Mothers’ genetics were associated with children’s attainment over and above children's own genetics, via cognitively stimulating parenting—an environmentally mediated effect

Using DNA From Mothers and Children to Study Parental Investment in Children’s Educational Attainment. Jasmin Wertz et al. Child Development, October 27 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13329

Abstract: This study tested implications of new genetic discoveries for understanding the association between parental investment and children’s educational attainment. A novel design matched genetic data from 860 British mothers and their children with home‐visit measures of parenting: the E‐Risk Study. Three findings emerged. First, both mothers’ and children’s education‐associated genetics, summarized in a genome‐wide polygenic score, were associated with parenting—a gene–environment correlation. Second, accounting for genetic influences slightly reduced associations between parenting and children’s attainment—indicating some genetic confounding. Third, mothers’ genetics were associated with children’s attainment over and above children's own genetics, via cognitively stimulating parenting—an environmentally mediated effect. Findings imply that, when interpreting parents’ effects on children, environmentalists must consider genetic transmission, but geneticists must also consider environmental transmission.

Discussion

The investments parents make to raise their offspring are thought to be a major contributor to children’s educational success, making parental investment a cornerstone of psychological, sociological, and economic models that seek to explain how educational inequalities are created and perpetuated (Cheng, Johnson, & Goodman, 2016; Feinstein, Duckworth, & Sabates, 2004; Kalil, 2015). However, findings from behavioral‐genetic studies have challenged causal interpretations of parental influence by showing genetic influences on parenting; a gene–environment correlation. Here we tested implications of gene–environment correlations for parental investment in children’s educational attainment using a novel design—in a prospective‐longitudinal study, we collected genotype data from both mothers and children and matched these genetic data with home‐visit measures of parenting behavior. We report three main findings.

First, we found evidence for gene–environment correlations. Both mothers’ and children’s education‐associated genetics, summarized in genome‐wide polygenic scores, were associated with the kind of parenting that is known to be linked with children’s later educational success. By collecting genetic data from both mothers and their offspring, we were able to show that different forms of gene–environment correlations operate in the same family, at the same time. Both active and evocative gene–environment correlations were implicated in the cognitive stimulation and the warm, sensitive parenting that children experienced and in the kinds of households (chaotic; safe and tidy) in which children grew up. Second, we found evidence for slight genetic confounding. The estimated effects of mothers’ parenting on children’s educational attainment were significantly reduced after accounting for education‐associated genetics, consistent with a view of genes as confounding part of the link between parenting and child attainment. However, the magnitude of confounding as measured using the polygenic score was small. Third, we found evidence for genetic nurture. Parenting behavior—particularly mothers’ cognitive stimulation of their children—explained why mothers’ genetics were associated with their children’s educational attainment (independently of children's own genetics). This finding extends recent reports of associations between parental genetics and children’s educational attainment (Bates et al., 2018; Belsky et al., 2018; Kong et al., 2018; Liu, 2018) by showing, for the first time, that parents’ education‐associated genetics shape the features of the family environment that predict the next generation’s educational success.

Our findings need to be interpreted in light of several limitations. First, our approach to estimating genetic nurture relies on the assumption that mothers’ and children’s polygenic scores are measured with identical error. To the extent that this assumption is violated, our estimates of genetic nurture could be upwardly or downwardly biased, depending on whether error is greater in mothers’ versus children’s polygenic scores. However, the assumption is probably defensible, because mothers’ and children’s polygenic scores are identical measurements, that is, sums of the same genotypes transformed using the same weights. Second, although the education polygenic score that we used is based on the largest‐ever social science GWAS, a limitation of this GWAS is that it still reflects only a portion of all genetic influences on educational attainment (approximately one third; Lee et al., 2018). To the extent that the polygenic score is an underestimate of the total genetic influence on educational attainment, our estimates of gene–environment correlations, genetic confounding, and possibly genetic nurture are likely to be underestimates of the true effects. At this point, our findings provide “proof‐of‐principle” of these processes, and the implications they raise can continue to be tested as refined polygenic scores become available. Third, we tested genetic confounding and genetic nurture only for children’s educational attainment, not for other child outcomes. We focused on educational attainment because it is a central determinant of future health, wealth, and well‐being (Cutler & Lleras‐Muney, 2010; Hout, 2012; Oreopoulos & Salvanes, 2011), and because the polygenic score for educational attainment is based on the largest GWAS of a social‐behavior phenotype (Lee et al., 2018). As increasingly larger GWAS are conducted for more developmental outcomes, the same design we present here can be used to test genetic confounding and genetic nurture for other outcomes. Fourth, our study members are still young and most of them have not yet completed their final educational degree. Our measure of educational attainment is therefore only a proxy measure. However, UK students’ qualifications obtained by age 18 are good indicators of their educational pathways beyond age 18 (UK Department for Education, 2018). Furthermore, polygenic‐score associations with educational attainment are very similar between our study and studies of adults (Belsky et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2018), and findings of genetic nurture have been observed in studies of adults who have completed their education (Bates et al., 2018; Belsky et al., 2018; Kong et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2018). Fifth, our labeling of correlations between parents’ genetics and parenting as “active gene–environment correlation” may elicit skepticism among some readers, because correlations between genetics and parenting are typically examined from the perspective of the child and are then referred to as “passive” gene–environment correlations. We would argue that a correlation between parents’ genes and parenting qualifies as active gene–environment correlation, which has been defined as a person contributing to their own environment, and actively seeking an environment related to their genetic propensities (Plomin et al., 1977). Specifically, the aspects of parenting we examine—the cognitively stimulating activities that parents and children engage in together; the warmth and sensitivity of the parent–child relationship; the chaos in the household; and the safety and tidiness of the home—all represent environmental exposures for the parent and the child, that are actively created and shaped by parents to match their genetic dispositions. This interpretation of active gene–environment correlation also follows the concept of niche construction in animal ecology, whereby organisms actively modify their own and each others’ environments; for example by building nests for their offspring (Odling‐Smee, Laland, & Feldman, 2003). Sixth, there is a wide variety of measures available to study parenting and our findings may not generalize to all of these other measures. However, we recently reported very similar associations to the ones observed in our study in an independent sample, using measures of parenting that were derived using what some researchers view as the “gold standard” of parenting assessment—observer ratings of videotaped parent–child interactions (Wertz et al., 2019). The replication across two independent cohorts and different measurements of parenting bolsters the substance of our findings. Seventh, we did not have genetic data from fathers, which means that we were unable to control for fathers’ education polygenic scores when estimating associations between mothers’ and children’s education polygenic scores and parenting. To the extent that fathers’ genes are correlated with parenting, the associations we observed in our study may partly reflect effects of fathers’ genetics, because biological fathers’ and children’s genes are correlated (due to genetic inheritance) and because mothers’ and fathers’ genetics may be correlated (due to assortative mating, i.e., the tendency to select partners with characteristics similar to one’s own). Eigth, even though our research is genetically informative, it is still observational, and hence cannot establish causal relationships between genetics, parenting, and children’s educational attainment. What it can do is (a) point to pathways through which genetic influences may contribute to intergenerational transmission; (b) elucidate processes of gene–environment interplay in parenting and child development; (c) shed light on possible developmental and social mechanisms that link parent and child education‐associated genetics with future attainment; and (d) provide an example of how to integrate new genomic discoveries into developmental psychology to study questions relevant to child development. Against this background, we conclude by discussing the implications of our findings about gene–environment correlations, genetic confounding, and genetic nurture for a more thorough understanding of the developmental processes that shape children’s attainment.

Our findings of gene–environment correlation replicate and extend our prior work on genetic associations with parenting (Wertz et al., 2019). We replicated findings from a previous analysis in a New Zealand cohort, in which we showed that parents’ education polygenic scores were associated with the warm, sensitive, stimulating parenting they provided to their children (Wertz et al., 2019). Here we report the same pattern of results in an independent cohort of British mothers, indicating that genetic correlations with parenting are robust against differences in context and measurements of parenting. We extend this prior work by incorporating children’s polygenic scores in our analyses, finding that children’s genetics are associated with the parenting they receive. Together with other recent studies (Dobewall et al., 2018; Krapohl et al., 2017; Selzam et al., 2018), these findings provide molecular‐genetic evidence for a bidirectional model of parent–child relations, in which parenting is partly a response to children’s characteristics (Bell, 1968; Crouter & Booth, 2003; Pardini, 2008; Sameroff, 2010).

Findings of gene–environment correlations with parenting imply that the family environments children experience while growing up are partly a function of their own and their parents’ genetics. For example, we found that children of parents who carried a higher number of education‐associated variants were exposed to greater cognitive stimulation in the home compared to children of parents who carried fewer of these variants. Because biological parents and children share genes, family environments shaped by parents’ genes will tend to match and reinforce children’s genetic dispositions (Knafo & Jaffee, 2013; Scarr & McCartney, 1983; Tucker‐Drob & Harden, 2012). Such a match can positively influence children’s development; for example, when a child with a high education polygenic score is born into a family that provides cognitive stimulation. However, the same match also implies that a children with lower education polygenic scores will tend not to experience exactly the kind of stimulating and supportive parenting that could make a difference for their attainment. Thus, for better and for worse, correlations between genes and environments can reduce the availability of experiences that alter individuals’ developmental trajectories. This also applies to the reproduction of educational success across generations. To the extent that educational outcomes are influenced by genetics, genes will tend to be a force for intergenerational stability in educational attainment, both via direct genetic transmission and via indirect effects of genes on caregiving environments that shape future generations’ behaviors. This tendency means that is it important to improve children’s access to interventions that may be able to break reinforcing links between genes and environments, such as high‐quality early skill‐building programs (Heckman, 2006).

Given how much attention critics of parenting effects devote to the possibility of genetic confounding (Harris, 1998; Rowe, 1993; Sherlock & Zietsch, 2018), it may seem surprising that our estimates of genetic confounding were so small. There are two possible explanations for this finding: either genetics do little to confound associations between parenting and children’s educational attainment, or we have underestimated the true magnitude of genetic confounding. The observation that polygenic‐score associations with educational attainment are substantially lower than heritability estimates of educational attainment (Branigan, McCallum, & Freese, 2013) suggests that our findings underestimate genetic confounding. Currently, even the best and biggest efforts to capture the genetic variants associated with educational attainment are still missing a substantial part of its heritability (Manolio et al., 2009; National Human Genome Research Institute, 2018). Until more of this “missing heritability” can be accounted for at the molecular‐genetic level, the safest way to rule out genetic confounding is to continue to use family‐based designs, such as discordant‐twin designs (McGue, Osler, & Christensen, 2010; Vitaro, Brendgen, & Arseneault, 2009), parent–child adoption designs (Leve et al., 2013) or children‐of‐twin designs (D’Onofrio et al., 2003), that can estimate associations between parenting and children’s educational attainment free from genetic influences shared between parents and children (Turkheimer & Harden, 2014).

Debates about parental influences on children’s development tend to contrast the effects of parents’ genes—assumed to influence children via genetic transmission—with the effects of parenting—assumed to influence children via environmental ways. Our finding of genetic nurture draws a more nuanced picture, by showing that mothers’ genetics were associated with children’s attainment over and above genetic transmission, via parenting. This finding has three implications. First, over and above a persons’ own genetics, their development will be shaped by the genetics of significant others. We demonstrate this here for effects of parents’ genetics on children’s outcomes, but this observation likely extends beyond parents to everyone who creates environments inhabited by people: family members; individuals residing outside the family context, such as peers and partners (Conley et al., 2016; Domingue et al., 2018); even people to whom a child may be exposed to only indirectly, such as the grandparents who raised a child’s parents (Hällsten & Pfeffer, 2017; Kong et al., 2018; Liu, 2018). The existence of a “social genome” broadens the scope of the study of genetics, from an individual’s genes and their effects on an individual’s phenotype, to the genomes of the individuals making up an individual’s social context (Domingue & Belsky, 2017). Second, much has been written about the need to integrate genetics into parenting research and socialization theory, but there is also a need to integrate environments into how we think about and collect genetic data. Correlations between genes and environments are a challenge not only for socialization research, but also for genetics research: Although DNA sequence cannot be modified by the environment, our findings show that environments still pose a threat to causal inference, because associations between a person’s DNA and developmental outcomes may partly reflect effects of environments created through genes of other individuals (Bates et al., 2018; Kong et al., 2018). As much as genetic confounding needs to be considered when estimating environmental effects, “environmental confounding” needs to be taken into account when estimating genetic effects (Krapohl et al., 2017; Young et al., 2018). Third, environments are part of the pathway from genotype to phenotype (Kandler & Zapko‐Willmes, 2017; Scarr & McCartney, 1983). Specifically, we found that genetic influences on children’s educational attainment partly manifested through parenting; an environmentally mediated genetic effect. The finding shows that new GWAS discoveries are not inimical to socialization theories, because these genetics partly work through factors that socialization researchers have studied for decades, such as the home environment. Combining genetic data with measures of individuals’ social environments is key to tracing how genetics affect life outcomes. By joining forces in this way, genetics and socialization researchers will be able to strengthen causal estimates and obtain a more complete understanding of the processes shaping children’s attainments.

Mexican Cartel Wars Fight for the Opioid U.S Market: Homicide rates increase along with the number of active cartels per municipality, with higher increases when a second, third, fourth and fifth cartel become active

Mexican Cartel Wars: Fighting for the Opioid U.S. Market. Fernanda Sobrino. October 25, 2019. https://www.fersobrino.com/files/DraftPaper.pdf

Abstract: The number of major Drug Trafficking Organizations in Mexico increased fromfour to nine over the last two decades. This was accompanied by an increase in drugtrade related violence. This paper examines the relationship between competition and violence in illegal drug markets. In particular, I exploit an external demand shock to the heroin market. The 2010 OxyContin reformulation made the pill harder to abuse and led some opioid abusers to switch to heroin. I construct a novel data set of cartel presence across Mexican municipalities by scraping Google News and using natural language processing. I exploit within municipality variation by combining agro-climatic conditions to grow opium poppy with heroin prices in the United States across time. Event study estimates suggest that cartel presence increases substantially after 2010 in municipalities well suited to grow opium poppy. Homicide rates increase along with the number of active cartels per municipality, with higher increases when a second, third, fourth and fifth cartel become active in the territory. These results suggest that some of the increase in violence that Mexico experienced in the last fifteen years could be attribute to criminal groups fighting for market shares of heroin and not only to changes in government enforcement.

Postnatal depressive symptoms in women display marked similarities across continents

Postnatal depressive symptoms display marked similarities across continents. Rikke Wesselhoeft et al. Journal of Affective Disorders, Volume 261, 15 January 2020, Pages 58-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2019.09.075

Highlights
•    This is the first study to examine postnatal depressive symptoms in women from three continents.
•    There is a cross-continental consistency of postnatal depressive symptoms that contain three factors: anhedonia, anxiety and depression.
•    Postnatal depressive symptoms are associated with low education level across continents.

Abstract
Background: Postnatal depressive symptoms measured by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) are reported to display measurement variance regarding factor structure and the frequency of specific depressive symptoms. However, postnatal depressive symptoms measured by EPDS have not been compared between women representing three continents.

Methods: A cross-sectional study including birth cohort samples from Denmark, Vietnam and Tanzania. Women were included during pregnancy at routine care sites. Depressive symptoms were self-reported 40–90 days postpartum using the EPDS. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and generalized additive regression models were performed.

Results: A total of N = 4,516 participated in the study (Denmark N = 2,069, Vietnam N = 1,278, Tanzania N = 1,169). Factor analyses identified three factors (anhedonia, anxiety and depression) that were almost identical in the three study populations. The only variation between countries was that the item ‘self-harm’ loaded differently. Women from Tanzania and Denmark were more likely to have an EPDS total score above cut-off 12 (12.6% and 6.4%), compared to women from Vietnam (1.9%) (p<0.001). A low level of education was associated with significantly more depressive symptoms after adjusting for country (p<0.001).

Limitations: EPDS data was collected at a later time point in the Danish sample.

Conclusions: Postnatal depressive symptoms constitute a three-factor model across cultures including the factors anhedonia, anxiety and depression. The frequency of postnatal depressive symptoms differs between high-, medium-, and low-income countries. However, clinicians should bear in mind that low-educated women worldwide are more likely to experience postnatal depressive symptoms.

Significant correlations were found between social comparisons made on SNS (i.e., general and upward comparisons) & depression; social comparisons were more strongly related to depression than was time spent there

Is social network site usage related to depression? A meta-analysis of Facebook–depression relations. Sunkyung Yoon et al. Journal of Affective Disorders, Volume 248, 1 April 2019, Pages 65-72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2019.01.026

Highlights
•    Significant correlations between SNS-usage variables (i.e., time spent on social networking sites (SNS) and SNS checking frequency) and depression were found.
•    Significant correlations were found between social comparisons made on SNS (i.e., general and upward comparisons) and depression was found.
•    Social comparisons on SNS were more strongly related to depression than was time spent on SNS.

Abstract
Background: Facebook depression is defined as feeling depressed upon too much exposure to Social networking sites (SNS). Researchers have argued that upward social comparisons made on SNS are the key to the Facebook depression phenomenon. To examine the relations between SNS usage and depression, we conducted 4 separate meta-analyses relating depression to: (1) time spent on SNS, (2) SNS checking frequency, (3) general and (4) upward social comparisons on SNS. We compared the four mean effect sizes in terms of magnitude.

Methods: Our literature search yielded 33 articles with a sample of 15,881 for time spent on SNS, 12 articles with a sample of 8041 for SNS checking frequency, and 5 articles with a sample of 1715 and 2298 for the general and the upward social comparison analyses, respectively.

Results: In both SNS-usage analyses, greater time spent on SNS and frequency of checking SNS were associated with higher levels of depression with a small effect size. Further, higher levels of depression were associated with greater general social comparisons on SNS with a small to medium effect, and greater upward social comparisons on SNS with a medium effect. Both social comparisons on SNS were more strongly related to depression than was time spent on SNS.

Limitations: Limitations include heterogeneity in effect sizes and a small number of samples for social comparison analyses.

Conclusions: Our results are consistent with the notion of ‘Facebook depression phenomenon’ and with the theoretical importance of social comparisons as an explanation.

Costly signaling: The historical and cultural popularity of tattooing may be partly due to honest information tattoos convey about enhanced immune response, similar to physical benefits of exercise

The evolutionary adaptation of body art: Tattooing as costly honest signaling of enhanced immune response in American Samoa. Christopher D. Lynn et al. American Journal of Human Biology, October 26 2019. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23347

Abstract
Background: Tattooing has been practiced globally for thousands of years. From an evolutionary perspective, this tradition seems counterintuitive because it is a dermal injury that risks infection. Previous research indicates tattooing may habituate the immune system for subsequent stress, as with exercise or vaccination, an important benefit in high‐risk areas. Visible injuries through tattooing may be a form of costly honest signaling—consciously or unconsciously drawing attention to immunological quality.

Objectives: We tested this habituation effect of tattooing in American Samoa, where its practice is common and extensive and infectious disease rates high. We hypothesized that people with more tattoo experience would have enhanced immune response related to the stress of being tattooed. We compared total and rate of tattoo experience to determine if tattooing is more analogous to exercise or vaccination.

Methods: We measured secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA), cortisol, C‐reactive protein (CRP), and tattoo experience in 25 adults receiving tattoos. We compared post‐tattoo SIgA to total and rate of tattoo experience using analyses of covariance, controlling for pre‐tattoo SIgA, tattoo duration, age, marital status, and stress and baseline health (cortisol, CRP, body mass index, and cigarette use).

Results: Post‐tattoo SIgA positively correlated with total tattoo experience (P < .05). Furthermore, when dichotomized by experience, participants with low tattoo experience showed little to no stress‐related immune change, whereas high‐experience participants exhibited elevated SIgA, suggesting habituation to repeated tattooing.

Conclusions: The historical and cultural popularity of tattooing may be partly due to honest information tattoos convey about adaptive biology, similar to physical benefits of exercise.

People with disabilities were just as participatory, if not more so, & reported being even more interested in politics than those without disabilities

Patterns and Mechanisms of Political Participation among People with Disabilities. Sierra Powell ; April A. Johnson . J Health Polit Policy Law (2019) 44 (3): 381-422, June 1 2019. https://doi.org/10.1215/03616878-7367000

Abstract
Context: Previous research has shown that Americans with disabilities turn out to vote at significantly lower levels than people without disabilities, even after accounting for demographic and other situational factors related to political involvement. The authors examined the potential mechanisms underlying their low turnout. They asked whether people with disabilities exhibit participatory attitudes and behaviors at levels commensurate with their other individual-level characteristics.
Methods: The present study conducted descriptive and predictive analyses on data from the 2012 and 2016 American National Election Studies.
Findings: Despite low levels of turnout in recent elections, people with disabilities were just as participatory, if not more so, when considering alternative forms of political engagement. The authors' analyses indicate that, while disability status had no bearing on political efficacy or partisan strength, those with disabilities reported being even more interested in politics than those without disabilities. Evidence is provided that depressed turnout rates among those with disabilities may be due in part to lower levels of attentiveness to the news, political knowledge, and negative perceptions of government.
Conclusions: The psychological impacts and behavioral consequences that emerge from possessing a disability and the broader role of disability in the American political context are multifaceted. This area of research would benefit from future studies that examine a variety of electoral contexts.

Keywords: disability, voting, political participation, political psychology, American National Election Study

Any “radicalization” that occurs on YouTube happens according to the standard model of persuasion: People adopt new beliefs about the world by combining their prior beliefs with new information

A Supply and Demand Framework for YouTube Politics. Kevin Munger & Joseph Phillips. Penn State Political Science, October 1, 2019. https://osf.io/73jys/

Abstract: Youtube is the most used social network in the United States. However, for a combination of sociological and technical reasons, there exist little quantitative social science research on the political content on Youtube, in spite of widespread concern about the growth of extremist YouTube content. An emerging journalistic consensus theorizes the central role played by the video "recommendation engine," but we believe that this is premature. Instead, we propose the "Supply and Demand" framework for analyzing politics on YouTube. We discuss a number of novel technological affordances of YouTube as a platform and as a collection of videos, and how each might drive supply of or demand for extreme content. We then provide large-scale longitudinal descriptive information about the supply of and demand for alternative political content on YouTube. We demonstrate that viewership of far-right videos peaked in 2017.

2 The “Zombie Bite” Theory of YouTube
Beginning with Bridle (2017)’s viral essay about horrifying content auto-recommended to children and extended to the realm of adult politics with journalistic enterprises like Nicas (2018) and Tufekci (2018), a single narrative has emerged: YouTube audiences are at risk of far-right radicalization and this is because the YouTube algorithm that was designed to maximize the company’s profits via increased audience time on the platform has learned to show people far-right videos.6

A working paper published online by Ribeiro et al. (2019) in August 2019 is by far the most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of YouTube radicalization to date. They find compelling evidence of commenter overlap between videos uploaded by the three ideological communities: the “Alt-Lite,” the “Intellectual Dark Web,” and the “Alt-Right” (we discuss this typology and propose an alternative typology below). The paper demonstrates that many of the commenters on “Alt-Right” videos had previously commented on videos from the other camps. This is valuable descriptive information, and it enables the scholarly community to better theorize about causal relationships of interest. However, this is not itself evidence in favor of any given theory of the underlying causal process that explains Alt-Right viewership.

Ribeiro et al. (2019)’s conclusion admits as much: “Our work resonates with the narrative that there is a radicalization pipeline...Indeed, we manage to measure traces of this phenomenon using commenting users.”

The status of the “radicalization pipeline” is indeed best characterized as a “narrative,” rather than a theory. The chronological fact of people watching and commenting on Alt-Lite videos before moving onto Alt-Right videos is undeniable. But what model of the world does this call into question? Presented with the descriptive fact of “AltRight” creators with sizeable audiences on YouTube, did any theorize the existence of some kind of ideological discontinuity in the media that audience had previously consumed?

Indeed, the most plausible mechanism by which a viewership discontinuity might occur is the recommendation engine. But despite considerable energy, Ribeiro et al. (2019) fail to demonstrate that the algorithm has a noteworthy effect on the audience for Alt-Right content. A random walk algorithm beginning at an Alt-Lite video and taking 5 steps randomly selecting one of the ten recommended videos will only be recommended a video from the Alt-Right approximately one out every 1,700 trips. For a random walker beginning at a “control” video from the mainstream media, the probability is so small that it is difficult to see on the graph, but it is certainly no more common than one out of every 10,000 trips.7

In short, the best quantitative evidence available demonstrates that any “radicalization” that occurs on YouTube happens according to the standard model of persuasion: people adopt new beliefs about the world by combining their prior beliefs with new information (Guess and Coppock, 2018). People select information about topics that interest them; if political, they prefer information that is at least some what congenial to their prior beliefs (Stroud, 2017). Persuasion happens at the margins when it does happen.

The “Zombie Bite” theory is, of course, something of a straw man; no one has fully articulated and defended it. [...]

People Become More Conservative as They Age Less Frequently Than Believed; but when attitudes do shift across the lifespan, liberals are more likely to become conservatives than the opposite

Do People Really Become More Conservative as They Age? Johnathan C. Peterson, Kevin B. Smith, and John R. Hibbing. The Journal of Politics, Oct 27 2019. https://doi.org/10.1086/706889

Abstract: Folk wisdom has long held that people become more politically conservative as they grow older, though several empirical studies suggest political attitudes are stable across time. Utilizing data from the Michigan Youth-Parent Socialization Panel study, we analyze attitudinal change over a major portion of the adult lifespan. We document changes in party identification, self-reported ideology, and selected issue positions over this time period and place these changes in context by comparing them with contemporaneous national averages. Consistent with previous research but contrary to folk wisdom, our results indicate that political attitudes are remarkably stable over the long-term. In contrast to previous research, however, we also find support for folk wisdom: On those occasions when political attitudes do shift across the lifespan, liberals are more likely to become conservatives than conservatives are to become liberals, suggesting that folk wisdom has some empirical basis even as it overstates the degree of change.

Keywords: attitude change, liberals, conservatives, ideology, socialization

Woman’s status brand displays: Materialistic men interpret women’s conspicuous consumption as high financial mating standards & are socially deterred by women’s such consumption

Setting the bar: The influence of women’s conspicuous display on men’s affiliative behavior. Jill M.Sundie et al. Journal of Business Research, October 21 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.039

Highlights
• Materialistic people pay differential attention to a woman’s status brand displays.
• Materialistic men report relying differentially on resources and status to attract women.
• Materialistic men interpret women’s conspicuous consumption as high financial mating standards.
• Materialistic men are socially deterred by women’s conspicuous consumption.
• Materialistic women are not socially deterred by a woman’s conspicuous consumption.

Abstract: Four studies provide evidence for a process by which a woman’s conspicuous consumption can serve as a deterrent to affiliative behaviors by materialistic men, via heightened perceptions of the woman’s financial standards for a romantic partner. Materialistic men report utilizing status and resources to attract women more than non-materialistic men. Materialistic men may therefore utilize information about a woman’s status-linked displays to better calibrate their financially-oriented mating efforts. Differential attention to more subtle displays of a woman’s luxury branded items appears to drive materialistic men’s disinterest in social interaction with a woman who conspicuously consumes. A woman’s conspicuous consumption causes materialistic men to rate a real interaction with that woman less favorably. For women, the opposite is observed, with non-materialistic women reacting more negatively to the interaction.

Keywords: MaterialismStatus consumptionConspicuous consumptionMatingSignaling

Economist trying to model optimal choosing, under- and over-reaction, mental accounting, rational inattention, etc., under cognitive constraints

A Theory of Narrow Thinking. Chen Lian. MIT, May 24, 2019. https://economics.mit.edu/files/15186

Abstract: I develop an approach, which I term narrow thinking, to break the decision-maker’s ability to perfectly coordinate her multiple decisions. For a narrow thinker, different decisions are based on different, non-nested, information. The narrow thinker then makes each decision with an imperfect understanding of the others. Formally, it is as if the decision-maker is a collection of multiple selves playing an incomplete-information game. The friction effectively attenuates the degree of interaction across decisions and can translate into either over- or under-reaction depending on the environment. Narrow thinking leads to a violation of the fungibility principle and a smooth model of mental accounting. Narrow thinking also reconciles other seemingly disparate phenomena ina unified framework, suchas excess smoothness to taste shocks, the small wage elasticity of daily labor supply, and the label effect. Finally, I study an endogenous narrow thinking problem: the decision maker chooses optimally what information each decision is based upon, subject to a cognitive constraint.

Keywords: boundedrationality,narrowbracketing,incompleteinformation,multipleselves, mental accounting

7 Conclusion
Each decision maker faces multiple economic decisions, and makes these decisions separately. Nevertheless, in standard modeling practice, we implicitly assume perfect self-coordination among all these decisions. It is as if the decision maker determines all her decisions together. In this paper, I try to break such perfection. I develop an approach, narrow thinking, to capture the decision maker’s difficulty in coordinating her multiple decisions. The notion of narrow thinking is that differentdecisionsarebasedondifferent, non-nested, information. This notion is motivated by the psychological observation that the decision maker may not incorporate all the relevant information when making each decision. Under narrow thinking, each decision of the decision maker is made with an imperfect understanding of other decisions. In response to shocks to the fundamental, it is as if each decision is made caring less about the influence of other decisions. I then show how narrow thinking can provide a unified explanation to seemingly disparate behavioral phenomena, including both under-reaction and over-reaction. A general principle is: when the indirect effect works in the same direction as the direct effect, narrow thinking leads to under-reaction; when the indirect effect works in the opposite direction to the direct effect, a dampening of the indirect effect under narrow thinking leads to over-reaction. Finally, let me outline two potential avenues for future research. A first possibility is to explore the general equilibrium implications of narrow thinking. A second possibility is to conduct an experimental test of narrow thinking, along the line of the potential experiment I discussed at the end of Section 3.

1.1 Related Literature
This paper builds on, and adds to, the growing literature on rational inattention (Sims, 2003; Mackowiak and Wiederholt, 2009; Matejka, 2015, 2016; Matejka and McKay, 2015; Koszegi and Matejka, 2018)3 and sparsity (Gabaix, 2014, 2017). There, the key friction is the decision maker’s imperfect perception of the fundamental, while the decision maker perfectly knows her other decisions when making a particular decision. On the other hand, the narrow thinking approach lets different decisions be based on different, non-nested, information and captures the friction that each decision can be made with an imperfect understanding of other decisions. As the decision problem under narrow thinking is equivalent to multiple selves playing an incomplete information game, the paper also builds upon the literature on incomplete information “beauty contests” (Morris and Shin, 2002; Angeletos and Pavan, 2007; Bergemann and Morris, 2013). This literature studies linear best-response games under incomplete information. A key insightfromtheliteratureisthatincompleteinformationcanattenuatetheequilibriuminteraction (Angeletos and Lian, 2016, 2018; Bergemann, Heumann and Morris, 2017). In these works, the behavior of each individual is frictionless and the focus is on inter-personal coordination friction and macroeconomic applications. The current paper, on the other hand, focuses on intra-personal friction in coordinating a decision maker’s multiple decisions and behavioral applications. This change of focus permits me to build a bridge between the incomplete information literature and the bounded rationality literature. The paper then shows how such intra-personal frictions can deliver a novel theory to reconcile seemingly disparate behavioral phenomena. By viewing the decision maker as a team of multiple selves, the paper also connects to the literature on multiple-selves and team theory. The multiple-selves literature (Piccione and Rubinstein, 1997; Benabou and Tirole, 2002, 2003, 2004; Gottlieb, 2014, 2017) uses environments in which multiple selves have conflicted interests to model motivated beliefs and reasoning, and explores reasons why the decision maker’s beliefs and behavior can be systematically biased. The multiple selves of the narrow thinker, on the other hand, have common interests, and the focus of the current paper is about frictional behavior in response to shocks. Narrow thinking does not necessarily lead to systematical bias on average. The team theory literature (Marschak and Radner, 1972; Dessein, Galeotti and Santos, 2016), on the other hand, mostly focuses on optimal information design in an organization. Angeletos and Pavan (2007) develop a method to use team theory to find the constrained efficient allocation in an economy with dispersed information. Angeletos and Pavan (2009), Lorenzoni (2010) and Angeletos and La’O (2018) then use the method to characterize optimal policy with informational frictions. Multiple cognitive frictions can let different decisions be made based on different, non-nested, information. For example, Gennaioli and Shleifer (2010), Kahana (2012), Wilson (2014), Bordalo, Gennaioli and Shleifer (2017) and Jehiel and Steiner (2018) on bounded recall, and Tversky and Kahneman(1973)andKahneman(2011)onheuristics,biases,andselectiveretrievalfrommemory. These works therefore provide complementarity justification for the kind of frictions that define narrow thinking. Gennaioli and Shleifer (2010) use the term “local thinker” to describe a decision maker whose bounded recall follows the representativeness heuristic, and study the implication for single-decision problems. The current paper, on the other hand, focuses on the decision maker’s difficulty in coordinating her multiple decisions. On the applied side, narrow thinking provides a unified framework to explain different behavioral phenomena. Depending on the environment, narrow thinking can translate into either over- or under-reaction. Applications studied in the paper connect to the literature on narrow bracketing (Rabin and Weizsacker, 2009), mental accounting (Thaler, 1985, 1999; Heath and Soll, 1996; Hastings and Shapiro, 2013; Abeler and Marklein, 2016), excessive sensitivity to temporary income shock (Parker et al., 2013; Kueng, 2018), the small cross-price demand elasticity (Gabaix and Laibson, 2006; Abaluck and Gruber, 2011, 2016; Allcott and Taubinsky, 2015) and the small wage elasticity of daily labor supply (Camerer et al., 1997; Farber, 2015; Thakral and To, 2017). For each application, narrow thinking’s distinct economic implications and testable predictions will be discussed. Koszegi and Matejka (2018) is a recent, complementary, paper that shares the focus on an information-based theory of mental accounting. That paper stays within the rational inattention paradigm, and different decisions are based on the same, imperfect, information.

Does Childhood Religiosity Delay Death? Only for those confined to those who downgraded their religiosity

Does Childhood Religiosity Delay Death? Laura Upenieks, Markus H. Schafer, Andreea Mogosanu. Journal of Religion and Health, October 25 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10943-019-00936-1

Abstract: This study explores the potential long-term health effects of religiosity in the childhood home. Analyses use retrospective childhood data from the MIDUS survey linked to National Death Index records from 1995 to 2014. Findings from Cox proportional hazard models suggest that children brought up in highly religious households have a higher risk of mortality than those socialized in more moderately religious households, this despite such individuals having better overall health profiles. The surprising link between high childhood religiosity and mortality was confined to those who downgraded their religiosity. Those who intensified from moderate to high religiosity, in fact, seemed to be most protected. We call for future research to more clearly specify the intervening mechanisms linking childhood religion with adult health and mortality over the life course.

Keywords: Religiosity Socialization Health behaviors Life course Mortality

Why does the mind wander? Maybe when the agent’s current goal is deemed insufficiently rewarding, the cognitive control system initiates a search for a new, more rewarding goal

Why does the mind wander? Joshua Shepherd. Neuroscience of Consciousness, Volume 2019, Issue 1, October 22 2019, niz014, https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niz014

Highlights
. Makes a novel and empirically tractable proposal regarding why the mind wanders
. Offers novel explanations of data on mind wandering
. Offers predictions for future work on mind wandering
. Integrates literature on cognitive control with the literature on mind wandering
. Discusses implications for a philosophical account of the nature of mind wandering

Abstract: I seek an explanation for the etiology and the function of mind wandering episodes. My proposal—which I call the cognitive control proposal—is that mind wandering is a form of non-conscious guidance due to cognitive control. When the agent’s current goal is deemed insufficiently rewarding, the cognitive control system initiates a search for a new, more rewarding goal. This search is the process of unintentional mind wandering. After developing the proposal, and relating it to the literature on mind wandering and on cognitive control, I discuss explanations the proposal affords, testable predictions the proposal makes, and philosophical implications the proposal has.

Predictions

The cognitive control proposal makes predictions. Confirmation of these would be good news; disconfirmation would be bad news.

First, given the explanation offered for the initiation of mind wandering episodes, the proposal predicts that increases in reward for satisfying an occurrent goal would correlate with decreases in propensity to mind wander. It is well-confirmed that increasing reward leads to boosts in performance level, and to overcoming any purported “ego-depletion,” even for very boring tasks. Paradigms that have established this result could be used to test for the place of mind wandering in the behavioral data.

Second, the proposal predicts that increases in reward for non-occurrent goals the agent possesses would increase mind wandering. We have already seen that reminding agents of goals they possess, or of goals they will soon need to attempt to satisfy, leads to more mind wandering in the direction of these goals. The prediction here is more specific. If one were to, e.g., notify participants that they were soon to perform a task associated with some level of reward, and then to put participants through a low reward task, the prediction is that tendency to mind wander towards this task would be associated with the discrepancy in reward between the current and upcoming task.

Third, this proposal draws upon a view of the cognitive control system on which the learning of values associated with goals, and the learning of values associated with stimuli features predictive of goals, is crucial. So the proposal, plus plausible assumptions about reinforcement learning processes, predicts that it is possible to train participants to associate stimuli with certain goals, and that registration of such stimuli would generate mind wandering to the degree that the associated goal is rewarding. Very costly goals would produce little mind wandering. Cheap but rewarding goals would produce more.

And it may be possible to extend this result. It depends on what the agent associates with rewarding goals. Above I suggested that the system need not always compare value between explicit goals, and that the value computation might include an association between expected levels of reward and particular environments. If so, simply placing an agent in such environments would manipulate levels of unintentional mind wandering.

It may be useful to distinguish predictions this proposal makes from a related proposal: the current concerns hypothesis. The current concerns hypothesis (for which, see Klinger et al. 1973; Smallwood and Schooler 2006) has it that mind wandering is caused by a shift in salience—when one’s current goals (or concerns: here I use these terms interchangeably), become more salient than the external environment, one’s mind begins to wander. As Smallwood explains the view, “attention will be most likely to shift to self-generated material when such information offers larger incentive value than does the information in the external environment” (2013, 524). This proposal is distinct from mine in the following ways. First, I propose a specific mechanism, connected with recent modeling work in cognitive control, to explain the onset of mind wandering. Thus far, of course, the proposal can be seen as a specification of the current concerns hypothesis. Second, this mechanism initiates mind wandering not by turning attention to one’s current concerns, but by directed thought to search for a more valuable goal than the present one. So the cognitive control proposal makes predictions the current concerns hypothesis does not. For example, the cognitive control proposal predicts that propensity to mind wander could be increased by devaluing the present goal, independently of the salience of any of one’s current goals. That is, no matter how much one’s current goals or concerns lack salience, once could increase mind wandering by devaluing the occurrent goal. And it predicts that mind wandering will not turn directly to one’s other goals—the mind may wander to the environment, rather than to internal concerns, since this is one way the agent may attempt to find a more rewarding task. So we should, e.g., be able to find episodes of more intense environmental scanning as a part of the mind wandering episode. Indeed, if the environment is expected to contain valuable options, one would predict that this is where attention will go, rather than to any internal space of concerns.

This is not to deny that mind wandering represents a failure in some sense. McVay and Kane (2010b) have argued that mind wandering represents an executive control failure. What fails is a process of goal maintenance: “we suggest that goal maintenance is often hijacked by task-unrelated thought (TUT), resulting in both the subjective experience of mind wandering and habit-based errors” (324). The possibility I am raising is that failures of goal-maintenance could in another sense be successes of a different process. Indeed, perhaps processes of goal-maintenance are closely related to the value-based process of estimating the expected value of continuing on some task, or of searching for a new task, that I propose underlies unintentional mind wandering.

In sum, the proposal is plausible on its face. If correct, it promises to explain a range of data regarding mind wandering, and to explain the—from the agent’s conscious perspective very puzzling—initiation of mind wandering episodes. The proposal may also contribute to explanations of the dynamics of mind wandering. The predictions this proposal makes are testable, and work in this direction might take steps towards further integrating knowledge of how cognitive control works with knowledge of how mind wandering works.

Neuronal detection chemoreceptor in the accessory olfactory system helps avoid peptides derived from a virulence regulator of bacteria; nematodes, fruitflies, fishes & humans seem to have it too

Bacterial MgrB peptide activates chemoreceptor Fpr3 in mouse accessory olfactory system and drives avoidance behaviour. Bernd Bufe, Yannick Teuchert, Andreas Schmid, Martina Pyrski, Anabel Pérez-Gómez, Janina Eisenbeis, Thomas Timm, Tomohiro Ishii, Günter Lochnit, Markus Bischoff, Peter Mombaerts, Trese Leinders-Zufall & Frank Zufall. Nature Communications, volume 10, 4889, October 25 2019. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12842-x

Abstract: Innate immune chemoreceptors of the formyl peptide receptor (Fpr) family are expressed by vomeronasal sensory neurons (VSNs) in the accessory olfactory system. Their biological function and coding mechanisms remain unknown. We show that mouse Fpr3 (Fpr-rs1) recognizes the core peptide motif f-MKKFRW that is predominantly present in the signal sequence of the bacterial protein MgrB, a highly conserved regulator of virulence and antibiotic resistance in Enterobacteriaceae. MgrB peptide can be produced and secreted by bacteria, and is selectively recognized by a subset of VSNs. Exposure to the peptide also stimulates VSNs in freely behaving mice and drives innate avoidance. Our data shows that Fpr3 is required for neuronal detection and avoidance of peptides derived from a conserved master virulence regulator of enteric bacteria.

Introduction

A diversity of defence mechanisms have evolved to reduce the burden of infectious disease and to enable survival and reproduction in the face of tremendous pathogen challenges. These mechanisms are generally categorised into three basic strategies: avoidance of exposure to the pathogen (A), resistance to infection (R), and tolerance to the presence of the pathogen (T)^1,2. Avoidance is likely to be the most cost-effective way of defence¹, yet investigations into the role of the nervous system in mediating this function have only recently begun, and the cellular and molecular mechanisms for infection-avoidance behaviour remain largely unknown. Avoidance mechanisms are based on the remote sensing of pathogen-associated metabolites¹ that activate the olfactory and/or other chemosensory systems in the body. In fact, there is now increasing evidence from nematodes³ and fruitflies⁴ to fishes⁵, rodents^6,7 and humans^8,9 that chemosensory cues associated with harmful microbes or inflammation and reduced fitness can be detected and avoided by conspecifics. In the mouse, interest has focused on the vomeronasal organ (VNO), a chemosensory organ that provides sensory input to the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB) in the olfactory forebrain^10,11,12. Vomeronasal sensory neurons (VSNs) detect chemostimuli that result in instinctive decisions causing an individual either to be attracted to another individual, to avoid it, or even to attack and kill it^{11,12,13,14,15}. VSNs are also implicated in social identification processes involved in the neural recognition of health status, immunological fitness and genetic compatibility^11,16. The vomeronasal system mediates the detection and innate avoidance of sick conspecifics¹⁷.

Formyl peptide receptors (Fprs) are innate immune chemoreceptors of the seven transmembrane domain superfamily that recognise bacterial and mitochondrial formylated peptides as well as some other ligands^18,19,20,21. In the immune system, Fprs play important roles in the initial sensing of infection through the detection of pathogen- and danger-associated molecular patterns that signal the presence of bacteria^18,19. Subsets of mouse VSNs express several distinct immune-related molecules^22,23,24 including five Fprs^{25,26,27,28,29}. In analogy to their role in innate immunity, a chemosensory function associated with the identification of pathogens²⁶ or an assessment of the bacterial flora of conspecifics²⁵ has been hypothesised for vomeronasal Fprs as well. However, their precise function in olfaction has remained elusive; no Fpr knockout mice have been analysed in this regard; and there is no causal relationship between Fpr activation and odour-guided behaviour.

Here, we explore the role of Fpr3 (also known as Fpr-rs1, Fprl1, Lxa4r, or LXA4-R; see MGI gene ID 1194495) in olfaction. We find that Fpr3 functions as a pattern recognition receptor for a distinct subset of N-formyl methionine-containing (fMet) peptides that are predominantly present in the signal sequence of the bacterial protein MgrB, a highly conserved regulator of virulence and antibiotic resistance in Enterobacteriaceae. Native mouse VSNs detect such peptides with exquisite selectivity, and peptide-evoked cellular responses are abolished in a novel gene-targeted mouse strain carrying a knockout mutation in the Fpr3 locus. MgrB peptide stimulates VSNs of freely behaving mice and drives a form of innate avoidance that requires Fpr3, the G protein Gαo, and the ion channel Trpc2. We conclude that the chemoreceptor Fpr3 is required in the accessory olfactory system for sensing specific MgrB and MgrB-like peptides and for enabling behavioural avoidance to these bacterial cues.

Why do evening people consider themselves more intelligent than morning individuals? The role of big five, narcissism, and objective cognitive ability

Why do evening people consider themselves more intelligent than morning individuals? The role of big five, narcissism, and objective cognitive ability. Marcin Zajenkowski, Konrad S. Jankowski & Maciej Stolarski. Chronobiology International, Oct 23 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/07420528.2019.1680559

ABSTRACT: Morningness-eveningness, or chronotype, reflects the timing of sleep-wake patterns across a 24-hour day. Extant research has revealed that chronotype correlates with numerous psychological constructs including cognitive ability. In the current research, we examined how people with different chronotypes perceive their intelligence. We expected eveningness to be positively associated with subjectively assessed intelligence (SAI) because evening chronotypes demonstrate slightly higher intelligence than morning individuals. Furthermore, we considered personality traits (Big Five and narcissism) and objective intelligence (measured with standardized tests of fluid and verbal IQ) as potential variables that could account for this relationship. Across two studies (N = 504 and 232), we found that eveningness was associated with higher SAI. This relationship remained significant even after controlling for objective intelligence. In Study 1, we also found that when conscientiousness and neuroticism were analyzed together with chronotype, the magnitude of positive association between eveningness and SAI increased. Furthermore, Study 2 revealed that evening individuals exhibited higher narcissism, which fully accounted for their intelligence self-views. In the discussion, we speculate that daily struggles of evening chronotypes to function in morning-oriented society give them a basis to think positively about their intelligence to the extent of positive bias.

KEYWORDS: Chronotype, intelligence, morningness-eveningness, narcissism, subjectively assessed intelligence

Customers were cheated in 21 % of grocery stores in Prague, more in tourist-frequented areas; effects of customer's and cashier's gender on the probability of cheating were only small and nonsignificant

Cheating Customers in Grocery Stores: A Field Study on Dishonesty. Marek Vranka et al. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, October 24 2019, 101484. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2019.101484

Highlights
• Customers were cheated in 21 % of grocery stores in Prague
• Effects of customer's and cashier's gender on the probability of cheating were only small and nonsignificant
• Customers were more likely to be cheated in tourist-frequented areas than in less frequented ones
• Customers were slightly more likely to be cheated in the morning than in the evening

Abstract: The study measures how often customers are cheated in real-world transactions. In a pre-registered field study in Prague, Czech Republic, hired confederates posed as foreigners unfamiliar with local currency. While buying snacks in grocery stores (N = 259) either in the morning or in the evening, they provided cashiers with an opportunity to steal money from them by keeping more change than they were supposed to. The customers were cheated in 21% of stores, the median overcharge was 54% of the value of an average purchase, and overcharging occurred more often in the stores with on-line reviews mentioning dishonesty of employees. Although males cheated and were cheated slightly more often than females, gender differences were not significant. In contrast with predictions of the Morning Morality Effect, dishonest behavior occurs slightly more often in the morning than in the evening. The results show that cheating of customers in grocery stores is relatively widespread and it is especially prevalent in the central city district where the odds of being cheated are more than three times higher in comparison with the rest of the city.

Keywords: CheatingField studyAgrocery storesRetail employeesMorning morality

The aggregate of the published literature on ego depletion or mental fatigue indicates that prior mental exertion is detrimental to subsequent physical endurance performance

Giboin, Louis-Solal, and Wanja Wolff. 2019. “The Effect of Ego Depletion or Mental Fatigue on Subsequent Physical Endurance Performance: A Meta-analysis.” PsyArXiv. October 25. doi:10.31234/osf.io/mr5pk

Abstract
Two independent lines of research propose that exertion of mental effort can impair subsequent performance due to ego depletion or mental fatigue. In this meta-analysis, we unite these research fields to facilitate a greater exchange between the two, to summarize the extant literature and to highlight open questions.
We performed a meta-analysis to quantify the effect of ego-depletion and mental fatigue on subsequent physical endurance performance (42 independent effect sizes).
We found that ego-depletion or mental fatigue leads to a reduction in subsequent physical endurance performance (ES = -0.506 [95% CI: -0.649, -0.369]) and that the duration of prior mental effort exertion did not predict the magnitude of subsequent performance impairment (r = -0.043). Further, analyses revealed that effects of prior mental exertion are more pronounced in subsequent tasks that use isolation tasks (e.g., handgrip; ES = -0.719 [-0.946, -0.493]) compared to whole-body endurance tasks (e.g. cycling; coefficient = 0.338 [0.057, 0.621]) and that the observed reduction in performance is higher when the person-situation fit is low (ES for high person-situation fit = -0.355 [-0.529, -0.181], coefficient for low person-situation fit = -0.336 [-0.599, -0.073]).
Taken together, the aggregate of the published literature on ego depletion or mental fatigue indicates that prior mental exertion is detrimental to subsequent physical endurance performance. However, this analysis also highlights several open questions regarding the effects’ mechanisms and moderators. Particularly, the surprising finding that the duration of prior mental exertion seems to be unrelated to subsequent performance impairment needs to be addressed systematically.

Some proposed that the Implicit Association Test measures individual differences in implicit social cognition; the claim requires evidence of construct validity; this author says there is insufficient evidence for this claim

The Implicit Association Test: A Method in Search of a Construct. Ulrich Schimmack. Perspectives on Psychological Science, October 24, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619863798

Abstract: In 1998, Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz proposed that the Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures individual differences in implicit social cognition. This claim requires evidence of construct validity. I review the evidence and show that there is insufficient evidence for this claim. Most important, I show that few studies were able to test discriminant validity of the IAT as a measure of implicit constructs. I examine discriminant validity in several multimethod studies and find little or no evidence of discriminant validity. I also show that validity of the IAT as a measure of attitudes varies across constructs. Validity of the self-esteem IAT is low, but estimates vary across studies. About 20% of the variance in the race IAT reflects racial preferences. The highest validity is obtained for measuring political orientation with the IAT (64%). Most of this valid variance stems from a distinction between individuals with opposing attitudes, whereas reaction times contribute less than 10% of variance in the prediction of explicit attitude measures. In all domains, explicit measures are more valid than the IAT, but the IAT can be used as a measure of sensitive attitudes to reduce measurement error by using a multimethod measurement model.

Keywords personality, individual differences, social cognition, measurement, construct validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity, structural equation modeling

Deprivation of affectionate communication was associated with husbands’ depression, wives’ loneliness, and both husbands’ and wives’ marital quality and emotional intimacy

Affection Deprivation in Marital Relationships: An Actor-partner Interdependence Mediation Analysis. Colin Hesse, Xi Tian. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, October 24, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407519883697

Abstract: The current study sought to assess the dyadic effects of affection deprivation in marital relationships. We used the tenets of affection exchange theory to examine the actor and partner effects between affectionate communication, affection deprivation, and mental and relational outcomes. Moreover, we tested whether affection deprivation mediated the association between affectionate communication and outcome variables. In terms of actor effects, affectionate communication was associated with husbands’ depression, wives’ loneliness, and both husbands’ and wives’ marital quality and emotional intimacy. Affection deprivation was associated with all outcome variables for husbands and wives, except for wives’ emotional intimacy. We observed significant partner effects between affectionate communication and affection deprivation for both husbands and wives, as well as between wives’ affectionate communication and husbands’ emotional intimacy. Affection deprivation mediated some of the actor and partner effects between affectionate communication and outcome variables. Implications, connections to theory, and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords Actor–partner interdependence mediation model, affection, marital relationships, mental well-being

Study implications
AET (Floyd, 2006) argues that affectionate communication is adaptive, leading to better mental and relational outcomes. The theory also predicts that individuals possess a range of tolerance for affectionate communication, and that individuals who are under that range will experience affection deprivation, an aversive, nonadaptive response. The current study supports both propositions, but potentially shows a path forward in linking those two predictions more closely. Previous work has stated that the act of giving affection might be adaptive even above and beyond the act of receiving affection (see Floyd et al., 2005). When Baumeister and Leary (1995) wrote about the need to belong, they theorized that this was a basic human need—one that was fundamental to the human experience. Thus, it is possible that giving affectionate communication is adaptive due to the likelihood that one is meeting the need to belong, and thus that giving affectionate communication might be less beneficial when one is deprived. There are two possible ways that this might occur. First, an individual must first receive another’s affection to reach his or her minimum threshold, and then the act of giving affection would be more beneficial than receiving to individual well-being. Second, as we argued previously in this discussion section, the act of giving affection might actually alter my perception of meeting the minimum threshold of my need for affection—that I feel that I am loved through the act of loving others. Future studies should potentially test these longitudinal claims to see whether the benefits of giving and receiving affection change according to an individuals’ perception of affection deprivation. Practically, the results of the study have implications on marital interventions and counseling programs. Practitioners may consider assessing marital couples’ perceptions of affection deprivation and its impact on their mental and relational well-being. In particular, all four actor effects between deprivation and mental well-being were significant, showing that the amount of affection given within the marital relationship matters far beyond the relationship itself. The perception of affection deprivation should be examined as a key indicator of marital quality, and marital interventions designed to help lessen the perception of affection deprivation in a relationship may potentially improve mental well-being and marital quality.


Check also Affection substitution: The effect of pornography consumption on close relationships. Colin Hesse, Kory Floyd. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, April 16, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407519841719

Abstract: Scholars have stated that humans have a fundamental need to belong, but less is known about whether individuals can use other resources to substitute for close relationships. In this study, 357 adults reported their level of affection deprivation, their weekly pornography consumption, their goals for using pornography (including life satisfaction and loneliness reduction), and indicators of their individual and relational wellness. We hypothesized that individuals might consume pornography as a coping mechanism (either adaptive or maladaptive) to deal with affection deprivation, with affection deprivation relating to the goals for using pornography and consumption potentially moderating the relationships between affection deprivation and the outcome measures. As predicted, affection deprivation and pornography consumption were inversely related to relational satisfaction and closeness, while being positively related to loneliness and depression. Affection deprivation was positively related with most stated goals for pornography use (although the relationship between affection deprivation and pornography consumption was nonsignificant). The moderation hypothesis, however, showed little evidence, yielding a moderating effect only on the relationship between affection deprivation and depression (with nonsignificant effects for relational satisfaction, closeness, and loneliness). Overall, there is some evidence that pornography consumption is used as a form of affection substitution (dealing with the perception of affection deprivation). However, there is no evidence of consumption being either adaptive or maladaptive when it comes to relationship satisfaction, closeness, and loneliness, although it is possibly maladaptive in terms of depression.

Keywords Affection, deprivation, need to belong, pornography consumption, relational health

Reputation Management and Idea Appropriation

Altay, Sacha, Yoshimasa Majima, and Hugo Mercier. 2019. “It’s My Idea! Reputation Management and Idea Appropriation.” PsyArXiv. October 1. doi:10.31234/osf.io/3p8k2

Abstract: Accurately assessing other’s reputation, and developing a reputation as a competent, honest, fair individual—epistemic and moral reputation—are critical skills. One way to gain epistemic reputation is to display our competence by sharing valuable ideas, especially if we appropriate these ideas—i.e. present them as being our own, whether that is the case or not (H1). However, idea appropriation should also entail some risks, otherwise it would lose its quality as a reliable signal. In particular, appropriating a bad idea should damage one’s epistemic reputation (H2), and being caught appropriating someone else’s idea should damage one’s moral reputation (H3). As a consequence, people should be more likely to appropriate ideas they think are good when they are motivated to display their competence (H4), and they should refrain from doing so when the odds of getting caught increase (H5). Six online experiments (N = 904) find support for these hypotheses. To assess the reliability and generalizability of these findings, we suggest replicating them with heightened statistical power among similar English-speaking participants (in the UK, US, and Ireland), and among Japanese participants.