a $15 Federal minimum wage could generate criminal externality costs of nearly $2.4 billion.
Abstract: An April 2016 Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) report advocated raising the minimum wage to deter crime. This recommendation rests on the assumption that minimum wage hikes increase the returns to legitimate labor market work while generating minimal adverse employment effects. This study comprehensively assesses the impact of minimum wages on crime using data from the 1998-2016 Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY). Our results provide no evidence that minimum wage increases reduce crime. Instead, we find that raising the minimum wage increases property crime arrests among those ages 16-to-24, with an estimated elasticity of 0.2. This result is strongest in counties with over 100,000 residents and persists when we use longitudinal data to isolate workers for whom minimum wages bind. Our estimates suggest that a $15 Federal minimum wage could generate criminal externality costs of nearly $2.4 billion.
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