Low-status groups as a domain of liberal bias. Bo Winegard et al. March 2019. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326144740
Abstract: Recent scholarship has challenged the long-held assumption in the social sciences that Conservatives are more biased than Liberals, contending that predominantly liberal social scientists overlooked liberal bias. Here, we demonstrate that Liberals are prone to bias about relatively low-status groups (e.g. Blacks, women), and specifically are biased against information that portrays a high-status group more favorably than a lower status group. Six studies (n=2,921) support this theory. Liberals consistently evaluated the same study as less credible when the results concluded that a high-status group (men and Whites) had higher intelligence than a lower status group (women and Blacks) than vice versa. Ruling out alternative explanations of Bayesian (or other normative) reasoning, significant order effects in within-subjects designs in Studies 5 and 6 (preregistered) suggest that Liberals think that they should not evaluate identical information differently depending on which group is said to have a superior quality, yet do so.
Check also how both conservatives & liberals resist & accept societal changes,
depending on the extent to which they approve or disapprove of the
status quo on a given issue; we challenge assumptions on general,
context‐independent psychological differences underlying ideologies
Liberalism and Conservatism, for a Change! Rethinking the Association
Between Political Orientation and Relation to Societal Change. Jutta
Proch, Julia Elad‐Strenger, Thomas Kessler. Political Psychology, https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/12/both-conservatives-liberals-resist.html
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Friday, March 22, 2019
People who learn that a newspaper does not suppress information exhibit a lower demand for news from it; the idea that people read partisan news because they see those papers as more informative seems wrong
Do People Value More Informative News? Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland, Christopher Roth. March 2, 2019. https://www.briq-institute.org/wc/files/people/chris-roth/working-papers/do-people-value-more-informative-news.pdf
Abstract: We examine how people’s perceptions of media bias affect their demand for news. Drawing on a large representative sample of the US population, we measure and experimentally manipulate people’s beliefs about the extent to which newspapers suppress information. Inconsistent with the“more-information-is-better principle,” we find that people who learn that a newspaper is less likely to suppress information have a lower demand for news from this newspaper. Our results demonstrate that people have a demand for biased news, consistent with a desire to confirm pre-existing beliefs.
Keywords: Information, Belief polarization, Media Bias, News Consumption,Motivated Beliefs
---
1 Introduction
What drives people’s demand for news? A core principle in economics is that more information is always better. While people’s demand for news articles should thus be strictly increasing in the informativeness of the news, a large literature has documented that newspapers report news in a biased way by slanting their news stories towards the beliefs of their readers (Gentzkow and Shapiro,2010). There are several ways to rationalize why people tend to read slanted news (Xiang and Sarvary, 2007). First, it could reflect a desire for better informationas they perceive news that are closer to their prior beliefs as more informative(Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2006). Second, it could reflect that people have other motives for reading the news that conflict with expanding their knowledge. For instance, people might receive utility from reading news that confirm their pre-existing beliefs (Golman et al., 2016; Loewenstein and Molnar, 2018).
Causally identifying people’s people’s motivation for reading news is difficult. First, to understand people’s motivations for reading biased news articles, oneneeds data on subjective perceptions of biases in reporting. Second, one needsexogenous variation in these perceptions to rule out omitted variable bias andreverse causality. For example, people may distort their stated beliefs to justifytheir news consumption habits. Third, one needs to measure people’s demandfor real-world news and their actual consumption of this news, holding constanttheir information set about news articles. We address these challenges by usingan experimental approach with real news articles which allows us to test whetherconsumers indeed value more informative news in a setting with high externalvalidity.
Drawing on a large representative sample of Americans, we first elicit peo-ple’s beliefs about the extent to which theNew York Timessuppresses information. For that purpose, we tell our respondents that the Congressional Budget Office(CBO), Congress’s official nonpartisan provider of cost and benefit estimates for legislation, published a report about the “Trump Healthcare Plan” (the AmericanHealth Care Act of 2017). We then tell them that the CBO estimated that thiswould (i) decrease the federal deficit by $119 billion and (ii) leave 23 millionmore people uninsured. We truthfully tell our respondents that Republicansclaimed that the the plan would decrease the federal deficit—but not increase thenumber of people without health coverage—while Democrats claimed that theplan would not decrease the deficit and increase the number of people withouthealth coverage. Subsequently, we ask our respondents to estimate the percentchance that theNew York Timesreported only the figure on the number of unin-sured people, only the figure on the deficit decrease, or both figures. This allowsus to quantify people’s beliefs about the extent of media bias in theNew YorkTimes. To introdude exogenous variation in people’s perceptions of media bias,we inform a random subsample of our respondents that theNew York Timesreported both estimates from the CBO. Finally, we measure our respondents’demand for news from theNew York Timesby asking them whether they wouldlike to read an article in the newspaper about the Trump Tax Plan based onestimates from the CBO. The “more-information-is-better principle” predictsthat people’s demand for news about the CBO should increase for respondentswho learn that the newspaper is less likely to suppress information from CBOreports.
The key finding of this paper is that respondents who learn that the NewYork Times does not suppress information significantly reduce their demand for reading an article in this newspaper by 3.4 percentage points. This corresponds to a reduction in the demand for news of 12 percent. The time spent reading the article does not vary significantly across treatment arms, suggesting that the treatment did not affect how carefully people read the article. The reduction indemand for news is driven by respondents who initially thought that the New York Timeswas more likely to suppress information and is absent for respondents with more accurate pre-treatment beliefs about the extent of media bias in the2 New York Times. Consistent with models of motivated beliefs, our results aredriven by respondents who—in light of their prior beliefs about the directionof the bias in reporting and their political affiliation—have a stronger motive toavoid news from an unbiased source. For example, among Republican-leaning respondents the reduction in the demand for news is driven by those respondents who initially thought that the New York Timesis more right-wing biased.
We leverage two tailored measures of beliefs about newspaper reportingto shed light on mechanisms. We provide evidence that treated respondents significantly update their beliefs about the biasedness of the reporting of the NewYork Times. Our treated respondents are 6.9 percentage points more likely to think that theNew York Times does not suppress any information about the CBO reporton the Trump Tax Plan. Respondents are also 3.7 percentage points less likely to think that theNew York Times did not cover a CBO report highlighting the negative budget consequences of granting citizenship to young undocumented immigrants. We also provide evidence that our results are inconsistent witha series of alternative explanations: Respondents do not update their beliefsabout the technicality of reporting, the complexity of the article, or about thecharacteristics of the CBO. Several patterns in our data are inconsistent withalternative mechanisms, such as cognitive constraints, uncertainty about sourcequality, curiosity, and motives for diversifying news sources.
We contribute to the literature on media bias (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017;DellaVigna and La Ferrara, 2015; DellaVigna and Kaplan, 2007; Enikolopov etal., 2011; La Ferrara et al., 2012; Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2006, 2010; Gentzkowet al., 2015, 2018; Gerber et al., 2009; Mullainathan and Shleifer, 2005; Qin etal., 2018) and the demand for slanted news (Durante and Knight, 2012; Garzet al., 2018). Gentzkow and Shapiro’s (2010) seminal work introduces a newindex of media slant that measures the similarity of a news outlet’s language tothat of a congressional Republican or Democrat. Their model-based estimatesreveal that readers have a strong preference for like-minded news, but this pattern3 is consistent both with rational Bayesian updating about the informativenessof news (Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2006) and a behavioral preference for beliefconfirmation (Golman et al., 2016). We contribute to this literature by providingthe first causal evidence on the question of whether people value more informativenews. Specifically, we provide evidence that people who learn that the New York Times does not suppress information exhibit a lower demand for news from this newspaper. Our results are inconsistent with the idea that people read partisannews because they perceive partisan newspapers as more informative, as proposedby Gentzkow and Shapiro (2006).1
6 Conclusion
Our paper provides novel evidence on whether people value more informativenews. The main finding of this paper is that respondents who learn that theNewYork Timesdoes not suppress information reduce their demand for articles fromthis newspaper. This is inconsistent with the normative benchmark prediction ofthe “more-information-is-better principle.” Our results are driven by individualswith initially larger biases in beliefs about the extent of media bias, and thosewho in expectation should receive the largest negative belief utility shock when reading an unbiased article. Our empirical findings are consistent with models of motivated beliefs according to which people mainly consume news in order to confirm their prior beliefs,and inconsistent with models according to which people mainly consume news to receive better information. Our findings have important policy implications: Our evidence suggests that transparency about media bias might backfire and actually increase political belief polarization by shifting people’s consumption of news towards more biased sources.
Abstract: We examine how people’s perceptions of media bias affect their demand for news. Drawing on a large representative sample of the US population, we measure and experimentally manipulate people’s beliefs about the extent to which newspapers suppress information. Inconsistent with the“more-information-is-better principle,” we find that people who learn that a newspaper is less likely to suppress information have a lower demand for news from this newspaper. Our results demonstrate that people have a demand for biased news, consistent with a desire to confirm pre-existing beliefs.
Keywords: Information, Belief polarization, Media Bias, News Consumption,Motivated Beliefs
---
1 Introduction
What drives people’s demand for news? A core principle in economics is that more information is always better. While people’s demand for news articles should thus be strictly increasing in the informativeness of the news, a large literature has documented that newspapers report news in a biased way by slanting their news stories towards the beliefs of their readers (Gentzkow and Shapiro,2010). There are several ways to rationalize why people tend to read slanted news (Xiang and Sarvary, 2007). First, it could reflect a desire for better informationas they perceive news that are closer to their prior beliefs as more informative(Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2006). Second, it could reflect that people have other motives for reading the news that conflict with expanding their knowledge. For instance, people might receive utility from reading news that confirm their pre-existing beliefs (Golman et al., 2016; Loewenstein and Molnar, 2018).
Causally identifying people’s people’s motivation for reading news is difficult. First, to understand people’s motivations for reading biased news articles, oneneeds data on subjective perceptions of biases in reporting. Second, one needsexogenous variation in these perceptions to rule out omitted variable bias andreverse causality. For example, people may distort their stated beliefs to justifytheir news consumption habits. Third, one needs to measure people’s demandfor real-world news and their actual consumption of this news, holding constanttheir information set about news articles. We address these challenges by usingan experimental approach with real news articles which allows us to test whetherconsumers indeed value more informative news in a setting with high externalvalidity.
Drawing on a large representative sample of Americans, we first elicit peo-ple’s beliefs about the extent to which theNew York Timessuppresses information. For that purpose, we tell our respondents that the Congressional Budget Office(CBO), Congress’s official nonpartisan provider of cost and benefit estimates for legislation, published a report about the “Trump Healthcare Plan” (the AmericanHealth Care Act of 2017). We then tell them that the CBO estimated that thiswould (i) decrease the federal deficit by $119 billion and (ii) leave 23 millionmore people uninsured. We truthfully tell our respondents that Republicansclaimed that the the plan would decrease the federal deficit—but not increase thenumber of people without health coverage—while Democrats claimed that theplan would not decrease the deficit and increase the number of people withouthealth coverage. Subsequently, we ask our respondents to estimate the percentchance that theNew York Timesreported only the figure on the number of unin-sured people, only the figure on the deficit decrease, or both figures. This allowsus to quantify people’s beliefs about the extent of media bias in theNew YorkTimes. To introdude exogenous variation in people’s perceptions of media bias,we inform a random subsample of our respondents that theNew York Timesreported both estimates from the CBO. Finally, we measure our respondents’demand for news from theNew York Timesby asking them whether they wouldlike to read an article in the newspaper about the Trump Tax Plan based onestimates from the CBO. The “more-information-is-better principle” predictsthat people’s demand for news about the CBO should increase for respondentswho learn that the newspaper is less likely to suppress information from CBOreports.
The key finding of this paper is that respondents who learn that the NewYork Times does not suppress information significantly reduce their demand for reading an article in this newspaper by 3.4 percentage points. This corresponds to a reduction in the demand for news of 12 percent. The time spent reading the article does not vary significantly across treatment arms, suggesting that the treatment did not affect how carefully people read the article. The reduction indemand for news is driven by respondents who initially thought that the New York Timeswas more likely to suppress information and is absent for respondents with more accurate pre-treatment beliefs about the extent of media bias in the2 New York Times. Consistent with models of motivated beliefs, our results aredriven by respondents who—in light of their prior beliefs about the directionof the bias in reporting and their political affiliation—have a stronger motive toavoid news from an unbiased source. For example, among Republican-leaning respondents the reduction in the demand for news is driven by those respondents who initially thought that the New York Timesis more right-wing biased.
We leverage two tailored measures of beliefs about newspaper reportingto shed light on mechanisms. We provide evidence that treated respondents significantly update their beliefs about the biasedness of the reporting of the NewYork Times. Our treated respondents are 6.9 percentage points more likely to think that theNew York Times does not suppress any information about the CBO reporton the Trump Tax Plan. Respondents are also 3.7 percentage points less likely to think that theNew York Times did not cover a CBO report highlighting the negative budget consequences of granting citizenship to young undocumented immigrants. We also provide evidence that our results are inconsistent witha series of alternative explanations: Respondents do not update their beliefsabout the technicality of reporting, the complexity of the article, or about thecharacteristics of the CBO. Several patterns in our data are inconsistent withalternative mechanisms, such as cognitive constraints, uncertainty about sourcequality, curiosity, and motives for diversifying news sources.
We contribute to the literature on media bias (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017;DellaVigna and La Ferrara, 2015; DellaVigna and Kaplan, 2007; Enikolopov etal., 2011; La Ferrara et al., 2012; Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2006, 2010; Gentzkowet al., 2015, 2018; Gerber et al., 2009; Mullainathan and Shleifer, 2005; Qin etal., 2018) and the demand for slanted news (Durante and Knight, 2012; Garzet al., 2018). Gentzkow and Shapiro’s (2010) seminal work introduces a newindex of media slant that measures the similarity of a news outlet’s language tothat of a congressional Republican or Democrat. Their model-based estimatesreveal that readers have a strong preference for like-minded news, but this pattern3 is consistent both with rational Bayesian updating about the informativenessof news (Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2006) and a behavioral preference for beliefconfirmation (Golman et al., 2016). We contribute to this literature by providingthe first causal evidence on the question of whether people value more informativenews. Specifically, we provide evidence that people who learn that the New York Times does not suppress information exhibit a lower demand for news from this newspaper. Our results are inconsistent with the idea that people read partisannews because they perceive partisan newspapers as more informative, as proposedby Gentzkow and Shapiro (2006).1
6 Conclusion
Our paper provides novel evidence on whether people value more informativenews. The main finding of this paper is that respondents who learn that theNewYork Timesdoes not suppress information reduce their demand for articles fromthis newspaper. This is inconsistent with the normative benchmark prediction ofthe “more-information-is-better principle.” Our results are driven by individualswith initially larger biases in beliefs about the extent of media bias, and thosewho in expectation should receive the largest negative belief utility shock when reading an unbiased article. Our empirical findings are consistent with models of motivated beliefs according to which people mainly consume news in order to confirm their prior beliefs,and inconsistent with models according to which people mainly consume news to receive better information. Our findings have important policy implications: Our evidence suggests that transparency about media bias might backfire and actually increase political belief polarization by shifting people’s consumption of news towards more biased sources.
Indefinite life extension: Men supported it more than women, whereas women reported greater belief in an afterlife
Women Want the Heavens, Men Want the Earth: Gender Differences in Support for Life Extension Technologies. Uri Lifshin et al. Journal of Individual Differences, March 21, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000288
Abstract. Efforts are being made in the field of medicine to promote the possibility of indefinite life extension (ILE). Past research on attitudes toward ILE technologies showed that women and more religious individuals usually have more negative attitudes toward ILE. The purpose of this research was to investigate whether gender differences in attitude toward indefinite life extension technologies could be explained by religiosity, afterlife beliefs, and general attitudes toward science. In four studies (N = 5,000), undergraduate participants completed self-report questionnaires measuring their support for life extension as well as religiosity, afterlife beliefs, and attitude toward science (in Study 3). In all studies, men supported ILE more than women, whereas women reported greater belief in an afterlife. The relationship between gender and attitude toward ILE was only partially mediated by religiosity (Studies 2–4) and by attitudes toward science (Study 3).
Keywords: life extension, gender differences, religion, attitudes toward science
Abstract. Efforts are being made in the field of medicine to promote the possibility of indefinite life extension (ILE). Past research on attitudes toward ILE technologies showed that women and more religious individuals usually have more negative attitudes toward ILE. The purpose of this research was to investigate whether gender differences in attitude toward indefinite life extension technologies could be explained by religiosity, afterlife beliefs, and general attitudes toward science. In four studies (N = 5,000), undergraduate participants completed self-report questionnaires measuring their support for life extension as well as religiosity, afterlife beliefs, and attitude toward science (in Study 3). In all studies, men supported ILE more than women, whereas women reported greater belief in an afterlife. The relationship between gender and attitude toward ILE was only partially mediated by religiosity (Studies 2–4) and by attitudes toward science (Study 3).
Keywords: life extension, gender differences, religion, attitudes toward science
From 2018: Could Human Evolutionary Changes Be Behind Mental Disorders?
Could Human Evolutionary Changes Be Behind Mental Disorders? Charles Choi. Discover Magazine, August 9, 2018. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/08/09/human-evolution-changes-caused-mental-disorders/#.XJTLerh7nIU
[...]
Scientists have long suspected that common ailments like lower back, knee and foot pain are likely due to the evolution of upright walking in the human family tree. And there may be a connection between the fact that 70 percent of adults develop impacted wisdom teeth and the evolutionary reduction of jaw size in the human lineage and modern changes in diet.
“Similarly, rapid expansion of brain size and cognitive abilities in humans has been key to our evolutionary success,” says study senior author David Kingsley, a developmental geneticist at Stanford University. However, at the same time, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia impact more than 3 percent of the world population. Kingsley reasoned this vulnerability to mental disorders might also stem from recent evolutionary changes controlling human brain size and structure.
To find out, Kingsley and his colleagues focused on DNA regions found in humans but not other animals. “We knew we might be onto something when a particular human-specific sequence was located right at one of the places that has previously been associated with common psychiatric diseases in human populations,” he says.
Hope For Treatment
Specifically, the scientists focused on the gene for a protein called CACNA1C, which helps direct the flow of calcium in and out of cells. Calcium influences the electrical activity of neurons and helps control the release of the neurotransmitters that neurons use to communicate with each other. Previous research has tied CACNA1C to risks for both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as well as anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive symptoms and autism.
The researchers focused on the so-called “non-coding” parts of this gene – these are the ones that don’t carry instructions for building the CACNA1C protein. When they compared the standard human genome used as a reference guide with the diverse range of human genomes from across the globe collected for the 1,000 Genomes Project, they discovered a significant variation in one particular region of the gene.
The research team’s analysis of the 1,000 Genomes Project’s data suggested that changes in this particular region could be increasing or decreasing the activity of the CACNA1C gene in ways that might influence risk for mental disorders. “Fifteen years after the initial sequencing of the human genome, we are still finding important pieces of the genome that have been missed in previous studies,” Kingsley says.
[...]
[...]
Scientists have long suspected that common ailments like lower back, knee and foot pain are likely due to the evolution of upright walking in the human family tree. And there may be a connection between the fact that 70 percent of adults develop impacted wisdom teeth and the evolutionary reduction of jaw size in the human lineage and modern changes in diet.
“Similarly, rapid expansion of brain size and cognitive abilities in humans has been key to our evolutionary success,” says study senior author David Kingsley, a developmental geneticist at Stanford University. However, at the same time, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia impact more than 3 percent of the world population. Kingsley reasoned this vulnerability to mental disorders might also stem from recent evolutionary changes controlling human brain size and structure.
To find out, Kingsley and his colleagues focused on DNA regions found in humans but not other animals. “We knew we might be onto something when a particular human-specific sequence was located right at one of the places that has previously been associated with common psychiatric diseases in human populations,” he says.
Hope For Treatment
Specifically, the scientists focused on the gene for a protein called CACNA1C, which helps direct the flow of calcium in and out of cells. Calcium influences the electrical activity of neurons and helps control the release of the neurotransmitters that neurons use to communicate with each other. Previous research has tied CACNA1C to risks for both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as well as anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive symptoms and autism.
The researchers focused on the so-called “non-coding” parts of this gene – these are the ones that don’t carry instructions for building the CACNA1C protein. When they compared the standard human genome used as a reference guide with the diverse range of human genomes from across the globe collected for the 1,000 Genomes Project, they discovered a significant variation in one particular region of the gene.
The research team’s analysis of the 1,000 Genomes Project’s data suggested that changes in this particular region could be increasing or decreasing the activity of the CACNA1C gene in ways that might influence risk for mental disorders. “Fifteen years after the initial sequencing of the human genome, we are still finding important pieces of the genome that have been missed in previous studies,” Kingsley says.
[...]
The Netherlands’ pensions have high participation, good retirement income, strong capitalization & sustainability; greater risk-taking & choice in managing pension savings could help w/self-employed
Self-Employment and Support for the Dutch Pension Reform. Izabela Karpowicz. Working Paper No. 19/64. March 19, 2019. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/03/19/Self-Employment-and-Support-for-the-Dutch-Pension-Reform-46663
Summary: The Netherlands’ pension system is characterized by high participation rates, adequate retirement income, strong capitalization and sustainability. Pressure points are arising, however, due to population aging and untransparent intergenerational transfers inherent in the system. Moreover, the Dutch pension system needs to adapt to the changing labor market landscape with an increasing share of workers in self-employment not covered by any pension arrangement. The government has proposed replacing collective defined-benefits schemes with personal accounts, and abolishing uniform premia and constant accrual rates. The micro-data analysis shows that allowing greater risk-taking and freedom of choice in managing pension savings could crowd self-employed into pension schemes.
Summary: The Netherlands’ pension system is characterized by high participation rates, adequate retirement income, strong capitalization and sustainability. Pressure points are arising, however, due to population aging and untransparent intergenerational transfers inherent in the system. Moreover, the Dutch pension system needs to adapt to the changing labor market landscape with an increasing share of workers in self-employment not covered by any pension arrangement. The government has proposed replacing collective defined-benefits schemes with personal accounts, and abolishing uniform premia and constant accrual rates. The micro-data analysis shows that allowing greater risk-taking and freedom of choice in managing pension savings could crowd self-employed into pension schemes.
The influence of daily news exposure on emotional states: Making us unhappy
Is the news making us unhappy? The influence of daily news exposure on emotional states. Natascha de Hoog, Peter Verboon. British Journal of Psychology, March 21 2019, https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12389
Abstract: There is evidence that exposure to negative news is making people feel bad, but not much is known about why this only affects some people or whether this also applies to everyday news exposure. This study examined the direct and indirect effects of daily news exposure on people's affective states. Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), 63 respondents (24 men and 39 women) reported their news exposure and affective states five times a day for 10 days. In addition, personal relevance of the news and personality characteristics, neuroticism and extraversion, were assessed. Results showed that negative news perceptions were related to more negative affect and less positive affect, and these effects were moderated by personal relevance, but not personality characteristics. The implications of these outcomes are discussed.
Background
These days, news seems to be everywhere. People can be updated about the latest developments in the world during the entire day and seven days a week. News is not only received by television, newspapers, and through online news coverage, but also through social media. Even people who do not follow regular news updates can still be confronted by news events through the people they follow on social media (Kramer, Guillory, & Hancock, 2014). Even though news facts can have positive, neutral, or negative content, the majority of news coverage concerns topics with a negative valence (Haskins, Miller, & Quarles, 1984; Zillmann, Chen, Knobloch, & Callison, 2004), including topics like natural disasters, crime, the bad economy, terrorism, or war. Not only is the majority of news topics negative, people also tend to pay more attention to negative news (Zillmann et al., 2004). In addition, the majority of negative news coverage is directed towards people's emotions (Philo, 2002), and the sensationalism and confronting nature of news coverage have increased drastically over the last decades (Wang, 2012).
All this exposure to negative information about the state of the world is likely to have an impact on our state of mind, our moods, or even our general happiness (Galician, 1986). Surprisingly, not much research has been conducted on this topic. Even though there are many studies on news perception, the focus has mainly been on cognition, with studies looking at information processing and memory (Gerend & Sias, 2009), as well as framing (Sun, Krakow, John, Liu, & Weaver, 2016), and motivation (Lee & Chyi, 2014) or attitudes (Hollbert, Zeng, & Robinson, 2017), while the topic of emotions has received much less attention. When emotions do play a role, studies usually focus on emotions used in news (Brosius, 1993), rather than as an outcome of news exposure.
The studies available on the relationship between news exposure and affect do generally support the notion that exposure to news reports affects our moods and state of mind. More specifically, a direct relationship between negative news exposure and negative emotional states was found in a number of experimental studies (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; Johnston & Davey, 1997; Marin et al., 2012; McIntyre & Gibson, 2016; Szabo & Hopkinson, 2007; Unz, Schwab, & Winterhoff‐Spurk, 2008; Veitch & Griffitt, 1976). After being exposed to negative news reports, positive affect decreased, whereas negative affect, sadness, worries, and anxiety increased. Other studies have found indirect effects on psychological distress and negative affect through an increase in stress levels and irrational beliefs (McNaughton‐Cassill, 2001) or depression (Potts & Sanchez, 1994).
Non‐experimental research on the topic has mainly focused on the impact of very severe news events, like terrorist attacks. A study on the Boston Marathon terrorist attack (Holman, Garfin, & Silver, 2014) showed people's stress levels were higher after exposure to news about the attack for four weeks compared to stress levels right after the attack. Similarly, PTSD was found to increase after continuous news exposure about the 9/11 attacks (Ahern, Galea, Resnick, & Vlahov, 2004; Piotrkowski & Brannen, 2002). Similar findings are reported in studies on anthrax attacks (Dougall, Hayward, & Baum, 2005), children exposed to news about terror attacks (Pfefferbaum et al., 2002), and news coverage on infectious diseases like SARS (Hansen, 2009).
Thus, there is empirical evidence that exposure to negative news is making one feel bad, but why is that? Does this also apply to everyday news exposure? And does this affect everyone in the same way? The present research attempts to answer these questions by looking into the direct and indirect effects of daily news exposure on people's emotional states.
Theoretical background
Despite a number of studies on the impact of negative news exposure on emotional states, no theoretical explanation has been proposed for this effect. We postulate that cognitive appraisal theory might be a relevant framework in this context. Negative news can be seen as a stressor that needs to be evaluated and reacted to. As argued by cognitive appraisal theory (Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), when someone is exposed to a stressor, the stressor is appraised in order to elicit an appropriate emotional response. The cognitive appraisal process consists of two parts: (1) primary appraisal in which one establishes the importance (severity and relevance) of the stressor and (2) secondary appraisal that assesses the ability to cope with the stressor (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). In other words, when confronted with news reports, someone (1) evaluates the valence and severity of the stressor (e.g., negative and very serious) as well as the extent to which the news affects them (e.g., very relevant) and (2) whether this news is something within or beyond their control (e.g., little control). Together, this determines the affective response that follows.
When it comes to appraisal of news stories, we propose it is mainly primary appraisal that is of importance. Most news events are likely to be perceived as outside the person's control (Kleemans, de Leeuw, Gerritsen, & Buijzen, 2017; Maguen, Papa, & Litz, 2008), making secondary appraisal less relevant to investigate as it is unlikely to vary much from person to person. For example, news about wars, poverty, and the recession are all things a recipient cannot change or has any influence over. However, people tend to differ in how severe they perceive certain news facts, and they especially differ in personal relevance. This is amplified by later theories of cognitive appraisal (Lazarus, 1991; Smith & Kirby, 2000) that have argued it is mainly the extent to which a stressor is personally relevant to someone that affects the intensity of the emotions elicited by a stressor. The importance of personal relevance was also established in a broad range of studies, showing personal relevance as an important factor when it comes to attention to, processing of, and evaluation of information (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; De Hoog, 2013; Van t Riet, Ruiter, & De Vries, 2012). More specially, studies on news perception have found personal relevance to be a moderator of the effect of news valence on affective response (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; Marshall et al., 2007).
This corresponds with the notion of information processing theories (Chen, Duckworth, & Chaiken, 1999) that personal relevance is a crucial factor in determining how critical and intensive information is processed and evaluated. In dual process models (Evans & Frankish, 2012), as well as in later versions of cognitive appraisal theory (Lazarus, 1991), the relationship between cognitions and affect is seen as a continuous bidirectional process, wherein cognitions about information affect emotions that in turn affect cognitions about the information. People who are exposed to similar news information on a daily basis can end up in a downward spiral of appraisals leading to negative affect, negative affect leading to more negative appraisals of the news etc., which might explain why studies on continuous exposure to news about terrorist attacks found people felt worse after weeks of exposure than just after the fact (Ahern et al., 2004). It also corresponds with studies showing people who are anxious or depressed are more likely to focus on negative information or information that corresponds with their mental state (Davey & Wells, 2006), which in turn only increases their anxiousness or depression. It has to be pointed out that some studies have found the opposite effect, with people selecting to read news stories that are contrary to their current mood (Biswas, Riffe, & Zillmann, 1994; Kaspar, Ramos Gameiro, & König, 2015).
Even though daily exposure to negative news can affect people negatively, not everyone is affected in the same way. While some people feel the burden of all that is wrong in the world, others seem to be able to brush it off and remain rather unaffected emotionally by the media they consume (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013). Individual differences in the cognitive appraisal process can partly explain this (Gross & John, 2003; Kuppens & Tong, 2010; Scherer, 2001), as studies have shown people with certain traits appraise situations differently and have dissimilar affective responses to stressors (Bolger & Schilling, 1991; Scheier & Carver, 1985; Tong, 2010).
Two personality characteristics that are especially relevant when it comes to appraisal and reactions to negative news are neuroticism (Bolger & Schilling, 1991; Tong, 2010) and extraversion (Gallagher, 1990; Rafienia, Azadfallah, Fathi‐Ashtiani, & Rasoulzadeh‐Tabatabaiei, 2008). Neuroticism is the general tendency to react in an anxious and negative matter to everyday stressors. Neuroticism has been linked to heightened negative affect, anxiety, and fear, as well as a general lower well‐being. In addition, neuroticism has been shown to negatively affect the primary appraisal process (Oliver & Brough, 2002), with people high in neuroticism reacting more strongly and negatively to stressors than people low in neuroticism (Bolger & Schilling, 1991; Tong, 2010). Thus, it was expected they would perceive news as more negative and feel more personally affected by it. Extroverts are known to be social, impulsive, optimistic, and easy‐going (Sanderman, Arrindell, Ranchor, Eysenck, & Eysenck, 2012). More specifically, extroverts report higher well‐being and experience more positive affect and less negative affect than introverts (Gallagher, 1990; Stafford, Ng, Moore, & Bard, 2010). In addition, extraversion is related to lower stress and fear levels (Penley & Tomaka, 2002). Indirectly, extraversion has been shown to be a moderator in the affective processing of information as well as the influence of affect on cognition (Rafienia et al., 2008; Stafford et al., 2010). Thus, it was expected they would perceive news as less negative.
The present research
So far, studies have shown that exposure to negative news reports can negatively affect one's emotional state, but these studies have mainly been experimental in nature or have focused on very serious events, like terrorist attacks. Not much is known about the effect of daily exposure to everyday news and why some people are more affected by news exposure than others. More research is needed into the possible negative effects of daily news exposure and the conditions under which they occur. Therefore, the present research looks at the direct and indirect effects of daily news exposure on people's emotional states.
The design of the study was derived from ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methodology (Conner, Tennen, Fleeson, & Barrett, 2009), and, to our knowledge, it is the first study that looks at the effects of news perception on emotional states using an intensive longitudinal design. This method uses a structured diary‐type set‐up used to assess people's thoughts, moods, and the exact context in real time, for a certain period of time, and has been shown to be very effective in capturing people's daily reality (Myin‐Germeys et al., 2009). Benefits of this method also include the minimization of bias in recall compared to assessments of mood and emotional states by traditional methods. In addition, compared to experimental studies, this method increases ecological validity, while also being able to assess causal effects.
The aim of the present study was to examine whether daily exposure to negative news would negatively affect people's emotional states. It was also explored whether personal relevance, extraversion, and neuroticism moderated this effect. We expected daily exposure to negative everyday news to affect emotional states. More specifically, we expected a positive relationship between how negative the news was perceived to be and negative affect (and a negative relationship for positive affect; hypothesis 1). In addition, we expected the impact of negative news on emotional states to be stronger when personal relevance is high (hypothesis 2), and for people who score high on neuroticism (hypothesis 3) or low on extraversion (hypothesis 4).
Discussion
The present study adds to the growing amount of literature on the effects of media exposure on well‐being and emotional states. The main aim of this study was to examine daily, everyday news exposure by testing whether negative affect and positive affect were influenced by daily news perceptions. In addition, we tested whether personal relevance of the news moderated the effect of the news perception and whether the personal difference variables, neuroticism and extraversion, were relevant in these associations. As expected, it was found that when daily news was perceived as more negative, people reported more negative affect and less positive affect. This corresponds with previous experimental studies (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; McIntyre & Gibson, 2016; Szabo & Hopkinson, 2007), as well as cross‐sectional and longitudinal studies on severe news facts (Ahern et al., 2004; Dougall et al., 2005; Holman et al., 2014). The results of the present study add to these findings by showing these same effects are found when looking at daily exposure to everyday news. Thus, news does not have to be very severe or shocking for people to be affected by it emotionally.
In addition, it was found that when personal relevance of the news was high, the reported negative affect also tended to be higher, stressing the importance of personal relevance in general and in appraisal of news especially (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; De Hoog, 2013; Lazarus, 1991; Smith & Kirby, 2000). Moreover, as expected, personal relevance of the news moderated the association of news valence on reported negative affect and positive affect, respectively, with negative news having a stronger impact on affect when personal relevance was high. This is in line with studies on news perception showing personal relevance to be an important moderator (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; Marshall et al., 2007).
These findings support cognitive appraisal theory (Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003; Lazarus, 1991; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) as a relevant framework for explaining the effect of news perception on emotional states. As we postulated, when exposed to news facts, primary appraisal takes places, wherein someone assesses the severity and relevance of the news facts that in turn affect the emotional response. As the findings of the present study show, the more severe the news was perceived and the higher perceptions of personal relevance, the stronger the affective response. Although not the main focus of our study, additional analyses also showed support for our reasoning that when it comes to everyday news, secondary appraisal in the form of coping with the stressor plays a much smaller role, as most news stories are seen as outside of the person's control. Indeed, no direct or indirect effect of coping on affect was found, besides a small direct effect of coping on positive affect. Following the reasoning of cognitive appraisal theory, this implies that in order for people to be less affected by news exposure, the news either needs to be perceived as less severe or more under people's control. One way to achieve this could be for the media to stop stressing the negativity and severity of daily news and to provide more information about how people could cope with certain information, a concept recently described as constructive journalism (McIntyre & Gibson, 2016). Even though viewers might not have much control over the news, they do have control over how they cope with their emotional responses. Further studies should therefore look into the role of emotion‐focused coping in news exposure.
Because not everyone is affected in the same way by news exposure (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013), and individual differences seem to play an important role in this (Gross & John, 2003; Kuppens & Tong, 2010; Scherer, 2001), we explored the importance of two personality characteristics, namely neuroticism and extraversion (Bolger & Schilling, 1991; Gallagher, 1990; Tong, 2010). Neuroticism had a relatively large effect on both affect measures. People with higher scores on neuroticism reported more negative and less positive affect. However, even though neuroticism had a large effect on affect in general, neuroticism did not moderate the effect of news exposure on affect, nor did it affect perceptions of personal relevance. In addition, extraversion only was a moderator for positive affect. Even though previous studies have established the role of both personality factors in affective responses (Rafienia et al., 2008; Stafford et al., 2010), neither seems to have a strong effect on people's news perception. Extraversion makes people exposed to negative news have more positive affect, but not less negative affect. This seems to imply that extraverts still have the same response of negative emotions to exposure to negative news as everyone else, but they just do not let it affect their positive emotions. Neuroticism just makes people experience more negative affect in general (Bolger & Schilling, 1991).
Limitations and recommendations
Even though the results of this study show important insight into the effect of daily, everyday news exposure on affective responses, some limitations need to be mentioned. First of all, a convenience sample was used in this study, limiting the generalizability of the results. The sample had a representative distribution of gender and age, but mainly included people with a higher education. Thus, the sample was not very representative of the Dutch population. Future studies should attempt to use a more representative sample of people, especially to establish news effects in lower educated people. Secondly, even though we used an intensive longitudinal design (Conner et al., 2009) that is known for being able to capture people's daily experiences effectively, as well as minimizes bias and has more ecological validity than experimental studies (Myin‐Germeys et al., 2009), it is also a very intensive research method asking a lot of the investment of participants. As a consequence, compliance with the study instructions in EMA studies is known to be less than in cross‐sectional surveys. However, enough data points to detect moderate‐to‐large effects were still available to produce valid results when using ESM data (Delespaul, 1995). Thirdly, because we wanted to limit the burden of participants, we restricted the number of items to measure the relevant constructs. Even though some of these measures have been validated (Van der Steen et al., 2017) or appear to be reliable measures, we cannot be certain that personal relevance, which was assessed with a single item, was measured reliably. In future studies, a more extensive and reliable measure of personal relevance needs to be used.
This study is the first, to our knowledge, that looks at the effect of everyday news exposure, using an intensive longitudinal design (Conner et al., 2009). More research should be conducted using these – or similar – designs in order to truly capture the continuous nature of news exposure. These days, people do not just read or watch single news reports, but they are constantly exposed to news information, and the way we research this phenomenon should reflect the research designs we use. In addition, more research is needed into possible moderating or mediating factors. A clear picture that comes from this study, as well as previous studies, is that news exposure can negatively affect our moods; however, not enough is known about why some people are more affected by this than others.
So far, we know that factors that are important are personal relevance, but more individual difference measures need to be explored in order to get a better picture. Some interesting variables to consider include traits that could possibly affect how the news is perceived like locus of control (Bollini, Walker, Hamann, & Kestler, 2004) or optimism (Forgeard & Seligman, 2012), and specific variables related to cognitive appraisal and emotional responses such as coping style (Ben‐Zur, 2009), affective self‐regulatory efficacy (Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Gerbino, & Pastorelli, 2003), or emotion regulation (Gross & John, 2003). Besides individual differences, social influences should be considered. How news is received and perceived has a lot to do with one's social surroundings, like indirect news exposure through social media (Kramer et al., 2014). Surprisingly, relatively little research has been done on the role of social influence, like peer groups or social identity, in the effects of media exposure (Valkenburg, Peter, & Walther, 2016).
In conclusion, the present study showed the effect of daily news exposure on negative and positive affect and explored possible moderators. Negative news perception is related to more negative affect and less positive affect, and these effects are moderated by personal relevance. Thus, daily exposure to everyday news facts makes people feel bad, especially when they consider the news to be personally relevant. These results implicate we need to look more carefully at the way (negative) news is presented in the media, as well as the frequency of exposure to the news, in order to prevent people from being negatively affected by it.
Abstract: There is evidence that exposure to negative news is making people feel bad, but not much is known about why this only affects some people or whether this also applies to everyday news exposure. This study examined the direct and indirect effects of daily news exposure on people's affective states. Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), 63 respondents (24 men and 39 women) reported their news exposure and affective states five times a day for 10 days. In addition, personal relevance of the news and personality characteristics, neuroticism and extraversion, were assessed. Results showed that negative news perceptions were related to more negative affect and less positive affect, and these effects were moderated by personal relevance, but not personality characteristics. The implications of these outcomes are discussed.
Background
These days, news seems to be everywhere. People can be updated about the latest developments in the world during the entire day and seven days a week. News is not only received by television, newspapers, and through online news coverage, but also through social media. Even people who do not follow regular news updates can still be confronted by news events through the people they follow on social media (Kramer, Guillory, & Hancock, 2014). Even though news facts can have positive, neutral, or negative content, the majority of news coverage concerns topics with a negative valence (Haskins, Miller, & Quarles, 1984; Zillmann, Chen, Knobloch, & Callison, 2004), including topics like natural disasters, crime, the bad economy, terrorism, or war. Not only is the majority of news topics negative, people also tend to pay more attention to negative news (Zillmann et al., 2004). In addition, the majority of negative news coverage is directed towards people's emotions (Philo, 2002), and the sensationalism and confronting nature of news coverage have increased drastically over the last decades (Wang, 2012).
All this exposure to negative information about the state of the world is likely to have an impact on our state of mind, our moods, or even our general happiness (Galician, 1986). Surprisingly, not much research has been conducted on this topic. Even though there are many studies on news perception, the focus has mainly been on cognition, with studies looking at information processing and memory (Gerend & Sias, 2009), as well as framing (Sun, Krakow, John, Liu, & Weaver, 2016), and motivation (Lee & Chyi, 2014) or attitudes (Hollbert, Zeng, & Robinson, 2017), while the topic of emotions has received much less attention. When emotions do play a role, studies usually focus on emotions used in news (Brosius, 1993), rather than as an outcome of news exposure.
The studies available on the relationship between news exposure and affect do generally support the notion that exposure to news reports affects our moods and state of mind. More specifically, a direct relationship between negative news exposure and negative emotional states was found in a number of experimental studies (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; Johnston & Davey, 1997; Marin et al., 2012; McIntyre & Gibson, 2016; Szabo & Hopkinson, 2007; Unz, Schwab, & Winterhoff‐Spurk, 2008; Veitch & Griffitt, 1976). After being exposed to negative news reports, positive affect decreased, whereas negative affect, sadness, worries, and anxiety increased. Other studies have found indirect effects on psychological distress and negative affect through an increase in stress levels and irrational beliefs (McNaughton‐Cassill, 2001) or depression (Potts & Sanchez, 1994).
Non‐experimental research on the topic has mainly focused on the impact of very severe news events, like terrorist attacks. A study on the Boston Marathon terrorist attack (Holman, Garfin, & Silver, 2014) showed people's stress levels were higher after exposure to news about the attack for four weeks compared to stress levels right after the attack. Similarly, PTSD was found to increase after continuous news exposure about the 9/11 attacks (Ahern, Galea, Resnick, & Vlahov, 2004; Piotrkowski & Brannen, 2002). Similar findings are reported in studies on anthrax attacks (Dougall, Hayward, & Baum, 2005), children exposed to news about terror attacks (Pfefferbaum et al., 2002), and news coverage on infectious diseases like SARS (Hansen, 2009).
Thus, there is empirical evidence that exposure to negative news is making one feel bad, but why is that? Does this also apply to everyday news exposure? And does this affect everyone in the same way? The present research attempts to answer these questions by looking into the direct and indirect effects of daily news exposure on people's emotional states.
Theoretical background
Despite a number of studies on the impact of negative news exposure on emotional states, no theoretical explanation has been proposed for this effect. We postulate that cognitive appraisal theory might be a relevant framework in this context. Negative news can be seen as a stressor that needs to be evaluated and reacted to. As argued by cognitive appraisal theory (Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), when someone is exposed to a stressor, the stressor is appraised in order to elicit an appropriate emotional response. The cognitive appraisal process consists of two parts: (1) primary appraisal in which one establishes the importance (severity and relevance) of the stressor and (2) secondary appraisal that assesses the ability to cope with the stressor (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). In other words, when confronted with news reports, someone (1) evaluates the valence and severity of the stressor (e.g., negative and very serious) as well as the extent to which the news affects them (e.g., very relevant) and (2) whether this news is something within or beyond their control (e.g., little control). Together, this determines the affective response that follows.
When it comes to appraisal of news stories, we propose it is mainly primary appraisal that is of importance. Most news events are likely to be perceived as outside the person's control (Kleemans, de Leeuw, Gerritsen, & Buijzen, 2017; Maguen, Papa, & Litz, 2008), making secondary appraisal less relevant to investigate as it is unlikely to vary much from person to person. For example, news about wars, poverty, and the recession are all things a recipient cannot change or has any influence over. However, people tend to differ in how severe they perceive certain news facts, and they especially differ in personal relevance. This is amplified by later theories of cognitive appraisal (Lazarus, 1991; Smith & Kirby, 2000) that have argued it is mainly the extent to which a stressor is personally relevant to someone that affects the intensity of the emotions elicited by a stressor. The importance of personal relevance was also established in a broad range of studies, showing personal relevance as an important factor when it comes to attention to, processing of, and evaluation of information (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; De Hoog, 2013; Van t Riet, Ruiter, & De Vries, 2012). More specially, studies on news perception have found personal relevance to be a moderator of the effect of news valence on affective response (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; Marshall et al., 2007).
This corresponds with the notion of information processing theories (Chen, Duckworth, & Chaiken, 1999) that personal relevance is a crucial factor in determining how critical and intensive information is processed and evaluated. In dual process models (Evans & Frankish, 2012), as well as in later versions of cognitive appraisal theory (Lazarus, 1991), the relationship between cognitions and affect is seen as a continuous bidirectional process, wherein cognitions about information affect emotions that in turn affect cognitions about the information. People who are exposed to similar news information on a daily basis can end up in a downward spiral of appraisals leading to negative affect, negative affect leading to more negative appraisals of the news etc., which might explain why studies on continuous exposure to news about terrorist attacks found people felt worse after weeks of exposure than just after the fact (Ahern et al., 2004). It also corresponds with studies showing people who are anxious or depressed are more likely to focus on negative information or information that corresponds with their mental state (Davey & Wells, 2006), which in turn only increases their anxiousness or depression. It has to be pointed out that some studies have found the opposite effect, with people selecting to read news stories that are contrary to their current mood (Biswas, Riffe, & Zillmann, 1994; Kaspar, Ramos Gameiro, & König, 2015).
Even though daily exposure to negative news can affect people negatively, not everyone is affected in the same way. While some people feel the burden of all that is wrong in the world, others seem to be able to brush it off and remain rather unaffected emotionally by the media they consume (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013). Individual differences in the cognitive appraisal process can partly explain this (Gross & John, 2003; Kuppens & Tong, 2010; Scherer, 2001), as studies have shown people with certain traits appraise situations differently and have dissimilar affective responses to stressors (Bolger & Schilling, 1991; Scheier & Carver, 1985; Tong, 2010).
Two personality characteristics that are especially relevant when it comes to appraisal and reactions to negative news are neuroticism (Bolger & Schilling, 1991; Tong, 2010) and extraversion (Gallagher, 1990; Rafienia, Azadfallah, Fathi‐Ashtiani, & Rasoulzadeh‐Tabatabaiei, 2008). Neuroticism is the general tendency to react in an anxious and negative matter to everyday stressors. Neuroticism has been linked to heightened negative affect, anxiety, and fear, as well as a general lower well‐being. In addition, neuroticism has been shown to negatively affect the primary appraisal process (Oliver & Brough, 2002), with people high in neuroticism reacting more strongly and negatively to stressors than people low in neuroticism (Bolger & Schilling, 1991; Tong, 2010). Thus, it was expected they would perceive news as more negative and feel more personally affected by it. Extroverts are known to be social, impulsive, optimistic, and easy‐going (Sanderman, Arrindell, Ranchor, Eysenck, & Eysenck, 2012). More specifically, extroverts report higher well‐being and experience more positive affect and less negative affect than introverts (Gallagher, 1990; Stafford, Ng, Moore, & Bard, 2010). In addition, extraversion is related to lower stress and fear levels (Penley & Tomaka, 2002). Indirectly, extraversion has been shown to be a moderator in the affective processing of information as well as the influence of affect on cognition (Rafienia et al., 2008; Stafford et al., 2010). Thus, it was expected they would perceive news as less negative.
The present research
So far, studies have shown that exposure to negative news reports can negatively affect one's emotional state, but these studies have mainly been experimental in nature or have focused on very serious events, like terrorist attacks. Not much is known about the effect of daily exposure to everyday news and why some people are more affected by news exposure than others. More research is needed into the possible negative effects of daily news exposure and the conditions under which they occur. Therefore, the present research looks at the direct and indirect effects of daily news exposure on people's emotional states.
The design of the study was derived from ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methodology (Conner, Tennen, Fleeson, & Barrett, 2009), and, to our knowledge, it is the first study that looks at the effects of news perception on emotional states using an intensive longitudinal design. This method uses a structured diary‐type set‐up used to assess people's thoughts, moods, and the exact context in real time, for a certain period of time, and has been shown to be very effective in capturing people's daily reality (Myin‐Germeys et al., 2009). Benefits of this method also include the minimization of bias in recall compared to assessments of mood and emotional states by traditional methods. In addition, compared to experimental studies, this method increases ecological validity, while also being able to assess causal effects.
The aim of the present study was to examine whether daily exposure to negative news would negatively affect people's emotional states. It was also explored whether personal relevance, extraversion, and neuroticism moderated this effect. We expected daily exposure to negative everyday news to affect emotional states. More specifically, we expected a positive relationship between how negative the news was perceived to be and negative affect (and a negative relationship for positive affect; hypothesis 1). In addition, we expected the impact of negative news on emotional states to be stronger when personal relevance is high (hypothesis 2), and for people who score high on neuroticism (hypothesis 3) or low on extraversion (hypothesis 4).
Discussion
The present study adds to the growing amount of literature on the effects of media exposure on well‐being and emotional states. The main aim of this study was to examine daily, everyday news exposure by testing whether negative affect and positive affect were influenced by daily news perceptions. In addition, we tested whether personal relevance of the news moderated the effect of the news perception and whether the personal difference variables, neuroticism and extraversion, were relevant in these associations. As expected, it was found that when daily news was perceived as more negative, people reported more negative affect and less positive affect. This corresponds with previous experimental studies (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; McIntyre & Gibson, 2016; Szabo & Hopkinson, 2007), as well as cross‐sectional and longitudinal studies on severe news facts (Ahern et al., 2004; Dougall et al., 2005; Holman et al., 2014). The results of the present study add to these findings by showing these same effects are found when looking at daily exposure to everyday news. Thus, news does not have to be very severe or shocking for people to be affected by it emotionally.
In addition, it was found that when personal relevance of the news was high, the reported negative affect also tended to be higher, stressing the importance of personal relevance in general and in appraisal of news especially (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; De Hoog, 2013; Lazarus, 1991; Smith & Kirby, 2000). Moreover, as expected, personal relevance of the news moderated the association of news valence on reported negative affect and positive affect, respectively, with negative news having a stronger impact on affect when personal relevance was high. This is in line with studies on news perception showing personal relevance to be an important moderator (Balzarotti & Cicero, 2014; Marshall et al., 2007).
These findings support cognitive appraisal theory (Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003; Lazarus, 1991; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) as a relevant framework for explaining the effect of news perception on emotional states. As we postulated, when exposed to news facts, primary appraisal takes places, wherein someone assesses the severity and relevance of the news facts that in turn affect the emotional response. As the findings of the present study show, the more severe the news was perceived and the higher perceptions of personal relevance, the stronger the affective response. Although not the main focus of our study, additional analyses also showed support for our reasoning that when it comes to everyday news, secondary appraisal in the form of coping with the stressor plays a much smaller role, as most news stories are seen as outside of the person's control. Indeed, no direct or indirect effect of coping on affect was found, besides a small direct effect of coping on positive affect. Following the reasoning of cognitive appraisal theory, this implies that in order for people to be less affected by news exposure, the news either needs to be perceived as less severe or more under people's control. One way to achieve this could be for the media to stop stressing the negativity and severity of daily news and to provide more information about how people could cope with certain information, a concept recently described as constructive journalism (McIntyre & Gibson, 2016). Even though viewers might not have much control over the news, they do have control over how they cope with their emotional responses. Further studies should therefore look into the role of emotion‐focused coping in news exposure.
Because not everyone is affected in the same way by news exposure (Valkenburg & Peter, 2013), and individual differences seem to play an important role in this (Gross & John, 2003; Kuppens & Tong, 2010; Scherer, 2001), we explored the importance of two personality characteristics, namely neuroticism and extraversion (Bolger & Schilling, 1991; Gallagher, 1990; Tong, 2010). Neuroticism had a relatively large effect on both affect measures. People with higher scores on neuroticism reported more negative and less positive affect. However, even though neuroticism had a large effect on affect in general, neuroticism did not moderate the effect of news exposure on affect, nor did it affect perceptions of personal relevance. In addition, extraversion only was a moderator for positive affect. Even though previous studies have established the role of both personality factors in affective responses (Rafienia et al., 2008; Stafford et al., 2010), neither seems to have a strong effect on people's news perception. Extraversion makes people exposed to negative news have more positive affect, but not less negative affect. This seems to imply that extraverts still have the same response of negative emotions to exposure to negative news as everyone else, but they just do not let it affect their positive emotions. Neuroticism just makes people experience more negative affect in general (Bolger & Schilling, 1991).
Limitations and recommendations
Even though the results of this study show important insight into the effect of daily, everyday news exposure on affective responses, some limitations need to be mentioned. First of all, a convenience sample was used in this study, limiting the generalizability of the results. The sample had a representative distribution of gender and age, but mainly included people with a higher education. Thus, the sample was not very representative of the Dutch population. Future studies should attempt to use a more representative sample of people, especially to establish news effects in lower educated people. Secondly, even though we used an intensive longitudinal design (Conner et al., 2009) that is known for being able to capture people's daily experiences effectively, as well as minimizes bias and has more ecological validity than experimental studies (Myin‐Germeys et al., 2009), it is also a very intensive research method asking a lot of the investment of participants. As a consequence, compliance with the study instructions in EMA studies is known to be less than in cross‐sectional surveys. However, enough data points to detect moderate‐to‐large effects were still available to produce valid results when using ESM data (Delespaul, 1995). Thirdly, because we wanted to limit the burden of participants, we restricted the number of items to measure the relevant constructs. Even though some of these measures have been validated (Van der Steen et al., 2017) or appear to be reliable measures, we cannot be certain that personal relevance, which was assessed with a single item, was measured reliably. In future studies, a more extensive and reliable measure of personal relevance needs to be used.
This study is the first, to our knowledge, that looks at the effect of everyday news exposure, using an intensive longitudinal design (Conner et al., 2009). More research should be conducted using these – or similar – designs in order to truly capture the continuous nature of news exposure. These days, people do not just read or watch single news reports, but they are constantly exposed to news information, and the way we research this phenomenon should reflect the research designs we use. In addition, more research is needed into possible moderating or mediating factors. A clear picture that comes from this study, as well as previous studies, is that news exposure can negatively affect our moods; however, not enough is known about why some people are more affected by this than others.
So far, we know that factors that are important are personal relevance, but more individual difference measures need to be explored in order to get a better picture. Some interesting variables to consider include traits that could possibly affect how the news is perceived like locus of control (Bollini, Walker, Hamann, & Kestler, 2004) or optimism (Forgeard & Seligman, 2012), and specific variables related to cognitive appraisal and emotional responses such as coping style (Ben‐Zur, 2009), affective self‐regulatory efficacy (Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Gerbino, & Pastorelli, 2003), or emotion regulation (Gross & John, 2003). Besides individual differences, social influences should be considered. How news is received and perceived has a lot to do with one's social surroundings, like indirect news exposure through social media (Kramer et al., 2014). Surprisingly, relatively little research has been done on the role of social influence, like peer groups or social identity, in the effects of media exposure (Valkenburg, Peter, & Walther, 2016).
In conclusion, the present study showed the effect of daily news exposure on negative and positive affect and explored possible moderators. Negative news perception is related to more negative affect and less positive affect, and these effects are moderated by personal relevance. Thus, daily exposure to everyday news facts makes people feel bad, especially when they consider the news to be personally relevant. These results implicate we need to look more carefully at the way (negative) news is presented in the media, as well as the frequency of exposure to the news, in order to prevent people from being negatively affected by it.
The present study showed that having a happier spouse is associated not only with a longer marriage but also with a longer life
Having a Happy Spouse Is Associated With Lowered Risk of Mortality. Olga Stavrova. Psychological Science, March 21, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619835147
Abstract: Studies have shown that individuals’ choice of a life partner predicts their life outcomes, from their relationship satisfaction to their career success. The present study examined whether the reach of one’s spouse extends even further, to the ultimate life outcome: mortality. A dyadic survival analysis using a representative sample of elderly couples (N = 4,374) followed for up to 8 years showed that a 1-standard-deviation-higher level of spousal life satisfaction was associated with a 13% lower mortality risk. This effect was robust to controlling for couples’ socioeconomic situation (e.g., household income), both partners’ sociodemographic characteristics, and baseline health. Exploratory mediation analyses pointed toward partner and actor physical activity as sequential mediators. These findings suggest that life satisfaction has not only intrapersonal but also interpersonal associations with longevity and contribute to the fields of epidemiology, positive psychology, and relationship research.
Keywords: life satisfaction, mortality, dyadic analyses, couples, open materials
Research has consistently shown that life satisfaction is associated with longevity (for a review, see Diener & Chan, 2011). For example, meta-analyses of long-term prospective studies have shown that higher life satisfaction predicts lower risk of mortality over decades (Chida & Steptoe, 2008). Although this literature has demonstrated an intrapersonal effect of life satisfaction (i.e., an effect of an individual’s life satisfaction on that individual’s mortality), it is less clear whether life satisfaction has interpersonal effects as well. In particular, does an individual’s life satisfaction affect the mortality risk of his or her spouse?
Epidemiological studies have demonstrated the importance of contextual characteristics (e.g., neighborhood characteristics; Bosma, Dike van de Mheen, Borsboom, & Mackenbach, 2001) for individuals’ longevity. Adopting the interpersonal perspective (Zayas, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2002), I propose that the characteristics (e.g., life satisfaction) of the people who are close to an individual can also make up that person’s context and, potentially, affect his or her life outcomes. For example, life satisfaction has been associated with healthy behaviors such as physical exercise (Kim, Kubzansky, Soo, & Boehm, 2017). Given that spouses tend to affect each other’s lifestyle (Jackson, Steptoe, & Wardle, 2015), having a happy spouse might increase one’s likelihood of engaging in healthy behaviors. In addition, happiness has been associated with helping behavior (O’Malley & Andrews, 1983). Hence, having a happy partner might be related to experiencing support from that partner and, consequently, might improve one’s health and longevity.
Indeed, a recent study found that spousal life satisfaction was associated with individuals’ self-rated health (Chopik & O’Brien, 2017), although such interpersonal effects were not detected for doctor-diagnosed chronic conditions (Chopik & O’Brien, 2017) or for inflammation markers (Uchino et al., 2018). None of the existing studies have explored whether spousal life satisfaction predicts individuals’ mortality. The present research examined this question using panel data of approximately 4,400 elderly couples in the United States. In addition, a set of exploratory mediation analyses tested the role of partner support as well as partner and actor physical activity as potential mechanisms for such an association.
Finally, it is possible that the level of spousal life satisfaction per se matters much less than the extent to which it is similar to individuals’ own life satisfaction. A growing body of research has underscored the level of congruence between partners’ dispositional characteristics as an important factor for their relationship and life outcomes (Dyrenforth, Kashy, Donnellan, & Lucas, 2010). Therefore, in an additional set of analyses, I explored whether the level of actor-partner similarity in life satisfaction was associated with actor mortality.
Discussion
Previous research has shown that individuals’ career success and relationship and life satisfaction are predicted by their spouses’ dispositional characteristics (Dyrenforth et al., 2010; Solomon & Jackson, 2014). The present research suggests that spouses’ reach might extend even further. A dyadic survival analysis using the data from 4,374 couples showed that having a spouse who was more satisfied with life was associated with reduced mortality.
What explains this interpersonal effect of life satisfaction? Exploratory mediation analyses established partner and actor physical activity as sequential mediators. One partner’s life satisfaction was associated with his or her increased physical activity, which in turn was related to increased physical activity in the other partner, which predicted that partner’s mortality. Yet, given the correlational nature of these data, these results should be interpreted with caution.
It is noteworthy that the effect of spousal life satisfaction was comparable in size to the effects of other well-established predictors of mortality, such as education and income (in the present study, HRs = 0.90 for partner life satisfaction, 0.93 for household income, and 0.91 for actor education). In fact, spousal life satisfaction predicted mortality as strongly as (and even more robustly than) an individual’s own life satisfaction and as strongly as basic personality traits, such as neuroticism and extraversion, predicted mortality in previous work (Jokela et al., 2013).
Although most existing research on predictors of mortality has focused nearly exclusively on individuals’ own characteristics, the present analyses revealed that the characteristics of a person who is close to an individual, such as a spouse, might be an equally important determinant of that individual’s mortality. Continuing this line of research, future studies might explore whether the interpersonal effect of life satisfaction on mortality is restricted to (marital) dyads or whether it extends to larger social networks.
To conclude, happiness is a desirable trait in a romantic partner, and marriage to a happy person is more likely to last than is marriage to an unhappy person (Lucas, 2005). The present study showed that having a happier spouse is associated not only with a longer marriage but also with a longer life.
[... ]
Alcohol Use May be Beneficial after all
If one restricts the focus to alcohol-related illnesses, it makes sense that any level of alcohol consumed increases the rate of these illnesses. Even if alcohol always increases the risk of alcohol-related diseases, it may still be associated with a boost in overall health.
This would explain why wealthy individuals, and affluent countries, both consume more alcohol and have a longer life expectancy.
In my own unpublished analysis of the connection between alcohol and life expectancy at birth, I found no evidence that countries with a higher proportion of drinkers, or with higher alcohol consumption per person, paid a price in lost life expectancy.
When the analysis was restricted to the wealthier half of countries - that drink more - I found that those countries that consumed more alcohol had a significantly higher life expectancy (even with national wealth, and religion, statistically controlled). Residents of countries where more of the people drank alcohol also lived significantly longer.
[...]
Abstract: Studies have shown that individuals’ choice of a life partner predicts their life outcomes, from their relationship satisfaction to their career success. The present study examined whether the reach of one’s spouse extends even further, to the ultimate life outcome: mortality. A dyadic survival analysis using a representative sample of elderly couples (N = 4,374) followed for up to 8 years showed that a 1-standard-deviation-higher level of spousal life satisfaction was associated with a 13% lower mortality risk. This effect was robust to controlling for couples’ socioeconomic situation (e.g., household income), both partners’ sociodemographic characteristics, and baseline health. Exploratory mediation analyses pointed toward partner and actor physical activity as sequential mediators. These findings suggest that life satisfaction has not only intrapersonal but also interpersonal associations with longevity and contribute to the fields of epidemiology, positive psychology, and relationship research.
Keywords: life satisfaction, mortality, dyadic analyses, couples, open materials
Research has consistently shown that life satisfaction is associated with longevity (for a review, see Diener & Chan, 2011). For example, meta-analyses of long-term prospective studies have shown that higher life satisfaction predicts lower risk of mortality over decades (Chida & Steptoe, 2008). Although this literature has demonstrated an intrapersonal effect of life satisfaction (i.e., an effect of an individual’s life satisfaction on that individual’s mortality), it is less clear whether life satisfaction has interpersonal effects as well. In particular, does an individual’s life satisfaction affect the mortality risk of his or her spouse?
Epidemiological studies have demonstrated the importance of contextual characteristics (e.g., neighborhood characteristics; Bosma, Dike van de Mheen, Borsboom, & Mackenbach, 2001) for individuals’ longevity. Adopting the interpersonal perspective (Zayas, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2002), I propose that the characteristics (e.g., life satisfaction) of the people who are close to an individual can also make up that person’s context and, potentially, affect his or her life outcomes. For example, life satisfaction has been associated with healthy behaviors such as physical exercise (Kim, Kubzansky, Soo, & Boehm, 2017). Given that spouses tend to affect each other’s lifestyle (Jackson, Steptoe, & Wardle, 2015), having a happy spouse might increase one’s likelihood of engaging in healthy behaviors. In addition, happiness has been associated with helping behavior (O’Malley & Andrews, 1983). Hence, having a happy partner might be related to experiencing support from that partner and, consequently, might improve one’s health and longevity.
Indeed, a recent study found that spousal life satisfaction was associated with individuals’ self-rated health (Chopik & O’Brien, 2017), although such interpersonal effects were not detected for doctor-diagnosed chronic conditions (Chopik & O’Brien, 2017) or for inflammation markers (Uchino et al., 2018). None of the existing studies have explored whether spousal life satisfaction predicts individuals’ mortality. The present research examined this question using panel data of approximately 4,400 elderly couples in the United States. In addition, a set of exploratory mediation analyses tested the role of partner support as well as partner and actor physical activity as potential mechanisms for such an association.
Finally, it is possible that the level of spousal life satisfaction per se matters much less than the extent to which it is similar to individuals’ own life satisfaction. A growing body of research has underscored the level of congruence between partners’ dispositional characteristics as an important factor for their relationship and life outcomes (Dyrenforth, Kashy, Donnellan, & Lucas, 2010). Therefore, in an additional set of analyses, I explored whether the level of actor-partner similarity in life satisfaction was associated with actor mortality.
Discussion
Previous research has shown that individuals’ career success and relationship and life satisfaction are predicted by their spouses’ dispositional characteristics (Dyrenforth et al., 2010; Solomon & Jackson, 2014). The present research suggests that spouses’ reach might extend even further. A dyadic survival analysis using the data from 4,374 couples showed that having a spouse who was more satisfied with life was associated with reduced mortality.
What explains this interpersonal effect of life satisfaction? Exploratory mediation analyses established partner and actor physical activity as sequential mediators. One partner’s life satisfaction was associated with his or her increased physical activity, which in turn was related to increased physical activity in the other partner, which predicted that partner’s mortality. Yet, given the correlational nature of these data, these results should be interpreted with caution.
It is noteworthy that the effect of spousal life satisfaction was comparable in size to the effects of other well-established predictors of mortality, such as education and income (in the present study, HRs = 0.90 for partner life satisfaction, 0.93 for household income, and 0.91 for actor education). In fact, spousal life satisfaction predicted mortality as strongly as (and even more robustly than) an individual’s own life satisfaction and as strongly as basic personality traits, such as neuroticism and extraversion, predicted mortality in previous work (Jokela et al., 2013).
Although most existing research on predictors of mortality has focused nearly exclusively on individuals’ own characteristics, the present analyses revealed that the characteristics of a person who is close to an individual, such as a spouse, might be an equally important determinant of that individual’s mortality. Continuing this line of research, future studies might explore whether the interpersonal effect of life satisfaction on mortality is restricted to (marital) dyads or whether it extends to larger social networks.
To conclude, happiness is a desirable trait in a romantic partner, and marriage to a happy person is more likely to last than is marriage to an unhappy person (Lucas, 2005). The present study showed that having a happier spouse is associated not only with a longer marriage but also with a longer life.
[... ]
Alcohol Use May be Beneficial after all
If one restricts the focus to alcohol-related illnesses, it makes sense that any level of alcohol consumed increases the rate of these illnesses. Even if alcohol always increases the risk of alcohol-related diseases, it may still be associated with a boost in overall health.
This would explain why wealthy individuals, and affluent countries, both consume more alcohol and have a longer life expectancy.
In my own unpublished analysis of the connection between alcohol and life expectancy at birth, I found no evidence that countries with a higher proportion of drinkers, or with higher alcohol consumption per person, paid a price in lost life expectancy.
When the analysis was restricted to the wealthier half of countries - that drink more - I found that those countries that consumed more alcohol had a significantly higher life expectancy (even with national wealth, and religion, statistically controlled). Residents of countries where more of the people drank alcohol also lived significantly longer.
[...]
Alcohol and Health: Despite the controversy, abstinent countries have the biggest health problems
Alcohol and Health: Controversy Continues. Nigel Barber. Psychology Today, Mar 21 2019. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-human-beast/201903/alcohol-and-health-controversy-continues
Abstinent countries have the biggest health problems.
Excerpts:
We often hear how many people die of alcohol-related diseases. Such research considers the only pathology and ignores the possibility that alcohol has health benefits. Such benefits appear to be enjoyed mainly by the affluent.
In an earlier post, I argued that very damaging drug use is selected against. The best example of this is the phenomenon of genetic alcohol intolerance in Asian populations that had been bedeviled by excessive alcohol use thanks to the easy availability of homemade rice wine (1).
Learning also matters. Tobacco use declines via social learning once its adverse health effects become widely known (2). Why would so many people drink alcohol if it is so bad for health?
Alcohol Use and Adaptation
Alcohol is consumed in most countries and by over 40 percent of the population in countries around the world. Recent research, published in Lancet, found that any level of alcohol consumption increases morbidity and mortality from alcohol-related diseases.
Many scholars argue that this is another case of human behavior going badly off the rails in modern societies that are very different from ancestral environments to which we are supposedly adapted (2).
Yet, this picture of human limitations may be excessively bleak. Humans and other mammals are a great deal more adaptable to their current environments than this approach suggests. Moose growing up in locations where wolves are extinct loose all fear of their ancestral arch enemy.
Humans are more flexible than other species and quickly learn to avoid foods and drugs that are harmful, including highly addictive drugs such as tobacco (2).
Alcohol has complex health effects and there may not be a simple linear effect of increasing alcohol consumption undermining health as the Lancet study concludes.
The U-shaped Function
Research on cardiovascular disease found that there is a U-shaped relationship between illness and alcohol consumption (3). This means that people who drink unusually little have worse health than those who consume a moderate amount whereas heavy consumption is associated with a heavy health cost.
These findings are inconsistent with the conclusion that alcohol in any amount is harmful.
Yet, there is a way in which the contradiction could be resolved. Even if alcohol is always toxic, its use in moderate amounts could have beneficial effects for health if (a) it facilitates social interactions and thereby reduces isolation and increases bonding and social support and (b) the beneficial consequences outweigh the toxicity costs.
Hence wealthy people consume more alcohol than average but also enjoy much better health and longevity than poorer segments of the population.
Abstinent countries have the biggest health problems.
Excerpts:
We often hear how many people die of alcohol-related diseases. Such research considers the only pathology and ignores the possibility that alcohol has health benefits. Such benefits appear to be enjoyed mainly by the affluent.
In an earlier post, I argued that very damaging drug use is selected against. The best example of this is the phenomenon of genetic alcohol intolerance in Asian populations that had been bedeviled by excessive alcohol use thanks to the easy availability of homemade rice wine (1).
Learning also matters. Tobacco use declines via social learning once its adverse health effects become widely known (2). Why would so many people drink alcohol if it is so bad for health?
Alcohol Use and Adaptation
Alcohol is consumed in most countries and by over 40 percent of the population in countries around the world. Recent research, published in Lancet, found that any level of alcohol consumption increases morbidity and mortality from alcohol-related diseases.
Many scholars argue that this is another case of human behavior going badly off the rails in modern societies that are very different from ancestral environments to which we are supposedly adapted (2).
Yet, this picture of human limitations may be excessively bleak. Humans and other mammals are a great deal more adaptable to their current environments than this approach suggests. Moose growing up in locations where wolves are extinct loose all fear of their ancestral arch enemy.
Humans are more flexible than other species and quickly learn to avoid foods and drugs that are harmful, including highly addictive drugs such as tobacco (2).
Alcohol has complex health effects and there may not be a simple linear effect of increasing alcohol consumption undermining health as the Lancet study concludes.
The U-shaped Function
Research on cardiovascular disease found that there is a U-shaped relationship between illness and alcohol consumption (3). This means that people who drink unusually little have worse health than those who consume a moderate amount whereas heavy consumption is associated with a heavy health cost.
These findings are inconsistent with the conclusion that alcohol in any amount is harmful.
Yet, there is a way in which the contradiction could be resolved. Even if alcohol is always toxic, its use in moderate amounts could have beneficial effects for health if (a) it facilitates social interactions and thereby reduces isolation and increases bonding and social support and (b) the beneficial consequences outweigh the toxicity costs.
Hence wealthy people consume more alcohol than average but also enjoy much better health and longevity than poorer segments of the population.
Who Is Prejudiced, and Toward Whom? The Big Five Traits and Generalized Prejudice
Who Is Prejudiced, and Toward Whom? The Big Five Traits and Generalized Prejudice. Jarret T. Crawford, Mark J. Brandt. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, March 21, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219832335
Abstract: Meta-analyses show that low levels of Openness and Agreeableness correlate with generalized prejudice. However, previous studies narrowly assessed prejudice toward low-status, disadvantaged groups. Using a broad operationalization of generalized prejudice toward a heterogeneous array of targets, we sought to answer two questions: (a) Are some types of people prejudiced against most types of groups? and (b) Are some types of people prejudiced against certain types of groups? Across four samples (N = 7,543), Openness was very weakly related to broad generalized prejudice, r = −.03, 95% confidence interval (CI) [−.07, −.001], whereas low Agreeableness was reliably associated with broad generalized prejudice, r = −.23, 95% CI [−.31, −.16]. When target characteristics moderated relationships between Big Five traits and prejudice, they implied that perceiver–target dissimilarity on personality traits explains prejudice. Importantly, the relationship between Agreeableness and prejudice remained robust across target groups, suggesting it is the personality trait orienting people toward (dis)liking of others.
Keywords: Big Five, agreeableness, openness, prejudice, generalized prejudice
Abstract: Meta-analyses show that low levels of Openness and Agreeableness correlate with generalized prejudice. However, previous studies narrowly assessed prejudice toward low-status, disadvantaged groups. Using a broad operationalization of generalized prejudice toward a heterogeneous array of targets, we sought to answer two questions: (a) Are some types of people prejudiced against most types of groups? and (b) Are some types of people prejudiced against certain types of groups? Across four samples (N = 7,543), Openness was very weakly related to broad generalized prejudice, r = −.03, 95% confidence interval (CI) [−.07, −.001], whereas low Agreeableness was reliably associated with broad generalized prejudice, r = −.23, 95% CI [−.31, −.16]. When target characteristics moderated relationships between Big Five traits and prejudice, they implied that perceiver–target dissimilarity on personality traits explains prejudice. Importantly, the relationship between Agreeableness and prejudice remained robust across target groups, suggesting it is the personality trait orienting people toward (dis)liking of others.
Keywords: Big Five, agreeableness, openness, prejudice, generalized prejudice
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Humans Trust Central Vision More Than Peripheral Vision Even in the Dark: humans have a default preference for information from the fovea even if this information is not veridical; filling-in precedes the estimation of confidence
Humans Trust Central Vision More Than Peripheral Vision Even in the Dark. Alejandro H.Gloriani, Alexander C.Schütz. Current Biology, March 21 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.02.023
Highlights
• Veridical information from the fovea is preferred under photopic viewing
• Information missing in the scotopic foveal scotoma is filled in from the surround
• Inferred information from the fovea is preferred under scotopic viewing
• Content and properties of the foveal scotopic scotoma are hidden from awareness
Summary: Two types of photoreceptors in the human retina support vision across a wide range of luminances: cones are active under bright daylight illumination (photopic viewing) and rods under dim illumination at night (scotopic viewing). These photoreceptors are distributed inhomogeneously across the retina [1]: cone-receptor density peaks at the center of the visual field (i.e., the fovea) and declines toward the periphery, allowing for high-acuity vision at the fovea in daylight. Rod receptors are absent from the fovea, leading to a functional foveal scotoma in night vision. In order to make optimal perceptual decisions, the visual system requires knowledge about its own properties and the relative reliability of signals arriving from different parts of the visual field [2]. Since cone and rod signals converge on the same pathways [3], and their cortical processing is similar except for the foveal scotoma [4], it is unclear if humans can take into account the differences between scotopic and photopic vision when making perceptual decisions. Here, we show that the scotopic foveal scotoma is filled in with information from the immediate surround and that humans trust this inferred information more than veridical information from the periphery of the visual field. We observed a similar preference under daylight illumination, indicating that humans have a default preference for information from the fovea even if this information is not veridical, like in night vision. This suggests that filling-in precedes the estimation of confidence, thereby shielding awareness from the foveal scotoma with respect to its contents and its properties.
---
Discussion
We investigated perceptual decision making under scotopic and photopic viewing. In two experiments, we found that a stimulus with a discontinuity in the scotopic foveal scotoma appeared as continuous, providing evidence for perceptual filling-in of the scotoma. We also found that observers preferred information from central vision, even when it was not veridical under scotopic viewing. This general preference for central vision indicates that humans are not aware of their scotopic foveal scotoma and that it is not taken into account for perceptual decision making.
Under daylight illumination, basic perceptual measures, such as acuity [13] or contrast sensitivity [14], peak at the fovea and decline in the periphery. In addition, the periphery is more vulnerable to crowding—i.e., spatial interference between neighboring elements [15]. Preferring information from central vision might be, therefore, a sensible strategy for decision making under ambiguity in photopic vision. This interpretation is supported by other foveal biases in photopic vision: stimuli with temporal and spatial uncertainty tend to be mislocalized toward the fovea [16], foveal brightness is extrapolated into the periphery [17], peripheral appearance is influenced by predicted foveal appearance [18, 19], and transsaccadic feature integration shows some overweighting of foveal information [20, 21]. However, the observed perceptual bias is not a useful strategy for scotopic vision, where the fovea does not contribute veridical information. Nevertheless, our finding is consistent with other perceptual phenomena where vision in the light and the dark is not calibrated well: perceived speed is underestimated in the dark [22], and the perception of white seems to require signals from cones [23]. Our results are at odds with a recent comparison of photopic and scotopic visual search [24], where eye movement statistics are affected by lighting condition in a qualitatively similar way as an ideal searcher [25], which has knowledge about the scotopic foveal scotoma. These divergent findings could point toward a general dissociation that the scotopic foveal scotoma is taken into account in eye movement control, but not in perceptual decision making. Alternatively, the divergent findings might be caused by different opportunities for learning in the two experimental paradigms. In the visual search task, observers experienced with every eye movement how visual input in the fovea and the periphery relate to each other and therefore had the opportunity to acquire the appropriate weighting of foveal and peripheral information. In the perceptual decision task of the current study, observers never experienced the same stimulus in the fovea and the periphery and therefore could not acquire the appropriate weighting during the experiment.
There are at least two ways how the perceptual bias could be caused in scotopic vision: first, the brain might use a simple heuristic that information from the fovea is more reliable than from the periphery and apply this heuristic to photopic and scotopic vision alike. However, a simple heuristic is unlikely, because humans can estimate uncertainty based on their actual perceptual performance instead of using simple cues, such as contrast or eccentricity in photopic vision [26]. Second, confidence might be assessed for each stimulus individually also in scotopic vision. In this case, our finding that biases in photopic and scotopic vision were similar, suggesting that confidence is assessed at a level of processing where information about the originating photoreceptor type is lost and perceptual filling-in is completed. Such a dissociation is quite likely, because rod and cone photoreceptors converge on the same pathways at the level of retinal ganglion cells [27, 28] and filling-in is preattentive [29] and takes place in visual cortex [9], while confidence in contrast seems to be represented only further downstream in parietal [30] and prefrontal cortex [31] and the striatum [32].
Several basic properties of visual processing, such as pupil size [33] or photoreceptor sensitivity [34], are directly adjusted to the light level during dark adaptation. Our results show that this is not the case for the relative weighting of foveal and peripheral information in perceptual decision making. However, other properties, such as rod-cone interactions [35] or spontaneous cortical activity [36], are controlled by a circadian rhythm rather than by light level. Since our measurements were taken during the day, it is possible that the relative weighting of foveal and peripheral information is also controlled by a circadian rhythm. In this case, the bias for foveal information should be reduced or even reversed at night but possibly in the same way for both scotopic and photopic viewing.
While there are only few and contradictory studies about filling-in of the scotopic foveal scotoma [6, 7, 10], more is known about filling-in at the blind-spot, where photoreceptors are absent because the axons of the ganglion cells exit the eye ball. Here, even complex visual patterns can be filled in from the surround [29], and humans are overconfident for this filled-in information [5]. Filling-in has also been observed for scotomata in the fovea caused by macular disease [37], and these patients need to acquire a new preferred retinal locus for fixation [38]. Our finding of a general preference for foveal information, irrespective of whether it is veridical or not, suggests that preferences in perceptual decision making might not necessarily shift to the preferred retinal locus in those patients, leading to suboptimal perceptual decisions.
Highlights
• Veridical information from the fovea is preferred under photopic viewing
• Information missing in the scotopic foveal scotoma is filled in from the surround
• Inferred information from the fovea is preferred under scotopic viewing
• Content and properties of the foveal scotopic scotoma are hidden from awareness
Summary: Two types of photoreceptors in the human retina support vision across a wide range of luminances: cones are active under bright daylight illumination (photopic viewing) and rods under dim illumination at night (scotopic viewing). These photoreceptors are distributed inhomogeneously across the retina [1]: cone-receptor density peaks at the center of the visual field (i.e., the fovea) and declines toward the periphery, allowing for high-acuity vision at the fovea in daylight. Rod receptors are absent from the fovea, leading to a functional foveal scotoma in night vision. In order to make optimal perceptual decisions, the visual system requires knowledge about its own properties and the relative reliability of signals arriving from different parts of the visual field [2]. Since cone and rod signals converge on the same pathways [3], and their cortical processing is similar except for the foveal scotoma [4], it is unclear if humans can take into account the differences between scotopic and photopic vision when making perceptual decisions. Here, we show that the scotopic foveal scotoma is filled in with information from the immediate surround and that humans trust this inferred information more than veridical information from the periphery of the visual field. We observed a similar preference under daylight illumination, indicating that humans have a default preference for information from the fovea even if this information is not veridical, like in night vision. This suggests that filling-in precedes the estimation of confidence, thereby shielding awareness from the foveal scotoma with respect to its contents and its properties.
---
Discussion
We investigated perceptual decision making under scotopic and photopic viewing. In two experiments, we found that a stimulus with a discontinuity in the scotopic foveal scotoma appeared as continuous, providing evidence for perceptual filling-in of the scotoma. We also found that observers preferred information from central vision, even when it was not veridical under scotopic viewing. This general preference for central vision indicates that humans are not aware of their scotopic foveal scotoma and that it is not taken into account for perceptual decision making.
Under daylight illumination, basic perceptual measures, such as acuity [13] or contrast sensitivity [14], peak at the fovea and decline in the periphery. In addition, the periphery is more vulnerable to crowding—i.e., spatial interference between neighboring elements [15]. Preferring information from central vision might be, therefore, a sensible strategy for decision making under ambiguity in photopic vision. This interpretation is supported by other foveal biases in photopic vision: stimuli with temporal and spatial uncertainty tend to be mislocalized toward the fovea [16], foveal brightness is extrapolated into the periphery [17], peripheral appearance is influenced by predicted foveal appearance [18, 19], and transsaccadic feature integration shows some overweighting of foveal information [20, 21]. However, the observed perceptual bias is not a useful strategy for scotopic vision, where the fovea does not contribute veridical information. Nevertheless, our finding is consistent with other perceptual phenomena where vision in the light and the dark is not calibrated well: perceived speed is underestimated in the dark [22], and the perception of white seems to require signals from cones [23]. Our results are at odds with a recent comparison of photopic and scotopic visual search [24], where eye movement statistics are affected by lighting condition in a qualitatively similar way as an ideal searcher [25], which has knowledge about the scotopic foveal scotoma. These divergent findings could point toward a general dissociation that the scotopic foveal scotoma is taken into account in eye movement control, but not in perceptual decision making. Alternatively, the divergent findings might be caused by different opportunities for learning in the two experimental paradigms. In the visual search task, observers experienced with every eye movement how visual input in the fovea and the periphery relate to each other and therefore had the opportunity to acquire the appropriate weighting of foveal and peripheral information. In the perceptual decision task of the current study, observers never experienced the same stimulus in the fovea and the periphery and therefore could not acquire the appropriate weighting during the experiment.
There are at least two ways how the perceptual bias could be caused in scotopic vision: first, the brain might use a simple heuristic that information from the fovea is more reliable than from the periphery and apply this heuristic to photopic and scotopic vision alike. However, a simple heuristic is unlikely, because humans can estimate uncertainty based on their actual perceptual performance instead of using simple cues, such as contrast or eccentricity in photopic vision [26]. Second, confidence might be assessed for each stimulus individually also in scotopic vision. In this case, our finding that biases in photopic and scotopic vision were similar, suggesting that confidence is assessed at a level of processing where information about the originating photoreceptor type is lost and perceptual filling-in is completed. Such a dissociation is quite likely, because rod and cone photoreceptors converge on the same pathways at the level of retinal ganglion cells [27, 28] and filling-in is preattentive [29] and takes place in visual cortex [9], while confidence in contrast seems to be represented only further downstream in parietal [30] and prefrontal cortex [31] and the striatum [32].
Several basic properties of visual processing, such as pupil size [33] or photoreceptor sensitivity [34], are directly adjusted to the light level during dark adaptation. Our results show that this is not the case for the relative weighting of foveal and peripheral information in perceptual decision making. However, other properties, such as rod-cone interactions [35] or spontaneous cortical activity [36], are controlled by a circadian rhythm rather than by light level. Since our measurements were taken during the day, it is possible that the relative weighting of foveal and peripheral information is also controlled by a circadian rhythm. In this case, the bias for foveal information should be reduced or even reversed at night but possibly in the same way for both scotopic and photopic viewing.
While there are only few and contradictory studies about filling-in of the scotopic foveal scotoma [6, 7, 10], more is known about filling-in at the blind-spot, where photoreceptors are absent because the axons of the ganglion cells exit the eye ball. Here, even complex visual patterns can be filled in from the surround [29], and humans are overconfident for this filled-in information [5]. Filling-in has also been observed for scotomata in the fovea caused by macular disease [37], and these patients need to acquire a new preferred retinal locus for fixation [38]. Our finding of a general preference for foveal information, irrespective of whether it is veridical or not, suggests that preferences in perceptual decision making might not necessarily shift to the preferred retinal locus in those patients, leading to suboptimal perceptual decisions.
Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history
Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history. Harvey Whitehouse, Pieter François, Patrick E. Savage, Thomas E. Currie, Kevin C. Feeney, Enrico Cioni, Rosalind Purcell, Robert M. Ross, Jennifer Larson, John Baines, Barend ter Haar, Alan Covey & Peter Turchin. Nature, Mar 20 2019. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1043-4
Abstract: The origins of religion and of complex societies represent evolutionary puzzles1–8. The ‘moralizing gods’ hypothesis offers a solution to both puzzles by proposing that belief in morally concerned supernatural agents culturally evolved to facilitate cooperation among strangers in large-scale societies9–13. Although previous research has suggested an association between the presence of moralizing gods and social complexity3,6,7,9–18, the relationship between the two is disputed9–13,19–24, and attempts to establish causality have been hampered by limitations in the availability of detailed global longitudinal data. To overcome these limitations, here we systematically coded records from 414 societies that span the past 10,000 years from 30 regions around the world, using 51 measures of social complexity and 4 measures of supernatural enforcement of morality. Our analyses not only confirm the association between moralizing gods and social complexity, but also reveal that moralizing gods follow—rather than precede—large increases in social complexity. Contrary to previous predictions9,12,16,18, powerful moralizing ‘big gods’ and prosocial supernatural punishment tend to appear only after the emergence of ‘megasocieties’ with populations of more than around one million people. Moralizing gods are not a prerequisite for the evolution of social complexity, but they may help to sustain and expand complex multi-ethnic empires after they have become established. By contrast, rituals that facilitate the standardization of religious traditions across large populations25,26 generally precede the appearance of moralizing gods. This suggests that ritual practices were more important than the particular content of religious belief to the initial rise of social complexity.
---
Supernatural agents that punish direct affronts to themselves (for
example, failure to perform sacrifices or observe taboos) are commonly
represented in global history, but rarely are such deities believed to
punish moral violations in interactions between humans
2
. Recent mil-
lennia, however, have seen the rise and spread of several ‘prosocial
religions’, which include either powerful ‘moralizing high gods’ (MHG;
for example, the Abrahamic God) or more general ‘broad supernatu-
ral punishment’ (BSP) of moral transgressions (for example, karma in
Buddhism)
9,12,16–18
. Such moralizing gods may have provided a crucial
mechanism for overcoming the classic free-rider problem in large-scale
societies
11
. The association between moralizing gods and complex
societies has been supported by two forms of evidence: psychological
experiments
3,6,27,28
and cross-cultural comparative analyses
7,11,14–18,20
.
The contributions of theistic beliefs to cooperation, as well as the his-
torical question of whether moralizing gods precede or follow the estab-
lishment of large-scale cooperation, have been much debated
9,10,12,23,24
.
Three recent studies that explicitly model temporal causality have come
to contrasting conclusions. One study, which applied phylogenetic
comparative methods to infer historical changes in Austronesian reli-
gions, reported that moralizing gods (BSP but not MHG) preceded the
evolution of complex societies
16
. The same conclusion was reached
in an analysis of historical and archaeological data from Viking-age
Scandinavia
18
. By contrast, another study of Eurasian empires has
reported that moralizing gods followed—rather than preceded—the
rise of complex, affluent societies
20
. However, all of these studies are
restricted in geographical scope and use proxies for social complexity
that the authors themselves concede are ‘very crude’
20
(for example,
thebinary classification of societies as ofeither high or low complexity).
To overcome these limitations, we used ‘Seshat: Global History
Databank’
29
,a repository of standardized data on social structure, reli-
gion and other domains for hundreds of societies throughout world his-
tory. In contrast to other databases that attempt to model history using
contemporary ethnographic data, Seshat directly samples over time as
well as space. Seshat also includes estimates of expert disagreement and
uncertainty, and uses more-detailed variables than many databases.
To test the moralizing gods hypothesis, we coded data on 55var-
iables from 414polities (independent political units) that occupied
30geographical regions from the beginning of the Neolithic period
to the beginning of Industrial and/or colonial periods (Fig.1 and
Supplementary Data). We used a recently developed and validated
measure of social complexity thatcondenses 51social complexity
variables (Extended Data Table5) into a single principal component
thatcaptures three quarters of the observed variation, which we call
‘social complexity’
8
. The remaining four variables were selected to test
the MHG and BSP subtypes of the moralizing gods hypothesis. The
MHG variable was coded following the MHG variable used as stand-
ardin the literature on this topic
11,14–17,30
, whichrequires that a high
god who created and/or governs the cosmos actively enforces human
morality. Because the concept of morality is complex, multidimensional
and in some respects culturally relative—and because not all moralizing
gods are ‘high gods’—we also coded three different variables related to
BSP that are specifically relevant to prosocial cooperation: reciprocity,
fairness and in-group loyalty. For analysis, these three variables were
combined into a single BSP variable. TheMethods, Supplementary
Information and http://seshatdatabank.info/methods/codebook pro-
vide further methodological details, definitions and justifications,
including adiscussion of the relationship between MHG, BSP and big
gods.
Figure1 and Extended Data Table1 show the temporal and geo-
graphical distribution of the appearance of moralizing gods in our
sample. Although societies in all 30regions possessed beliefs about
appeasing supernatural agents through the performance of rituals, in 10
out of the 30regions, there was no evidence for moralizing gods before
their introduction under colonial powers. The remaining 20regions displayed a diverse range of 15different systems of belief in moraliz-
ing gods: in some, the first evidence of moralizing gods came in the
form of MHG and in others it came in the form of BSP (Extended
Data Table1). The first appearance of moralizing gods in our sample
was in Egypt, where the concept of supernatural enforcement of
Maat (order) is attested by the Second Dynasty, around 2800. This
was followed by sporadic appearances in local religions throughout
Eurasia (Mesopotamia (around 2200), Anatolia (around 1500)
and China (around 1000)) before the wider spread of transnational
religions began during the first millennium with Zoroastrianism
and Buddhism, followed later by Christianity and Islam. Although
Christianity and Islam would eventually become the most widespread
religions, local forms of moralizing gods were present well before they
arrived in most regions (for example, Roman gods were believed to
punish oath-breaking from as early as 500, almost a millennium
before Christianity was adopted as the official Roman religion). The
diverse range of religious systems represented in our global sample
makes it possible to draw more general conclusions about religion than
have previously been possible.
Although our sampling scheme reduces non-independence, our
polities still cannot be considered statistically independent because
of the historical relationships among them. We controlled for these
using a logistic regression model to account for temporal, geographi-
cal and cultural dependencies in the global distribution of moralizing
gods (seeMethods). This analysis revealed that social complexity was
a stronger predictor of moralizing gods than temporal, geographical or
linguistic relationships, and remained highly significant even after con-
trolling for these relationships (z=6.8, degrees of freedom (d.f.)=800,
P<1×10
−11
; Extended Data Table2), conceptually replicating pre-
vious studies
7,11,14,15
.
The moralizing gods hypothesis posits a ‘statistical causal relation-
ship’
10
in which moralizing gods facilitate the evolution of complex
societies
9,12,16–18
. This indicates that, on average, social complexity
should increase more rapidly following the appearance of moralizing
gods. To test this prediction, we conducted time-series analyses of the
12regions for which social complexity data were available both before
and after the appearance of moralizing gods (Fig.2, Extended Data
Table1 and Extended Data Fig.1). Notably, average rates of increase
of social complexity were over five times greater before—not after—
the appearance of moralizing gods (paired t-test, t=−6.6, d.f.=199,
P<1×10
−9
; Fig.2). This trend was significant both globally and
individually for 10 out of the 12regional time-series analyses (Extended
Data Table1 and Extended Data Fig.1). None of these 12regions dis-
played a significantly greater rate of increase in social complexity after
the appearance of moralizing gods than before. Robustness analyses
showed that our primary finding of higher rates of increasing social
complexity before the appearance of moralizing gods was present
regardless of the type of moralizing gods (MHG or BSP), the choice of
variables used to estimate social complexity, uncertainty in the timing
of appearance of moralizing gods, or the time windows used to estimate
rates of change in social complexity (Extended Data Table4).
In summary, although our analyses are consistent with previous stud-
ies that show an association between moralizing gods and complex
societies
7,11,14–18,30
, we find that moralizing gods usually follow—rather
than precede—the rise of social complexity. Notably, most societies that
exceeded a certain social complexity threshold developed a conception
of moralizing gods. Specifically, in 10 out of the 12regions analysed,
the transition to moralizing gods came within 100years of exceeding a
social complexity value of 0.6 (which we call a megasociety, as it corre-
sponds roughly to a population in the order of one million; Extended
Data Fig.1). This megasociety threshold does not seem to correspond
to the point at which societies develop writing, which might have sug-
gested that moralizing gods were present earlier but were not preserved
archaeologically. Although we cannot rule out this possibility, the fact
that written records preceded the development of moralizing gods in
9 out of the 12regions analysed (by an average period of 400years;
Supplementary Table2)—combined with the fact that evidence for
moralizing gods is lacking in the majority of non-literate societies
2
—
suggests that such beliefs were not widespread before the invention
of writing. The few small-scale societies that did display precolonial
evidence of moralizing gods came from regions that had previously
been used to support the claim that moralizing gods contributed to the
rise of social complexity (Austronesia
16
and Iceland
18
), whichsuggests
that such regions are the exception rather than the rule.
Conversely, of the societies in the tenregions that did not develop
precolonial moralizing gods, only one exceeded the megasociety
threshold (the short-lived Inca Empire, social complexity=0.61).
This suggests that, even if moralizing gods do not cause the evolution
of complex societies, they may represent a cultural adaptation that is
necessary to maintain cooperation in such societies once they have
exceeded a certain size, perhaps owing to the need to subject diverse
populations in multi-ethnic empires to a common higher-level power
9
.
This may explain why moralizing gods spread when large empires con-
quer smaller—but still complex—societies (for example, the Spanish
conquest of the Incas). In some cases, moralizing doctrines may have
helped to stabilize empires, while also limiting further expansion;for
example, when emperor Ashoka adopted Buddhism and renounced
war following his final conquest of the Kalinga Kingdom that estab-
lished the maximum extent of the Mauryan empire.
Although our results do not support the view that moralizing gods
were necessary for the rise of complex societies, they also do not
support a leading alternative hypothesis that moralizing gods only
emerged as a byproduct of a sudden increase in affluence during a
first millennium ‘Axial Age’
19–22
. Instead, in three of our regions
(Egypt, Mesopotamia and Anatolia), moralizing gods appeared before
1500. We propose thatthe standardization of beliefs and practices
via high-frequency repetition and enforcement by religious authorities
enabled the unification of large populations for the first time, establish-
ing common identities across states and empires
25,26
. Our data show
that doctrinal rituals standardized by routinization (that is, those per-
formed weekly or daily) or institutionalized policing (religions with
multiple hierarchical levels) significantly predate moralizing gods, by an
average of 1,100years (t=2.8, d.f.=11, P=0.018; Fig.2a). Doctrinal
rituals precede moralizing gods in 9 out of the 12regions analysed,
and even precede written records in 6 of these cases (by as much as
4,000years in the case of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia; see Supplementary
Table2). Although analyses of rates of change of social complex-
ity before and after the appearance of doctrinal rituals do not offer
conclusive support for the hypothesis that doctrinal rituals facilitate
increasing social complexity (Extended Data Table3), these data do at
least suggest that doctrinal rituals led to the establishment of large-scale
religious identities. In the future, higher-quality and higher-resolution
archaeological data may allow for a more nuanced understanding of
the timing and possible coevolution of the rise of doctrinal rituals and
moralizing gods. Such data appear unlikely to affect our primary claim
that complex societies preceded moralizing gods, but this is an empiri-
cal question open to future testing.
We demonstrate how quantifying cultural characteristics of past
societies can contribute to longstanding debates about the evolution
of social complexity. Our results suggest that belief in moralizing gods
was not the only or even the main factor that enabled the expansion
of human societies, but may have occurred along with other features
of ritual practices and religion to facilitate cooperation in increasingly
complex social systems. In particular, an increase in ritual frequency
and doctrinal control may have facilitated the establishment of large-
scale collective identities before the spread of beliefs in moralizing
gods. Thus, when it comes to the initial rise of social complexity, how
you worship may ultimately have been more important than who you
worship.
Abstract: The origins of religion and of complex societies represent evolutionary puzzles1–8. The ‘moralizing gods’ hypothesis offers a solution to both puzzles by proposing that belief in morally concerned supernatural agents culturally evolved to facilitate cooperation among strangers in large-scale societies9–13. Although previous research has suggested an association between the presence of moralizing gods and social complexity3,6,7,9–18, the relationship between the two is disputed9–13,19–24, and attempts to establish causality have been hampered by limitations in the availability of detailed global longitudinal data. To overcome these limitations, here we systematically coded records from 414 societies that span the past 10,000 years from 30 regions around the world, using 51 measures of social complexity and 4 measures of supernatural enforcement of morality. Our analyses not only confirm the association between moralizing gods and social complexity, but also reveal that moralizing gods follow—rather than precede—large increases in social complexity. Contrary to previous predictions9,12,16,18, powerful moralizing ‘big gods’ and prosocial supernatural punishment tend to appear only after the emergence of ‘megasocieties’ with populations of more than around one million people. Moralizing gods are not a prerequisite for the evolution of social complexity, but they may help to sustain and expand complex multi-ethnic empires after they have become established. By contrast, rituals that facilitate the standardization of religious traditions across large populations25,26 generally precede the appearance of moralizing gods. This suggests that ritual practices were more important than the particular content of religious belief to the initial rise of social complexity.
---
Supernatural agents that punish direct affronts to themselves (for
example, failure to perform sacrifices or observe taboos) are commonly
represented in global history, but rarely are such deities believed to
punish moral violations in interactions between humans
2
. Recent mil-
lennia, however, have seen the rise and spread of several ‘prosocial
religions’, which include either powerful ‘moralizing high gods’ (MHG;
for example, the Abrahamic God) or more general ‘broad supernatu-
ral punishment’ (BSP) of moral transgressions (for example, karma in
Buddhism)
9,12,16–18
. Such moralizing gods may have provided a crucial
mechanism for overcoming the classic free-rider problem in large-scale
societies
11
. The association between moralizing gods and complex
societies has been supported by two forms of evidence: psychological
experiments
3,6,27,28
and cross-cultural comparative analyses
7,11,14–18,20
.
The contributions of theistic beliefs to cooperation, as well as the his-
torical question of whether moralizing gods precede or follow the estab-
lishment of large-scale cooperation, have been much debated
9,10,12,23,24
.
Three recent studies that explicitly model temporal causality have come
to contrasting conclusions. One study, which applied phylogenetic
comparative methods to infer historical changes in Austronesian reli-
gions, reported that moralizing gods (BSP but not MHG) preceded the
evolution of complex societies
16
. The same conclusion was reached
in an analysis of historical and archaeological data from Viking-age
Scandinavia
18
. By contrast, another study of Eurasian empires has
reported that moralizing gods followed—rather than preceded—the
rise of complex, affluent societies
20
. However, all of these studies are
restricted in geographical scope and use proxies for social complexity
that the authors themselves concede are ‘very crude’
20
(for example,
thebinary classification of societies as ofeither high or low complexity).
To overcome these limitations, we used ‘Seshat: Global History
Databank’
29
,a repository of standardized data on social structure, reli-
gion and other domains for hundreds of societies throughout world his-
tory. In contrast to other databases that attempt to model history using
contemporary ethnographic data, Seshat directly samples over time as
well as space. Seshat also includes estimates of expert disagreement and
uncertainty, and uses more-detailed variables than many databases.
To test the moralizing gods hypothesis, we coded data on 55var-
iables from 414polities (independent political units) that occupied
30geographical regions from the beginning of the Neolithic period
to the beginning of Industrial and/or colonial periods (Fig.1 and
Supplementary Data). We used a recently developed and validated
measure of social complexity thatcondenses 51social complexity
variables (Extended Data Table5) into a single principal component
thatcaptures three quarters of the observed variation, which we call
‘social complexity’
8
. The remaining four variables were selected to test
the MHG and BSP subtypes of the moralizing gods hypothesis. The
MHG variable was coded following the MHG variable used as stand-
ardin the literature on this topic
11,14–17,30
, whichrequires that a high
god who created and/or governs the cosmos actively enforces human
morality. Because the concept of morality is complex, multidimensional
and in some respects culturally relative—and because not all moralizing
gods are ‘high gods’—we also coded three different variables related to
BSP that are specifically relevant to prosocial cooperation: reciprocity,
fairness and in-group loyalty. For analysis, these three variables were
combined into a single BSP variable. TheMethods, Supplementary
Information and http://seshatdatabank.info/methods/codebook pro-
vide further methodological details, definitions and justifications,
including adiscussion of the relationship between MHG, BSP and big
gods.
Figure1 and Extended Data Table1 show the temporal and geo-
graphical distribution of the appearance of moralizing gods in our
sample. Although societies in all 30regions possessed beliefs about
appeasing supernatural agents through the performance of rituals, in 10
out of the 30regions, there was no evidence for moralizing gods before
their introduction under colonial powers. The remaining 20regions displayed a diverse range of 15different systems of belief in moraliz-
ing gods: in some, the first evidence of moralizing gods came in the
form of MHG and in others it came in the form of BSP (Extended
Data Table1). The first appearance of moralizing gods in our sample
was in Egypt, where the concept of supernatural enforcement of
Maat (order) is attested by the Second Dynasty, around 2800. This
was followed by sporadic appearances in local religions throughout
Eurasia (Mesopotamia (around 2200), Anatolia (around 1500)
and China (around 1000)) before the wider spread of transnational
religions began during the first millennium with Zoroastrianism
and Buddhism, followed later by Christianity and Islam. Although
Christianity and Islam would eventually become the most widespread
religions, local forms of moralizing gods were present well before they
arrived in most regions (for example, Roman gods were believed to
punish oath-breaking from as early as 500, almost a millennium
before Christianity was adopted as the official Roman religion). The
diverse range of religious systems represented in our global sample
makes it possible to draw more general conclusions about religion than
have previously been possible.
Although our sampling scheme reduces non-independence, our
polities still cannot be considered statistically independent because
of the historical relationships among them. We controlled for these
using a logistic regression model to account for temporal, geographi-
cal and cultural dependencies in the global distribution of moralizing
gods (seeMethods). This analysis revealed that social complexity was
a stronger predictor of moralizing gods than temporal, geographical or
linguistic relationships, and remained highly significant even after con-
trolling for these relationships (z=6.8, degrees of freedom (d.f.)=800,
P<1×10
−11
; Extended Data Table2), conceptually replicating pre-
vious studies
7,11,14,15
.
The moralizing gods hypothesis posits a ‘statistical causal relation-
ship’
10
in which moralizing gods facilitate the evolution of complex
societies
9,12,16–18
. This indicates that, on average, social complexity
should increase more rapidly following the appearance of moralizing
gods. To test this prediction, we conducted time-series analyses of the
12regions for which social complexity data were available both before
and after the appearance of moralizing gods (Fig.2, Extended Data
Table1 and Extended Data Fig.1). Notably, average rates of increase
of social complexity were over five times greater before—not after—
the appearance of moralizing gods (paired t-test, t=−6.6, d.f.=199,
P<1×10
−9
; Fig.2). This trend was significant both globally and
individually for 10 out of the 12regional time-series analyses (Extended
Data Table1 and Extended Data Fig.1). None of these 12regions dis-
played a significantly greater rate of increase in social complexity after
the appearance of moralizing gods than before. Robustness analyses
showed that our primary finding of higher rates of increasing social
complexity before the appearance of moralizing gods was present
regardless of the type of moralizing gods (MHG or BSP), the choice of
variables used to estimate social complexity, uncertainty in the timing
of appearance of moralizing gods, or the time windows used to estimate
rates of change in social complexity (Extended Data Table4).
In summary, although our analyses are consistent with previous stud-
ies that show an association between moralizing gods and complex
societies
7,11,14–18,30
, we find that moralizing gods usually follow—rather
than precede—the rise of social complexity. Notably, most societies that
exceeded a certain social complexity threshold developed a conception
of moralizing gods. Specifically, in 10 out of the 12regions analysed,
the transition to moralizing gods came within 100years of exceeding a
social complexity value of 0.6 (which we call a megasociety, as it corre-
sponds roughly to a population in the order of one million; Extended
Data Fig.1). This megasociety threshold does not seem to correspond
to the point at which societies develop writing, which might have sug-
gested that moralizing gods were present earlier but were not preserved
archaeologically. Although we cannot rule out this possibility, the fact
that written records preceded the development of moralizing gods in
9 out of the 12regions analysed (by an average period of 400years;
Supplementary Table2)—combined with the fact that evidence for
moralizing gods is lacking in the majority of non-literate societies
2
—
suggests that such beliefs were not widespread before the invention
of writing. The few small-scale societies that did display precolonial
evidence of moralizing gods came from regions that had previously
been used to support the claim that moralizing gods contributed to the
rise of social complexity (Austronesia
16
and Iceland
18
), whichsuggests
that such regions are the exception rather than the rule.
Conversely, of the societies in the tenregions that did not develop
precolonial moralizing gods, only one exceeded the megasociety
threshold (the short-lived Inca Empire, social complexity=0.61).
This suggests that, even if moralizing gods do not cause the evolution
of complex societies, they may represent a cultural adaptation that is
necessary to maintain cooperation in such societies once they have
exceeded a certain size, perhaps owing to the need to subject diverse
populations in multi-ethnic empires to a common higher-level power
9
.
This may explain why moralizing gods spread when large empires con-
quer smaller—but still complex—societies (for example, the Spanish
conquest of the Incas). In some cases, moralizing doctrines may have
helped to stabilize empires, while also limiting further expansion;for
example, when emperor Ashoka adopted Buddhism and renounced
war following his final conquest of the Kalinga Kingdom that estab-
lished the maximum extent of the Mauryan empire.
Although our results do not support the view that moralizing gods
were necessary for the rise of complex societies, they also do not
support a leading alternative hypothesis that moralizing gods only
emerged as a byproduct of a sudden increase in affluence during a
first millennium ‘Axial Age’
19–22
. Instead, in three of our regions
(Egypt, Mesopotamia and Anatolia), moralizing gods appeared before
1500. We propose thatthe standardization of beliefs and practices
via high-frequency repetition and enforcement by religious authorities
enabled the unification of large populations for the first time, establish-
ing common identities across states and empires
25,26
. Our data show
that doctrinal rituals standardized by routinization (that is, those per-
formed weekly or daily) or institutionalized policing (religions with
multiple hierarchical levels) significantly predate moralizing gods, by an
average of 1,100years (t=2.8, d.f.=11, P=0.018; Fig.2a). Doctrinal
rituals precede moralizing gods in 9 out of the 12regions analysed,
and even precede written records in 6 of these cases (by as much as
4,000years in the case of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia; see Supplementary
Table2). Although analyses of rates of change of social complex-
ity before and after the appearance of doctrinal rituals do not offer
conclusive support for the hypothesis that doctrinal rituals facilitate
increasing social complexity (Extended Data Table3), these data do at
least suggest that doctrinal rituals led to the establishment of large-scale
religious identities. In the future, higher-quality and higher-resolution
archaeological data may allow for a more nuanced understanding of
the timing and possible coevolution of the rise of doctrinal rituals and
moralizing gods. Such data appear unlikely to affect our primary claim
that complex societies preceded moralizing gods, but this is an empiri-
cal question open to future testing.
We demonstrate how quantifying cultural characteristics of past
societies can contribute to longstanding debates about the evolution
of social complexity. Our results suggest that belief in moralizing gods
was not the only or even the main factor that enabled the expansion
of human societies, but may have occurred along with other features
of ritual practices and religion to facilitate cooperation in increasingly
complex social systems. In particular, an increase in ritual frequency
and doctrinal control may have facilitated the establishment of large-
scale collective identities before the spread of beliefs in moralizing
gods. Thus, when it comes to the initial rise of social complexity, how
you worship may ultimately have been more important than who you
worship.
Why the Days Seem Shorter as We Get Older: The ‘mind time’ is a sequence of images; the rate at which changes in mental images are perceived decreases with age
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.
---
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.
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.
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.
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