Gender differences in communicative abstraction. Joshi, Priyanka D., Wakslak, Cheryl J., Appel, Gil, Huang, Laura. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Oct 14 , 2019. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fpspa0000177
Abstract: Drawing on construal level theory, which suggests that experiencing a communicative audience as proximal rather than distal leads speakers to frame messages more concretely, we examine gender differences in linguistic abstraction. In a meta-analysis of prior studies examining the effects of distance on communication, we find that women communicate more concretely than men when an audience is described as being psychologically close. These gender differences in linguistic abstraction are eliminated when speakers consider an audience whose distance has been made salient (Study 1). In studies that follow, we examine gender differences in linguistic abstraction in contexts where the nature of the audience is not specified. Across a written experimental context (Study 2), a large corpus of online blog posts (Study 3), and the real-world speech of congressmen and congresswomen (Study 4), we find that men speak more abstractly than women. These gender differences in speech abstraction continue to emerge when subjective feelings of power are experimentally manipulated (Study 5). We believe that gender differences in linguistic abstraction are the result of several interrelated processes—including but not limited to social network size and homogeneity, communication motives involving seeking proximity or distance, perceptions of audience homogeneity and distance, as well as experience of power. In Study 6, we find preliminary support for mediation of gender differences in linguistic abstraction by women’s tendency to interact in small social networks. We discuss implication of these gender differences in communicative abstraction for existing theory and provide suggestions for future research.
General Discussion
Across a series of six studies, we find that men communicate more abstractly than women. We find that gender differences in communicative abstraction persist across experimental (Studies 1, 2, 5, and 6) and field (Studies 3 and 4) contexts. The effects conceptually replicate across various measures of abstraction, including emphasizing desirability vs. feasibility (Study 2), using more concrete words (Studies 3 and 4), and adopting higher levels of action identification (Studies 5 and 6).
Effects ranged from small to moderate across studies, with larger effect sizes in our controlled laboratory-style studies than our archival data ones. The former studies allowed for greater control, constraining the topic of communication and potential ways in which a participant was able to communicate. They largely also used paradigms that have been specifically designed in prior work to capture variation in communicative abstraction. On the other hand, our archival data studies gave us an opportunity to examine gender differences in contexts that were much less constrained in terms of numerous factors such as the topic of conversation, number of words, intended audience, length of speech, and overall purpose of conversation. Given the size of the corpora involved, they also relied on an automated method for coding abstraction, which gives up some amount of precision compared to hand coding (see Johnson et al., 2019, for a related discussion). Thus, it is not especially surprising to find smaller effects in these contexts.
What Drives these Effects?
We suspect that the gender difference in communicative abstraction we identify emerges from a set of converging reasons, including women’s social interactions in closely knit small groups, their historical occupation of lower status roles compared to men, their desire to establish close interpersonal relationships, their caution in signaling power and judgmentalness, and their desire to establish their competence. While we do not argue for any one particular process, several of our specific findings across studies may speak to the various (potentially interrelated) processes that might underlie this effect.
For example, in Study 1, we find that when an audience’s distance is made salient, gender differences in linguistic abstraction are eliminated. The moderating role of distance is consistent with this factor playing a role in explaining gender differences in communicative abstraction. That is, women may be relatively more inclined to create proximity with others (indeed, we found this gender pattern in Study 6, although it did not negatively correlate with the use of abstraction) or to conceptualize others as proximal; emphasizing that an audience is distant may block the proximating tendency of women and minimize gender effects in communication. Also important to consider in the context of Study 1’s findings are our findings in Study 3, which showed differences in the communicative abstraction of male and female bloggers. On the one hand, this may be surprising given Study 1’s findings (given that bloggers communicate with a sizeable audience). At the same time, unlike the experimental studies on audience size which made salient the size and/or heterogeneity of the audience and likely reduced variation in perceptions of it, the blogging context preserves the opportunity for variation in perception of one’s audience. For example, female bloggers may differ from male bloggers in terms of their perception of their audience’s homogeneity, size, and similarity to themselves; although speculative, such variation may support the emergence of gender differences in communicative abstraction within the blogging context.
We also considered the role of power in explaining gender effects on communicative abstraction. Across samples, we find effects both when respondents have relatively low levels of power (e.g., students, Mturk respondents) and when they have higher levels of power (members of Congress). Indeed, even within our Congress dataset (Study 4) we find no variation in the gender effect based on relative amount of power (House of Representative members vs. Senators). This is consistent as well with results of Study 5, which experimentally manipulated power and found that this did not interact with gender. These findings, however, do not preclude a role of the subjective experience of power. That is, even when in similar positions, men and women may differ in how powerful they feel. Study 5, which found that women reported lower subjective experience of power than men when power was experimentally primed, and that this subjective experience of power mediated the effects of gender on communicative abstraction, is consistent with a role of subjective power in explaining gender differences in speech. In Study 6, however, we did not find any evidence for gender differences in subjective experience of power, and subjective experience of power did not mediate the effects of gender on communicative abstraction. This suggests at a broad level that while subjective power may play a role in some contexts (e.g., most likely ones in which subjective power is salient, as in Study 5), the routine experience of power is unlikely to be the main driver of these gender effects across variable contexts.
Indeed, in Study 6 we considered a broader set of mediators of a gender effect on abstraction. Gender differences on the measures we collected supported many of our earlier arguments based on the gender literature: women reported greater motivation than men to seek closeness in communication contexts, greater likelihood of interacting in small and homogeneous networks, and greater concerns about establishing their competence. Further, we found that the tendency of women to establish and interact in small groups mediated their tendency to use concrete speech. As mentioned earlier, we certainly don’t see these results as ruling out alternative explanations, but they do suggest the plausibility of communication audience size playing an important role.
Also thought-provoking are the findings from Study 3. In a dataset that allowed us to capture writings of adolescents as well as adults, we found that gender differences were larger for older adults than for teenagers, suggesting that gender differences in communicative abstraction may be reinforced by one’s experiences. This is broadly consistent with our argument that women and men are acculturated in a variety of ways over time that are consistent with the development of different communicative abstraction tendencies. We call for future work to continue to explore this divergence in women and men’s speech, and how these are shaped through one’s interpersonal experiences.
Monday, November 4, 2019
Lando's data — the overall positive experience of his hospitalization — didn’t match David Rosenhan’s thesis that institutions are uncaring, ineffective and even harmful places, and so they were discarded
Stanford professor who changed America with just one study was also a liar. Susan Cahalan. NY Post, Nov 2 2019. https://nypost.com/2019/11/02/stanford-professor-who-changed-america-with-just-one-study-was-also-a-liar/
About Stanford psychology and law professor David Rosenhan and his work
[...]
His research work was also groundbreaking. In 1973, Rosenhan published the paper “On Being Sane in Insane Places” in the prestigious journal Science, and it was a sensation. The study, in which eight healthy volunteers went undercover as “pseudopatients” in 12 psychiatric hospitals across the country, discovered harrowing conditions that led to national outrage. His findings helped expedite the widespread closure of psychiatric institutions across the country, changing mental-health care in the US forever.
Fifty years later, I tried to find out how Rosenhan had convinced his subjects to go undercover as psychiatric patients and discovered a whole lot more. Yes, Rosenhan had charm. He had charisma. He had chutzpah to spare. And, as I eventually uncovered, he was also not what he appeared to be.
I stumbled across Rosenhan and his study six years ago while on a book tour for my memoir “Brain on Fire,” which chronicled my experiences with a dangerous misdiagnosis, when doctors believed that my autoimmune disorder was a serious mental illness. After my talk, a psychologist and researcher suggested that I could be considered a “modern-day pseudopatient” from Rosenhan’s famous study.
Rosenhan’s eight healthy pseudopatients allegedly each followed the same script to gain admittance to psychiatric hospitals around the country. They each told doctors that they heard voices that said, “Thud, empty, hollow.” Based on this one symptom alone, the study claimed, all of the pseudopatients were diagnosed with a mental illness — mostly schizophrenia.
And once they were labeled with a mental illness, it became impossible to prove otherwise. All eight were kept hospitalized for an average of 19 days — with the longest staying an unimaginable 52. They each left “against medical advice,” meaning the doctors believed that they were too sick to leave. A total of 2,100 pills — serious psychiatric drugs — were reportedly prescribed to these otherwise healthy individuals.
At the time, the collective American imagination was deeply suspicious of psychiatry and its institutions. It was the era of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and movies like “Shock Corridor” and “The Snake Pit.” Rosenhan — who was both an insider who studied abnormal psychology, and an outsider who was a psychologist rather than a psychiatrist — was the perfect person to pull back the curtain on psychiatry’s secrets.
[...]
“It all started out as a dare,” Rosenhan told a local newspaper. “I was teaching psychology at Swarthmore College, and my students were saying that the course was too conceptual and abstract. So I said, ‘OK, if you really want to know what mental patients are like, become mental patients.’ ”
Soon after that, Rosenhan went undercover for nine days at Haverford State Hospital in Haverford, Pa., in February 1969. His diary and book describe a host of indignities: soiled bathrooms without doors, inedible food, sheer boredom and ennui, rank disregard by the staff and doctors. Rosenhan even witnessed an attendant sexually assault one of the more disturbed patients. The only time when Rosenhan was truly “seen” as a human by the staff was when an attendant mistook him for a doctor.
The experience was harrowing. After nine days he pushed for a release and made sure that his undergraduate students — who were planning to follow him as undercover patients into the hospital — would not be allowed to go. Colleagues described a shaken, changed man after his experience.
I dug deeper. If his own students were forbidden from pursuing the experiment after this dismaying event, who were the others who had willingly followed in Rosenhan’s footsteps? Why did they put their mental health — even their lives — on the line for this experiment?
The further I explored, the greater my concerns. With the exception of one paper defending “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” Rosenhan never again published any studies on psychiatric hospitalization, even though this subject made him an international success.
He had also landed a lucrative book deal and had even written eight chapters, well over a hundred pages of it. But then Rosenhan suddenly refused to turn over the manuscript. Seven years later his publisher sued him to return his advance. Why would he have given up on the subject that made him famous?
I also started to uncover serious inconsistencies between the documents I had found and the paper Rosenhan published in Science. For example, Rosenhan’s medical record during his undercover stay at Haverford found that he had not, as he had written in his published paper, only exhibited one symptom of “thud, empty, hollow.” Instead, he had told doctors that he put a “copper pot” up to his ears to drown out the noises and that he had been suicidal. This was a far more severe — and legitimately concerning — description of his illness than he had portrayed in his paper.
Meanwhile, I looked for the seven other pseudopatients and spent the next months of my life chasing ghosts. I hunted down rumors, pursuing one dead end after the next. I even hired a private detective, who got no further than I had.
After years of searching, I found only one pseudopatient who participated in the study and whose experience matched that of Rosenhan: Bill Underwood, who’d been a Stanford graduate student at the time.
The only other participant I discovered, Harry Lando, had a vastly different take. Lando had summed up his 19-day hospitalization at the US Public Health Service Hospital in San Francisco in one word: “positive.”
Even though he too was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, Lando felt it was a healing environment that helped people get better.
“The hospital seemed to have a calming effect. Someone might come in agitated and then fairly quickly they would tend to calm down. It was a benign environment,” Lando, now a psychology professor at the University of Minnesota, recalled in an interview.
But instead of incorporating Lando into the study, Rosenhan dropped him from it.
Lando felt it was pretty obvious what had happened, and I agree: His data — the overall positive experience of his hospitalization — didn’t match Rosenhan’s thesis that institutions are uncaring, ineffective and even harmful places, and so they were discarded.
“Rosenhan was interested in diagnosis, and that’s fine, but you’ve got to respect and accept the data, even if the data are not supportive of your preconceptions,” Lando told me.
Rosenhan, I began to realize, may have been the ultimate unreliable narrator. And I believe it’s possible some of the other pseudopatients he mentioned in his study never existed at all.
As a result, I am now seriously questioning a study I had once admired and had originally planned to celebrate. In my new book “The Great Pretender” (Grand Central Publishing), out this week, I paint the picture of a brilliant but flawed psychologist who is likely also a fabulist.
[...]
Psychologist Peter Gray told me that he sees the work of researchers such as Zimbardo and Rosenhan as prime examples of studies that “fit our biases … There is a kind of desire to expose the problems of society but in the process cut corners or even make up data.”
This may explain Rosenhan. He saw real problems in society: The country was warehousing very sick people in horror houses pretending to be hospitals, our diagnostic systems were flawed and psychiatrists in many ways had too much power — and very little substance. He saw how psychiatric labels degraded people and how doctors see patients through the prism of their mental illness. All of this was true. In many ways, it is still true.
[...]
---
Check also Pseudopatient or pseudoscience: a reviewer's perspective. Mark Zimmerman. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease 193(11):740-2, December 2005. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7506090
About Stanford psychology and law professor David Rosenhan and his work
[...]
His research work was also groundbreaking. In 1973, Rosenhan published the paper “On Being Sane in Insane Places” in the prestigious journal Science, and it was a sensation. The study, in which eight healthy volunteers went undercover as “pseudopatients” in 12 psychiatric hospitals across the country, discovered harrowing conditions that led to national outrage. His findings helped expedite the widespread closure of psychiatric institutions across the country, changing mental-health care in the US forever.
Fifty years later, I tried to find out how Rosenhan had convinced his subjects to go undercover as psychiatric patients and discovered a whole lot more. Yes, Rosenhan had charm. He had charisma. He had chutzpah to spare. And, as I eventually uncovered, he was also not what he appeared to be.
I stumbled across Rosenhan and his study six years ago while on a book tour for my memoir “Brain on Fire,” which chronicled my experiences with a dangerous misdiagnosis, when doctors believed that my autoimmune disorder was a serious mental illness. After my talk, a psychologist and researcher suggested that I could be considered a “modern-day pseudopatient” from Rosenhan’s famous study.
Rosenhan’s eight healthy pseudopatients allegedly each followed the same script to gain admittance to psychiatric hospitals around the country. They each told doctors that they heard voices that said, “Thud, empty, hollow.” Based on this one symptom alone, the study claimed, all of the pseudopatients were diagnosed with a mental illness — mostly schizophrenia.
And once they were labeled with a mental illness, it became impossible to prove otherwise. All eight were kept hospitalized for an average of 19 days — with the longest staying an unimaginable 52. They each left “against medical advice,” meaning the doctors believed that they were too sick to leave. A total of 2,100 pills — serious psychiatric drugs — were reportedly prescribed to these otherwise healthy individuals.
At the time, the collective American imagination was deeply suspicious of psychiatry and its institutions. It was the era of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and movies like “Shock Corridor” and “The Snake Pit.” Rosenhan — who was both an insider who studied abnormal psychology, and an outsider who was a psychologist rather than a psychiatrist — was the perfect person to pull back the curtain on psychiatry’s secrets.
[...]
“It all started out as a dare,” Rosenhan told a local newspaper. “I was teaching psychology at Swarthmore College, and my students were saying that the course was too conceptual and abstract. So I said, ‘OK, if you really want to know what mental patients are like, become mental patients.’ ”
Soon after that, Rosenhan went undercover for nine days at Haverford State Hospital in Haverford, Pa., in February 1969. His diary and book describe a host of indignities: soiled bathrooms without doors, inedible food, sheer boredom and ennui, rank disregard by the staff and doctors. Rosenhan even witnessed an attendant sexually assault one of the more disturbed patients. The only time when Rosenhan was truly “seen” as a human by the staff was when an attendant mistook him for a doctor.
The experience was harrowing. After nine days he pushed for a release and made sure that his undergraduate students — who were planning to follow him as undercover patients into the hospital — would not be allowed to go. Colleagues described a shaken, changed man after his experience.
I dug deeper. If his own students were forbidden from pursuing the experiment after this dismaying event, who were the others who had willingly followed in Rosenhan’s footsteps? Why did they put their mental health — even their lives — on the line for this experiment?
The further I explored, the greater my concerns. With the exception of one paper defending “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” Rosenhan never again published any studies on psychiatric hospitalization, even though this subject made him an international success.
He had also landed a lucrative book deal and had even written eight chapters, well over a hundred pages of it. But then Rosenhan suddenly refused to turn over the manuscript. Seven years later his publisher sued him to return his advance. Why would he have given up on the subject that made him famous?
I also started to uncover serious inconsistencies between the documents I had found and the paper Rosenhan published in Science. For example, Rosenhan’s medical record during his undercover stay at Haverford found that he had not, as he had written in his published paper, only exhibited one symptom of “thud, empty, hollow.” Instead, he had told doctors that he put a “copper pot” up to his ears to drown out the noises and that he had been suicidal. This was a far more severe — and legitimately concerning — description of his illness than he had portrayed in his paper.
Meanwhile, I looked for the seven other pseudopatients and spent the next months of my life chasing ghosts. I hunted down rumors, pursuing one dead end after the next. I even hired a private detective, who got no further than I had.
After years of searching, I found only one pseudopatient who participated in the study and whose experience matched that of Rosenhan: Bill Underwood, who’d been a Stanford graduate student at the time.
The only other participant I discovered, Harry Lando, had a vastly different take. Lando had summed up his 19-day hospitalization at the US Public Health Service Hospital in San Francisco in one word: “positive.”
Even though he too was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, Lando felt it was a healing environment that helped people get better.
“The hospital seemed to have a calming effect. Someone might come in agitated and then fairly quickly they would tend to calm down. It was a benign environment,” Lando, now a psychology professor at the University of Minnesota, recalled in an interview.
But instead of incorporating Lando into the study, Rosenhan dropped him from it.
Lando felt it was pretty obvious what had happened, and I agree: His data — the overall positive experience of his hospitalization — didn’t match Rosenhan’s thesis that institutions are uncaring, ineffective and even harmful places, and so they were discarded.
“Rosenhan was interested in diagnosis, and that’s fine, but you’ve got to respect and accept the data, even if the data are not supportive of your preconceptions,” Lando told me.
Rosenhan, I began to realize, may have been the ultimate unreliable narrator. And I believe it’s possible some of the other pseudopatients he mentioned in his study never existed at all.
As a result, I am now seriously questioning a study I had once admired and had originally planned to celebrate. In my new book “The Great Pretender” (Grand Central Publishing), out this week, I paint the picture of a brilliant but flawed psychologist who is likely also a fabulist.
[...]
Psychologist Peter Gray told me that he sees the work of researchers such as Zimbardo and Rosenhan as prime examples of studies that “fit our biases … There is a kind of desire to expose the problems of society but in the process cut corners or even make up data.”
This may explain Rosenhan. He saw real problems in society: The country was warehousing very sick people in horror houses pretending to be hospitals, our diagnostic systems were flawed and psychiatrists in many ways had too much power — and very little substance. He saw how psychiatric labels degraded people and how doctors see patients through the prism of their mental illness. All of this was true. In many ways, it is still true.
[...]
---
Check also Pseudopatient or pseudoscience: a reviewer's perspective. Mark Zimmerman. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease 193(11):740-2, December 2005. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7506090
Pattern of conditional party loyalty... While partisan loyalty is strong, it is finite: the average voter is more likely than not to vote for the co-partisan candidate until that candidate takes dissonant stances on four or more salient issues
The Limits of Partisan Loyalty. Jonathan Mummolo, Erik Peterson, Sean Westwood. Political Behavior, November 4 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-019-09576-3
Abstract: While partisan cues tend to dominate political choice, prior work shows that competing information can rival the effects of partisanship if it relates to salient political issues. But what are the limits of partisan loyalty? How much electoral leeway do co-partisan candidates have to deviate from the party line on important issues? We answer this question using conjoint survey experiments that characterize the role of partisanship relative to issues. We demonstrate a pattern of conditional party loyalty. Partisanship dominates electoral choice when elections center on low-salience issues. But while partisan loyalty is strong, it is finite: the average voter is more likely than not to vote for the co-partisan candidate until that candidate takes dissonant stances on four or more salient issues. These findings illuminate when and why partisanship fails to dominate political choice. They also suggest that, on many issues, public opinion minimally constrains politicians.
Keywords: Party cues Public opinion Voting
Abstract: While partisan cues tend to dominate political choice, prior work shows that competing information can rival the effects of partisanship if it relates to salient political issues. But what are the limits of partisan loyalty? How much electoral leeway do co-partisan candidates have to deviate from the party line on important issues? We answer this question using conjoint survey experiments that characterize the role of partisanship relative to issues. We demonstrate a pattern of conditional party loyalty. Partisanship dominates electoral choice when elections center on low-salience issues. But while partisan loyalty is strong, it is finite: the average voter is more likely than not to vote for the co-partisan candidate until that candidate takes dissonant stances on four or more salient issues. These findings illuminate when and why partisanship fails to dominate political choice. They also suggest that, on many issues, public opinion minimally constrains politicians.
Keywords: Party cues Public opinion Voting
Making the Right First Impression: Sexual Priming Encourages Attitude Change and Self-Presentation Lies during Encounters with Potential Partners
Making the Right First Impression: Sexual Priming Encourages Attitude Change and Self-Presentation Lies during Encounters with Potential Partners. Gurit E Birnbaum, Mor Iluz, Harry Reis. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 86 (2020) 103904. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103904
Abstract: Recent studies have shown that activation of the sexual system encourages enactment of relationship-initiating behaviors (Birnbaum et al., 2017). In four studies, we expand on this work to explore whether people are more inclined to lie to impress a potential partner following sexual priming. In all studies, participants were exposed to sexual stimuli (versus non-sexual stimuli) and then interacted with an opposite-sex stranger. In Study 1, unacquainted participants resolved a dilemma while each represented opposing positions. In Study 2, participants rated their preferences, and after viewing a confederate's preferences, re-rated them in a profile shown to the confederate. In Studies 3 and 4, participants reported their number of lifetime sexual partners in anonymous questionnaires and during a chat (Study 3) or while completing an online profile (Study 4). Results indicated that following sexual priming, participants were more likely to conform to the stranger's views (Studies 1 and 2) and reported fewer sexual partners during actual and potential online interactions than in the questionnaires (Study 3). Although the results of Study 4 did not replicate the findings of Study 3, they were directionally consistent with them. Overall, the findings suggest that sexual priming motivates impression management even when it involves lying.
6. General discussion
In a world of seemingly abundant mating opportunities, competing
for a partner has become a challenging endeavor. In this climate, people
do the best they can to attract desirable partners. Investing effort in
making the right impression plays a key role in the success of their
pursuit. When considering the impression they wish to leave on prospective
partners, people are simultaneously motivated by the competing
desires of being wanted for whom they truly are and of putting
forward their best face (Ellison et al., 2006; Toma et al., 2008). The
present research set out to examine when the latter motivation would
prevail, pushing people to impress a potential partner even at the cost
of engaging in deceptive self-presentation.
In four studies, we showed that following activation of the sexual
system, people were more likely to enhance their efforts to create a
favorable impression and deceptively change their self-presentation in
an attempt to appear more desirable to prospective mates. Study 1 indicated
that compared to participants in the control condition, participants
in the sexual activation condition were more likely to outwardly
express agreement with a contrary opinion advocated by an oppositesex
participant. Study 2 showed that subliminal sexual priming led
participants to conform to a potential partner's preferences in various
life domains. Studies 3 and 4 revealed that following sexual priming,
participants were more likely to lie to a potential mate about their
number of lifetime sexual partners.
Past studies have already shown that activation of the sexual system
motivates people to use strategies that help them initiate a relationship
with potential mates, such as disclosing personal information or providing
help (Birnbaum et al., 2017; Birnbaum et al., 2019). The present
research extends these studies by demonstrating the dark side of relationship
initiation (or a human foible that reveals itself during this
process) and pointing out when it is likely to surface. Scholars and lay
persons alike have long recognized that relationship-initiating strategies
include enactment of behaviors that aim not only to genuinely
support long-term bonding (e.g., provision of responsiveness and help;
Birnbaum, Ein-Dor, Reis, & Segal, 2014; Birnbaum et al., 2019) but also
to deliberately mislead prospective partners (e.g., Rowatt et al., 1998;
Toma et al., 2008). Our research speaks to one important psychological
circumstance under which certain self-presentational goals may become
more pronounced. Specifically, exposure to sexual cues, which activates
the sexual system and induces sexual arousal, may render people more
determined in their pursuit of desirable mates, encouraging them to
present a shiny façade, even though presenting a distorted view of self
may eventually thwart their goal of establishing a trustworthy intimate
relationship.
As our research indicates, this principle appears to hold true for
both men and women. Previous studies have found that men are more
likely than women to take the lead in sexual and relationship initiation
(Birnbaum & Laser-Brandt, 2002; Diamond, 2013; O'Sullivan & Byers,
1992). The present findings suggest that activation of the sexual system
motivates human beings to connect, regardless of gender. It does so by
inspiring interest in potential partners and motivating men and women
to impress prospective partners. To be sure, missing desirable mating
opportunities is costly for men and women alike, in the sense that when
such opportunities arise, both genders, and not only men, tend to use
deceptive self-presentational strategies (Lo et al., 2013; Rowatt et al.,
1999).
It remains unclear, however, whether deceptive self-presentation in
this context is motivated by short-term relationship goals or by selfpresentational
pressures per se, as both may be more salient under
sexual activation. Indeed, when sexually aroused, some people may
present themselves deceitfully to potential mates in order to obtain
casual sexual favors (Ariely & Loewenstein, 2006). Others, in contrast,
may wish to build a meaningful relationship but are induced by their
insecurities or perceived competition in the dating scene to present a
false façade. Indeed, people themselves may not be able to distinguish
short-term (sexual) and long-term (relationship initiation) goals in their
initial phases of attraction (Eastwick, Keneski, Morgan, McDonald, &
Huang, 2018).
Another limitation of the present research is that the evidence for
the proposed effect of sexual priming on explicit lying about previous
sexual partners is not strong, given that we found a non-significant
interaction in Study 4, which was better-powered than Study 3. It is
possible that conforming to a potential partner's views while being
sexually aroused (as indicated in Studies 1 and 2) is morally less problematic
than explicitly lying to a potential partner, especially in the
case of violating one's own earlier statements (Batson, Thompson,
Seuferling, Whitney, & Strongman, 1999). It is also possible that Study
4 yielded weaker results than Study 3 due to less experimental realism –
recall that Study 4 was conducted entirely online, whereas participants
in Study 3 were present in a lab session. We also did not determine
whether participants were aware of their deception or whether this was
an unconscious move to be closer to a potential partner and did not
assess the motives behind engaging in deceptive self-presentation. Future
studies should investigate how these distinctive motives affect the
unfolding over time of interactions that are based on deceptive communication
and whether they may evolve into meaningful relationships.
Further research should explore whether people also tend to see
what they want to see while being sexually aroused and thus are less
likely to detect inauthenticity in potential partners.
In conclusion, activation of the sexual system may initiate a process
of endeavoring to become more attractive to a stranger, a process that
may eventually build an emotionally and sexually satisfying connection
between previously unacquainted people (Birnbaum, 2018; (Birnbaum
and Finkel, 2015) Birnbaum et al., 2019; Birnbaum & Reis, 2019). In
everyday life, the attractiveness of a potential partner or the sexy ambience
of a first date may lead people to disclose personal information
about themselves in order to initiate a potential relationship with a
desired mate (Birnbaum et al., 2017). Our research suggests that the
content of this disclosure is less likely to reflect the true self following
sexual activation, as sexual arousal may make people more focused on
saying what needs to be said to create a positive impression while being
less cognizant of the potential long-term costs of this tendency. Our
research also underscores the dual potential of the sexual system for
eliciting behavior that may simultaneously facilitate relationship initiation
while at the same time undermining their authenticity. Whether
sexual arousal heightens perceptions of a prospective partner's mate
value, creates a state of urgency, or instills a sense partner scarcity is a
question for future research.
Abstract: Recent studies have shown that activation of the sexual system encourages enactment of relationship-initiating behaviors (Birnbaum et al., 2017). In four studies, we expand on this work to explore whether people are more inclined to lie to impress a potential partner following sexual priming. In all studies, participants were exposed to sexual stimuli (versus non-sexual stimuli) and then interacted with an opposite-sex stranger. In Study 1, unacquainted participants resolved a dilemma while each represented opposing positions. In Study 2, participants rated their preferences, and after viewing a confederate's preferences, re-rated them in a profile shown to the confederate. In Studies 3 and 4, participants reported their number of lifetime sexual partners in anonymous questionnaires and during a chat (Study 3) or while completing an online profile (Study 4). Results indicated that following sexual priming, participants were more likely to conform to the stranger's views (Studies 1 and 2) and reported fewer sexual partners during actual and potential online interactions than in the questionnaires (Study 3). Although the results of Study 4 did not replicate the findings of Study 3, they were directionally consistent with them. Overall, the findings suggest that sexual priming motivates impression management even when it involves lying.
6. General discussion
In a world of seemingly abundant mating opportunities, competing
for a partner has become a challenging endeavor. In this climate, people
do the best they can to attract desirable partners. Investing effort in
making the right impression plays a key role in the success of their
pursuit. When considering the impression they wish to leave on prospective
partners, people are simultaneously motivated by the competing
desires of being wanted for whom they truly are and of putting
forward their best face (Ellison et al., 2006; Toma et al., 2008). The
present research set out to examine when the latter motivation would
prevail, pushing people to impress a potential partner even at the cost
of engaging in deceptive self-presentation.
In four studies, we showed that following activation of the sexual
system, people were more likely to enhance their efforts to create a
favorable impression and deceptively change their self-presentation in
an attempt to appear more desirable to prospective mates. Study 1 indicated
that compared to participants in the control condition, participants
in the sexual activation condition were more likely to outwardly
express agreement with a contrary opinion advocated by an oppositesex
participant. Study 2 showed that subliminal sexual priming led
participants to conform to a potential partner's preferences in various
life domains. Studies 3 and 4 revealed that following sexual priming,
participants were more likely to lie to a potential mate about their
number of lifetime sexual partners.
Past studies have already shown that activation of the sexual system
motivates people to use strategies that help them initiate a relationship
with potential mates, such as disclosing personal information or providing
help (Birnbaum et al., 2017; Birnbaum et al., 2019). The present
research extends these studies by demonstrating the dark side of relationship
initiation (or a human foible that reveals itself during this
process) and pointing out when it is likely to surface. Scholars and lay
persons alike have long recognized that relationship-initiating strategies
include enactment of behaviors that aim not only to genuinely
support long-term bonding (e.g., provision of responsiveness and help;
Birnbaum, Ein-Dor, Reis, & Segal, 2014; Birnbaum et al., 2019) but also
to deliberately mislead prospective partners (e.g., Rowatt et al., 1998;
Toma et al., 2008). Our research speaks to one important psychological
circumstance under which certain self-presentational goals may become
more pronounced. Specifically, exposure to sexual cues, which activates
the sexual system and induces sexual arousal, may render people more
determined in their pursuit of desirable mates, encouraging them to
present a shiny façade, even though presenting a distorted view of self
may eventually thwart their goal of establishing a trustworthy intimate
relationship.
As our research indicates, this principle appears to hold true for
both men and women. Previous studies have found that men are more
likely than women to take the lead in sexual and relationship initiation
(Birnbaum & Laser-Brandt, 2002; Diamond, 2013; O'Sullivan & Byers,
1992). The present findings suggest that activation of the sexual system
motivates human beings to connect, regardless of gender. It does so by
inspiring interest in potential partners and motivating men and women
to impress prospective partners. To be sure, missing desirable mating
opportunities is costly for men and women alike, in the sense that when
such opportunities arise, both genders, and not only men, tend to use
deceptive self-presentational strategies (Lo et al., 2013; Rowatt et al.,
1999).
It remains unclear, however, whether deceptive self-presentation in
this context is motivated by short-term relationship goals or by selfpresentational
pressures per se, as both may be more salient under
sexual activation. Indeed, when sexually aroused, some people may
present themselves deceitfully to potential mates in order to obtain
casual sexual favors (Ariely & Loewenstein, 2006). Others, in contrast,
may wish to build a meaningful relationship but are induced by their
insecurities or perceived competition in the dating scene to present a
false façade. Indeed, people themselves may not be able to distinguish
short-term (sexual) and long-term (relationship initiation) goals in their
initial phases of attraction (Eastwick, Keneski, Morgan, McDonald, &
Huang, 2018).
Another limitation of the present research is that the evidence for
the proposed effect of sexual priming on explicit lying about previous
sexual partners is not strong, given that we found a non-significant
interaction in Study 4, which was better-powered than Study 3. It is
possible that conforming to a potential partner's views while being
sexually aroused (as indicated in Studies 1 and 2) is morally less problematic
than explicitly lying to a potential partner, especially in the
case of violating one's own earlier statements (Batson, Thompson,
Seuferling, Whitney, & Strongman, 1999). It is also possible that Study
4 yielded weaker results than Study 3 due to less experimental realism –
recall that Study 4 was conducted entirely online, whereas participants
in Study 3 were present in a lab session. We also did not determine
whether participants were aware of their deception or whether this was
an unconscious move to be closer to a potential partner and did not
assess the motives behind engaging in deceptive self-presentation. Future
studies should investigate how these distinctive motives affect the
unfolding over time of interactions that are based on deceptive communication
and whether they may evolve into meaningful relationships.
Further research should explore whether people also tend to see
what they want to see while being sexually aroused and thus are less
likely to detect inauthenticity in potential partners.
In conclusion, activation of the sexual system may initiate a process
of endeavoring to become more attractive to a stranger, a process that
may eventually build an emotionally and sexually satisfying connection
between previously unacquainted people (Birnbaum, 2018; (Birnbaum
and Finkel, 2015) Birnbaum et al., 2019; Birnbaum & Reis, 2019). In
everyday life, the attractiveness of a potential partner or the sexy ambience
of a first date may lead people to disclose personal information
about themselves in order to initiate a potential relationship with a
desired mate (Birnbaum et al., 2017). Our research suggests that the
content of this disclosure is less likely to reflect the true self following
sexual activation, as sexual arousal may make people more focused on
saying what needs to be said to create a positive impression while being
less cognizant of the potential long-term costs of this tendency. Our
research also underscores the dual potential of the sexual system for
eliciting behavior that may simultaneously facilitate relationship initiation
while at the same time undermining their authenticity. Whether
sexual arousal heightens perceptions of a prospective partner's mate
value, creates a state of urgency, or instills a sense partner scarcity is a
question for future research.
An RT/fMRI study showed a single cluster of activity that pertains to logical negation, distinct from clusters that were activated by numerical comparison and from the traditional language regions
Logical negation mapped onto the brain. Yosef Grodzinsky et al. Brain Structure and Function, November 4 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00429-019-01975-w
Abstract: High-level cognitive capacities that serve communication, reasoning, and calculation are essential for finding our way in the world. But whether and to what extent these complex behaviors share the same neuronal substrate are still unresolved questions. The present study separated the aspects of logic from language and numerosity—mental faculties whose distinctness has been debated for centuries—and identified a new cytoarchitectonic area as correlate for an operation involving logical negation. A novel experimental paradigm that was implemented here in an RT/fMRI study showed a single cluster of activity that pertains to logical negation. It was distinct from clusters that were activated by numerical comparison and from the traditional language regions. The localization of this cluster was described by a newly identified cytoarchitectonic area in the left anterior insula, ventro-medial to Broca’s region. We provide evidence for the congruence between the histologically and functionally defined regions on multiple measures. Its position in the left anterior insula suggests that it functions as a mediator between language and reasoning areas.
Keywords: Language Logic Numerosity Functional neuroanatomy Functional neuroimaging Cytoarchitecture Brain mapping Negation Sentence verification Left anterior insula Modularity
Discussion
Taken together, the anatomical and functional clusters exhibit bi-uniqueness: area Id7 is cytoarchitectonically distinct from its neighbors, and represents a new, independent cortical area of the anterior insula (Fig. 7, Movie). The functional NetNegInt coincides largely with Id7, overlaps with no other cortical region, and NetNegInt intensity correlates with RT at the individual participant level.
At a minimum, these results allow us to conclude that there is a single, anatomically and functionally cohesive core area involved in negation—Id7/NetNegInt. It is distinct from areas 44, 45, long believed to support syntax and from areas supporting core compositional semantic processes in the left temporal pole (Del Prato and Pylkkänen 2014). This distinctness and cohesiveness illustrates how relatively small elements of cognition can be neurally individuated and correlated with cytoarchitectonically defined areas. It also supports a modular view of cognitive functioning (Fodor 1983) and moreover seems to provide an answer, albeit partial, to the perennial debate about language and logic. If evidence from neuroscience bears on the debate, then Frege, Russell, and their followers were right: language and at least some aspects of logic are distinct. Finally, our results suggest that the border between the insula and Broca’s region is where language stops and logic begins.
We are not in a position to establish a connection between our results and other roles attributed to the anterior insula such as interoception. Yet, there is a differ-ence in pattern: typically, the anterior insula is activated bilaterally (Zaccarella and Friederici 2015), and tends to co-activate with the anterior cingulate (Craig 2009; Engstrom et al. 2014), to which the left and right insulae appear to be massively connected (Mesulam and Mufson 1982) and have a similar histologic makeup (Ghaziri et al. 2017). Our study documented no bi-lateral co-activation. Recent lesion data, moreover, relate interoceptive deficits to regions that seem to exclude the here defined left Id7 (Salomon et al. 2018).
So what can we conclude and where do we go from here? Our experiment demonstrates that the processing of one log-ical connective, ¬, has a distinct neurocognitive signature, supported by a histologically coherent piece of neural tissue, the left Id7, that is, outside the traditional language regions, lying between them and decision making areas. While we believe that this set of findings provides the basis for an important argument for language–logic dissociation, we are aware that it is based on a single set of results, one that needs to be further enriched in the same spirit. Convergent results from related explorations of other logical connectives will no doubt help to bolster our claims. E.g., if experiments can be designed to successfully isolate disjunction, conjunction, and the like, and their results converge, solid foundations for a new perspective on language–logic relations would be constructed.
ith this qualification, can we conclude that the phi-losophers were right? Gottlob Frege, in his Begriffschrift, famously asserted that linguistic rules relate to logic as the eye compares to a microscope (van Heijenoort 1967): language is flexible, but logic is more rigid—mediating between linguistic expressions and objects suitable to reasoning. While Frege and Russell had no cognitive perspective, let alone a neurological one, we feel free to add one and assign an anatomical construal of Frege’s assertion in regards to the spatial position of the left Id7: like a microscope, this area may “translate” linguistic objects into logical forms. A mediating role has already been proposed for the posteriorly adjacent, middle left insula, claimed to mediate between motor planning and speech (Dronkers 1996). In a similar vein, it is proposed that the left Id7 mediates between the language regions and prefrontal areas engaged in reasoning (Baggio et al. 2016; Monti et al. 2007). By doing so, it seems to play a crucial role in what could be a core neural network that underlies our humanity.
Abstract: High-level cognitive capacities that serve communication, reasoning, and calculation are essential for finding our way in the world. But whether and to what extent these complex behaviors share the same neuronal substrate are still unresolved questions. The present study separated the aspects of logic from language and numerosity—mental faculties whose distinctness has been debated for centuries—and identified a new cytoarchitectonic area as correlate for an operation involving logical negation. A novel experimental paradigm that was implemented here in an RT/fMRI study showed a single cluster of activity that pertains to logical negation. It was distinct from clusters that were activated by numerical comparison and from the traditional language regions. The localization of this cluster was described by a newly identified cytoarchitectonic area in the left anterior insula, ventro-medial to Broca’s region. We provide evidence for the congruence between the histologically and functionally defined regions on multiple measures. Its position in the left anterior insula suggests that it functions as a mediator between language and reasoning areas.
Keywords: Language Logic Numerosity Functional neuroanatomy Functional neuroimaging Cytoarchitecture Brain mapping Negation Sentence verification Left anterior insula Modularity
Discussion
Taken together, the anatomical and functional clusters exhibit bi-uniqueness: area Id7 is cytoarchitectonically distinct from its neighbors, and represents a new, independent cortical area of the anterior insula (Fig. 7, Movie). The functional NetNegInt coincides largely with Id7, overlaps with no other cortical region, and NetNegInt intensity correlates with RT at the individual participant level.
At a minimum, these results allow us to conclude that there is a single, anatomically and functionally cohesive core area involved in negation—Id7/NetNegInt. It is distinct from areas 44, 45, long believed to support syntax and from areas supporting core compositional semantic processes in the left temporal pole (Del Prato and Pylkkänen 2014). This distinctness and cohesiveness illustrates how relatively small elements of cognition can be neurally individuated and correlated with cytoarchitectonically defined areas. It also supports a modular view of cognitive functioning (Fodor 1983) and moreover seems to provide an answer, albeit partial, to the perennial debate about language and logic. If evidence from neuroscience bears on the debate, then Frege, Russell, and their followers were right: language and at least some aspects of logic are distinct. Finally, our results suggest that the border between the insula and Broca’s region is where language stops and logic begins.
We are not in a position to establish a connection between our results and other roles attributed to the anterior insula such as interoception. Yet, there is a differ-ence in pattern: typically, the anterior insula is activated bilaterally (Zaccarella and Friederici 2015), and tends to co-activate with the anterior cingulate (Craig 2009; Engstrom et al. 2014), to which the left and right insulae appear to be massively connected (Mesulam and Mufson 1982) and have a similar histologic makeup (Ghaziri et al. 2017). Our study documented no bi-lateral co-activation. Recent lesion data, moreover, relate interoceptive deficits to regions that seem to exclude the here defined left Id7 (Salomon et al. 2018).
So what can we conclude and where do we go from here? Our experiment demonstrates that the processing of one log-ical connective, ¬, has a distinct neurocognitive signature, supported by a histologically coherent piece of neural tissue, the left Id7, that is, outside the traditional language regions, lying between them and decision making areas. While we believe that this set of findings provides the basis for an important argument for language–logic dissociation, we are aware that it is based on a single set of results, one that needs to be further enriched in the same spirit. Convergent results from related explorations of other logical connectives will no doubt help to bolster our claims. E.g., if experiments can be designed to successfully isolate disjunction, conjunction, and the like, and their results converge, solid foundations for a new perspective on language–logic relations would be constructed.
ith this qualification, can we conclude that the phi-losophers were right? Gottlob Frege, in his Begriffschrift, famously asserted that linguistic rules relate to logic as the eye compares to a microscope (van Heijenoort 1967): language is flexible, but logic is more rigid—mediating between linguistic expressions and objects suitable to reasoning. While Frege and Russell had no cognitive perspective, let alone a neurological one, we feel free to add one and assign an anatomical construal of Frege’s assertion in regards to the spatial position of the left Id7: like a microscope, this area may “translate” linguistic objects into logical forms. A mediating role has already been proposed for the posteriorly adjacent, middle left insula, claimed to mediate between motor planning and speech (Dronkers 1996). In a similar vein, it is proposed that the left Id7 mediates between the language regions and prefrontal areas engaged in reasoning (Baggio et al. 2016; Monti et al. 2007). By doing so, it seems to play a crucial role in what could be a core neural network that underlies our humanity.
Taking Close Others' Environmental Behavior Into Account When Striking the Moral Balance? Evidence for Vicarious Licensing, Not for Vicarious Cleansing
Meijers, M. H. C., Noordewier, M. K., Verlegh, P. W. J., Zebregs, S., & Smit, E. G. (2019). Taking Close Others' Environmental Behavior Into Account When Striking the Moral Balance? Evidence for Vicarious Licensing, Not for Vicarious Cleansing. Environment and Behavior, 51(9-10), 1027–1054. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916518773148
Abstract: Research shows that people search for balance in their moral (e.g., environmentally friendly) behaviors such that they feel licensed to behave less morally after a previous moral act (licensing) and cleanse previous morally questionable behaviors by subsequently behaving more morally (cleansing). This article investigates whether this balancing may extend to close others, but not to nonclose others, and tests vicarious licensing and cleansing in the environmental domain. Study 1 showed that vicarious licensing effects are more likely when a close other displayed environmentally friendly (vs. neutral) behavior. Study 2 showed that environmental vicarious licensing effects are more likely for close than nonclose others. Studies 3 and 4 suggested that vicarious licensing effects, but not vicarious cleansing effects are more likely for close (vs. nonclose) others. Finally, a meta-analysis showed that overall these studies provide evidence for vicarious licensing effects, but not for vicarious cleansing effects in the environmental domain.
Keywords: environmentally friendly, licensing, cleansing, vicarious, self–other overlap, morality
Research shows that people search for balance in their moral behaviors (e.g., environmentally friendly behaviors) such that they feel licensed to behave less morally after a previous moral act (i.e., licensing effect) and cleanse pre-vious morally questionable behaviors by subsequently behaving morally (i.e., cleansing effect; Monin & Miller, 2001; Sachdeva, Iliev, & Medin, 2009; Tetlock, Kristel, Elson, Green, & Lerner, 2000). In the present research, it is investigated whether people extend this moral balancing to incorporate not only their own moral behaviors but also the behaviors of close others. To illustrate, one may think of those who feel licensed to buy a less environmentally friendly product after their close friend has made a donation to Greenpeace, or those who meticulously separate their garbage after their spouse bought a new car with poor fuel economy.Literature suggests that considerable self–other overlap may occur when people feel close to another person (Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991), and that the actions of close others may be perceived to some extent as actions of themselves (Goldstein & Cialdini, 2007). In other words, people incorporate the behaviors of close others into their own self-concepts. Based on this reasoning, it is posited that moral behaviors of close others may lead to vicarious licensing effects, and that the morally questionable behaviors of close others might lead to vicarious cleansing effects in the environmental domain. In this article, it is hypothesized that the strength of these effects depends on the degree of interpersonal closeness: When people are close to another person they are more likely to vicariously balance each other’s moral behaviors than when they are not close. In the remainder of the article, we will elaborate on the theoretical background for this proposition and report four studies and a meta-analysis testing this proposition in the context of environmentally friendly behaviors. Support is found for vicarious licensing effects, but not for vicarious cleansing effects.
Abstract: Research shows that people search for balance in their moral (e.g., environmentally friendly) behaviors such that they feel licensed to behave less morally after a previous moral act (licensing) and cleanse previous morally questionable behaviors by subsequently behaving more morally (cleansing). This article investigates whether this balancing may extend to close others, but not to nonclose others, and tests vicarious licensing and cleansing in the environmental domain. Study 1 showed that vicarious licensing effects are more likely when a close other displayed environmentally friendly (vs. neutral) behavior. Study 2 showed that environmental vicarious licensing effects are more likely for close than nonclose others. Studies 3 and 4 suggested that vicarious licensing effects, but not vicarious cleansing effects are more likely for close (vs. nonclose) others. Finally, a meta-analysis showed that overall these studies provide evidence for vicarious licensing effects, but not for vicarious cleansing effects in the environmental domain.
Keywords: environmentally friendly, licensing, cleansing, vicarious, self–other overlap, morality
Research shows that people search for balance in their moral behaviors (e.g., environmentally friendly behaviors) such that they feel licensed to behave less morally after a previous moral act (i.e., licensing effect) and cleanse pre-vious morally questionable behaviors by subsequently behaving morally (i.e., cleansing effect; Monin & Miller, 2001; Sachdeva, Iliev, & Medin, 2009; Tetlock, Kristel, Elson, Green, & Lerner, 2000). In the present research, it is investigated whether people extend this moral balancing to incorporate not only their own moral behaviors but also the behaviors of close others. To illustrate, one may think of those who feel licensed to buy a less environmentally friendly product after their close friend has made a donation to Greenpeace, or those who meticulously separate their garbage after their spouse bought a new car with poor fuel economy.Literature suggests that considerable self–other overlap may occur when people feel close to another person (Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991), and that the actions of close others may be perceived to some extent as actions of themselves (Goldstein & Cialdini, 2007). In other words, people incorporate the behaviors of close others into their own self-concepts. Based on this reasoning, it is posited that moral behaviors of close others may lead to vicarious licensing effects, and that the morally questionable behaviors of close others might lead to vicarious cleansing effects in the environmental domain. In this article, it is hypothesized that the strength of these effects depends on the degree of interpersonal closeness: When people are close to another person they are more likely to vicariously balance each other’s moral behaviors than when they are not close. In the remainder of the article, we will elaborate on the theoretical background for this proposition and report four studies and a meta-analysis testing this proposition in the context of environmentally friendly behaviors. Support is found for vicarious licensing effects, but not for vicarious cleansing effects.
Great apes are not vulnerable to the cognitive biases that cause decoy effects in humans, at least in cases where choice is between two different types of food
Sánchez-Amaro, A., Altınok, N., Heintz, C., & Call, J. (2019). Disentangling great apes’ decoy-effect bias in a food choice task. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 6(3), 213–222. https://doi.org/10.26451/abc.06.03.05.2019
Abstract: The decoy effect is a violation of rationality that occurs when the relative preference between two target options changes with the addition of a third option, called the decoy, that is no better than the target options but worse than one of the options on one attribute. The presence of the decoy increases the chance that the option that dominates it on this attribute is chosen over the other target option. The current study tested decoy effects with great apes’ food preferences. We presented apes with two target items, grape and banana, and a third item, the decoy, which was either a smaller grape or a smaller piece of banana. We found that apes’ decisions were not influenced by the presence of a decoy. In general, apes did not increase their choices in favor of the target item that dominated the decoy. This would indicate that great apes are not vulnerable to the cognitive biases that cause decoy effects in humans, at least in cases where choice is between two different types of food. We discuss what can be concluded about the psychological causes of human irrational choices and their evolutionary origin.
Keywords: Decoy-effect, Rationality, Great apes, Food preferences
Abstract: The decoy effect is a violation of rationality that occurs when the relative preference between two target options changes with the addition of a third option, called the decoy, that is no better than the target options but worse than one of the options on one attribute. The presence of the decoy increases the chance that the option that dominates it on this attribute is chosen over the other target option. The current study tested decoy effects with great apes’ food preferences. We presented apes with two target items, grape and banana, and a third item, the decoy, which was either a smaller grape or a smaller piece of banana. We found that apes’ decisions were not influenced by the presence of a decoy. In general, apes did not increase their choices in favor of the target item that dominated the decoy. This would indicate that great apes are not vulnerable to the cognitive biases that cause decoy effects in humans, at least in cases where choice is between two different types of food. We discuss what can be concluded about the psychological causes of human irrational choices and their evolutionary origin.
Keywords: Decoy-effect, Rationality, Great apes, Food preferences
An Examination of the Sexual Double Standard Pertaining to Masturbation and the Impact of Assumed Motives
An Examination of the Sexual Double Standard Pertaining to Masturbation and the Impact of Assumed Motives. Katherine R. Haus, Ashley E. Thompson. Sexuality & Culture, November 2 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12119-019-09666-8
Abstract: Research reveals that masturbation is a highly stigmatized behavior for which people are harshly judged. Stigmatized sexual behaviors often result in discrepancies in social judgment such as the Sexual Double Standard (SDS; the tendency to judge women’s sexual behavior more harshly than men’s). However, no research has experimentally examined the SDS with respect to masturbation or the assumed motives influencing the potential SDS. Thus, in study one, a total of 496 U.S. adults (246 women, 250 men) were required to read one of four vignettes depicting a hypothetical man or woman engaged in masturbation. After reading the vignette, the endorsement of the SDS was assessed by asking participants to rate the perceived partner quality of the hypothetical masturbator. In study two, a total of 264 U.S. adults (115 women, 149 men) were again required to read vignettes, rate the target’s perceived partner quality, and report on the assumed pleasure and intimacy-focused motives of the target. The results of both studies revealed a reverse SDS, in which women were viewed as higher quality partners than men. Study two further demonstrated that women were assumed to have masturbated for both pleasure and intimacy-focused motives to a greater extent than men and that these motives helped to explain the reverse SDS. Overall, these findings highlight the need to equalize double standards in Western cultures to reduce potentially harmful effects on sexual health.
Keywords: Masturbation Sexual double standard Motives Perceived gender differences
---
General Discussion
In order to address the existing research gap surrounding masturbation in regard
to the SDS, the current body of research utilized experimental vignettes depicting
hypothetical men or women engaging in masturbation, assessed participants’
perceptions of the target’s partner quality in study one, and their perceived
motives in study two. Although recent research indicates conflicting results surrounding
the existence of a SDS, the current research provided replicated evidence
of a reverse SDS whereby the hypothetical men were judged as being
lower quality partners than the hypothetical women based on their lack of pleasure
and intimacy-focused motivations when masturbating.
Neutral Attitudes Toward Masturbation
The neutral judgments of hypothetical masturbators discovered in both studies provide
evidence that masturbation may not be as stigmatized as previously thought
(Kontula and Haavio-Mannila 2003). Additionally, as the number of people who
self-report engaging in masturbation has increased over the years, it is possible that
attitudes are growing increasingly more accepting toward this behavior (Kontula and
Haavio-Mannila 2003). This could partly be due to the increase in availability of
sexually explicit media, and the ways in which it can impact peoples’ perceptions
of sexuality and their masturbatory practices (Prause 2019). However, because of
the minimal research conducted in this area, it is difficult to determine the extent
to which attitudes toward masturbation have changed over the years. Regardless,
research assessing attitudes toward other sexual behaviors indicates that we are currently
living in an era in which Western cultural norms related to sexuality appear
to be shifting, with younger cohorts reporting more positive and accepting attitudes
toward sexual behavior than older cohorts (e.g., Twenge et al. 2015, 2016). Thus, the
neutral judgments discovered in study one and study two provide evidence that these
recent shifts may also apply to attitudes toward masturbation.
The Reverse Sexual Double Standard
Both study one and study two captured a reverse SDS regarding judgments of partner
quality, confirming the results from other recent research documenting a reverse
SDS with respect to other sexual behaviors (e.g., Papp et al. 2015; Sakaluk and
Milhausen 2012). As the SDS has become difficult to analyze (Jonason and Marks
2009; Milhausen and Herold 1999; Sprecher and Hatfield 1996; Thompson et al.
2018), it is important to note that the reverse SDS was replicated in the current body
of research. This reverse SDS may be due to a number of things, the first of which
being societal shifts in our perceptions of women’s sexuality due to social media
campaigns such as #MeToo and #TimesUp.
The second explanation for the reverse SDS may be related to the gendered media
portrayal of masturbation in Western cultures. For example, in a content analysis of
popular Western media, Madanikia and colleagues (2013) found evidence of negative
depictions of masturbation in scenes with which men were portrayed in comparison
to those with which women were portrayed. Consequently, if the media is a
true reflection of cultural attitudes surrounding specific behaviors, then it is possible
that we are being socially primed by consuming popular movies and television to
perceive men’s masturbation less favorably than women’s.
The third explanation for the reverse SDS is evident in the assumed motives for
masturbation. In particular, the results of study two revealed that perceived motives
contribute to the reverse SDS among hypothetical masturbators, in which women
were perceived as higher quality partners than men due to their assumed participation
for pleasure-focused and intimacy-focused motives. Pleasure-focused motives
were particularly important in accounting for the reverse SDS, which may be due
to the desirability of sexually agentic partners, and the impact they can have in the
context of relationships (Fetterolf and Sanchez 2015). In particular, it is possible
that sexual agentic women are perceived as more sexually aware and empowered,
thereby more desirable. This is consistent with existing research revealing that hypothetical
sexually agentic women (those describe as liking to “take the lead” during
sex) are perceived as more desirable than sexually passive women (those described
as liking their partner to “take the lead” during sex; Fetterolf and Sanchez 2015).
Further, hypothetical agentic women were even viewed as a more desirable sexual
partner than the hypothetical agentic men. Regardless of what caused these motives
to contribute to the reverse SDS, it is evident that perceived motives impacted participant’s
judgments, and that they likely influence the ways in which people engaging
in a variety of sexual behaviors are perceived.
Abstract: Research reveals that masturbation is a highly stigmatized behavior for which people are harshly judged. Stigmatized sexual behaviors often result in discrepancies in social judgment such as the Sexual Double Standard (SDS; the tendency to judge women’s sexual behavior more harshly than men’s). However, no research has experimentally examined the SDS with respect to masturbation or the assumed motives influencing the potential SDS. Thus, in study one, a total of 496 U.S. adults (246 women, 250 men) were required to read one of four vignettes depicting a hypothetical man or woman engaged in masturbation. After reading the vignette, the endorsement of the SDS was assessed by asking participants to rate the perceived partner quality of the hypothetical masturbator. In study two, a total of 264 U.S. adults (115 women, 149 men) were again required to read vignettes, rate the target’s perceived partner quality, and report on the assumed pleasure and intimacy-focused motives of the target. The results of both studies revealed a reverse SDS, in which women were viewed as higher quality partners than men. Study two further demonstrated that women were assumed to have masturbated for both pleasure and intimacy-focused motives to a greater extent than men and that these motives helped to explain the reverse SDS. Overall, these findings highlight the need to equalize double standards in Western cultures to reduce potentially harmful effects on sexual health.
Keywords: Masturbation Sexual double standard Motives Perceived gender differences
---
General Discussion
In order to address the existing research gap surrounding masturbation in regard
to the SDS, the current body of research utilized experimental vignettes depicting
hypothetical men or women engaging in masturbation, assessed participants’
perceptions of the target’s partner quality in study one, and their perceived
motives in study two. Although recent research indicates conflicting results surrounding
the existence of a SDS, the current research provided replicated evidence
of a reverse SDS whereby the hypothetical men were judged as being
lower quality partners than the hypothetical women based on their lack of pleasure
and intimacy-focused motivations when masturbating.
Neutral Attitudes Toward Masturbation
The neutral judgments of hypothetical masturbators discovered in both studies provide
evidence that masturbation may not be as stigmatized as previously thought
(Kontula and Haavio-Mannila 2003). Additionally, as the number of people who
self-report engaging in masturbation has increased over the years, it is possible that
attitudes are growing increasingly more accepting toward this behavior (Kontula and
Haavio-Mannila 2003). This could partly be due to the increase in availability of
sexually explicit media, and the ways in which it can impact peoples’ perceptions
of sexuality and their masturbatory practices (Prause 2019). However, because of
the minimal research conducted in this area, it is difficult to determine the extent
to which attitudes toward masturbation have changed over the years. Regardless,
research assessing attitudes toward other sexual behaviors indicates that we are currently
living in an era in which Western cultural norms related to sexuality appear
to be shifting, with younger cohorts reporting more positive and accepting attitudes
toward sexual behavior than older cohorts (e.g., Twenge et al. 2015, 2016). Thus, the
neutral judgments discovered in study one and study two provide evidence that these
recent shifts may also apply to attitudes toward masturbation.
The Reverse Sexual Double Standard
Both study one and study two captured a reverse SDS regarding judgments of partner
quality, confirming the results from other recent research documenting a reverse
SDS with respect to other sexual behaviors (e.g., Papp et al. 2015; Sakaluk and
Milhausen 2012). As the SDS has become difficult to analyze (Jonason and Marks
2009; Milhausen and Herold 1999; Sprecher and Hatfield 1996; Thompson et al.
2018), it is important to note that the reverse SDS was replicated in the current body
of research. This reverse SDS may be due to a number of things, the first of which
being societal shifts in our perceptions of women’s sexuality due to social media
campaigns such as #MeToo and #TimesUp.
The second explanation for the reverse SDS may be related to the gendered media
portrayal of masturbation in Western cultures. For example, in a content analysis of
popular Western media, Madanikia and colleagues (2013) found evidence of negative
depictions of masturbation in scenes with which men were portrayed in comparison
to those with which women were portrayed. Consequently, if the media is a
true reflection of cultural attitudes surrounding specific behaviors, then it is possible
that we are being socially primed by consuming popular movies and television to
perceive men’s masturbation less favorably than women’s.
The third explanation for the reverse SDS is evident in the assumed motives for
masturbation. In particular, the results of study two revealed that perceived motives
contribute to the reverse SDS among hypothetical masturbators, in which women
were perceived as higher quality partners than men due to their assumed participation
for pleasure-focused and intimacy-focused motives. Pleasure-focused motives
were particularly important in accounting for the reverse SDS, which may be due
to the desirability of sexually agentic partners, and the impact they can have in the
context of relationships (Fetterolf and Sanchez 2015). In particular, it is possible
that sexual agentic women are perceived as more sexually aware and empowered,
thereby more desirable. This is consistent with existing research revealing that hypothetical
sexually agentic women (those describe as liking to “take the lead” during
sex) are perceived as more desirable than sexually passive women (those described
as liking their partner to “take the lead” during sex; Fetterolf and Sanchez 2015).
Further, hypothetical agentic women were even viewed as a more desirable sexual
partner than the hypothetical agentic men. Regardless of what caused these motives
to contribute to the reverse SDS, it is evident that perceived motives impacted participant’s
judgments, and that they likely influence the ways in which people engaging
in a variety of sexual behaviors are perceived.
In-marriage (e.g. consanguineous marriage) generates fractionalization because it yields relatively closed groups of related individuals and thereby encourages favoritism and corruption; out-marriage creates a relatively open society
Kinship, fractionalization and corruption. Mahsa Akbaria, DumanBahrami-RadbErik O.Kimbrough. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 166, October 2019, Pages 493-528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.07.015
Abstract: We examine the roots of variation in corruption across societies, and we argue that marriage practices and family structure are an important, overlooked determinant of corruption. By shaping patterns of relatedness and interaction, marriage practices influence the relative returns to norms of nepotism/favoritism versus norms of impartial cooperation. In-marriage (e.g. consanguineous marriage) generates fractionalization because it yields relatively closed groups of related individuals and thereby encourages favoritism and corruption. Out-marriage creates a relatively open society with increased interaction between non-relatives and strangers, thereby encouraging impartiality. We report a robust association between in-marriage practices and corruption both across countries and within countries. Instrumental variables estimates exploiting historical variation in preferred marriage practices and in exposure to the Catholic Church’s family policies provide evidence that the relationship could be causal.
Check also Schulz, Jonathan, Duman Barahmi-Rad, Jonathan Beauchamp, and Joseph Henrich. 2018. “The Origins of WEIRD Psychology.” PsyArXiv. June 22. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/06/populations-that-are-western-educated.html
Abstract: We examine the roots of variation in corruption across societies, and we argue that marriage practices and family structure are an important, overlooked determinant of corruption. By shaping patterns of relatedness and interaction, marriage practices influence the relative returns to norms of nepotism/favoritism versus norms of impartial cooperation. In-marriage (e.g. consanguineous marriage) generates fractionalization because it yields relatively closed groups of related individuals and thereby encourages favoritism and corruption. Out-marriage creates a relatively open society with increased interaction between non-relatives and strangers, thereby encouraging impartiality. We report a robust association between in-marriage practices and corruption both across countries and within countries. Instrumental variables estimates exploiting historical variation in preferred marriage practices and in exposure to the Catholic Church’s family policies provide evidence that the relationship could be causal.
Check also Schulz, Jonathan, Duman Barahmi-Rad, Jonathan Beauchamp, and Joseph Henrich. 2018. “The Origins of WEIRD Psychology.” PsyArXiv. June 22. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/06/populations-that-are-western-educated.html
Sunday, November 3, 2019
How Empathic Concern Fuels Political Polarization
How Empathic Concern Fuels Political Polarization. Elizabeth N Simas, Scott Clifford, and Justin H Kirkland. Anerican Political Science Review, October 31 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055419000534
Abstract: Over the past two decades, there has been a marked increase in partisan social polarization, leaving scholars in search of solutions to partisan conflict. The psychology of intergroup relations identifies empathy as one of the key mechanisms that reduces intergroup conflict, and some have suggested that a lack of empathy has contributed to partisan polarization. Yet, empathy may not always live up to this promise. We argue that, in practice, the experience of empathy is biased toward one’s ingroup and can actually exacerbate political polarization. First, using a large, national sample, we demonstrate that higher levels of dispositional empathic concern are associated with higher levels of affective polarization. Second, using an experimental design, we show that individuals high in empathic concern show greater partisan bias in evaluating contentious political events. Taken together, our results suggest that, contrary to popular views, higher levels of dispositional empathy actually facilitate partisan polarization.
Rolf Degen summarizing: Individuals high in empatic concern are prone to even greater political polarization and show greater partisan bias in the censorship of ideas and feelings of schadenfreude over others' misfortune.
Check also Schoenmueller, Verena and Netzer, Oded and Stahl, Florian, Polarized America: From Political Partisanship to Preference Partisanship (October 17, 2019). SSRN. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/11/brand-preferences-increasing.html
Abstract: Over the past two decades, there has been a marked increase in partisan social polarization, leaving scholars in search of solutions to partisan conflict. The psychology of intergroup relations identifies empathy as one of the key mechanisms that reduces intergroup conflict, and some have suggested that a lack of empathy has contributed to partisan polarization. Yet, empathy may not always live up to this promise. We argue that, in practice, the experience of empathy is biased toward one’s ingroup and can actually exacerbate political polarization. First, using a large, national sample, we demonstrate that higher levels of dispositional empathic concern are associated with higher levels of affective polarization. Second, using an experimental design, we show that individuals high in empathic concern show greater partisan bias in evaluating contentious political events. Taken together, our results suggest that, contrary to popular views, higher levels of dispositional empathy actually facilitate partisan polarization.
Rolf Degen summarizing: Individuals high in empatic concern are prone to even greater political polarization and show greater partisan bias in the censorship of ideas and feelings of schadenfreude over others' misfortune.
Check also Schoenmueller, Verena and Netzer, Oded and Stahl, Florian, Polarized America: From Political Partisanship to Preference Partisanship (October 17, 2019). SSRN. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/11/brand-preferences-increasing.html
We conclude that many species possess the psychological processes to show some form of reciprocity; it might be a widespread phenomenon that varies in terms of strategies and mechanisms
Reciprocity: Different behavioural strategies, cognitive mechanisms and psychological processes. Manon K. Schweinfurth, Josep Call. Learning & Behavior, November 1 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13420-019-00394-5
Abstract: Reciprocity is probably one of the most debated theories in evolutionary research. After more than 40 years of research, some scientists conclude that reciprocity is an almost uniquely human trait mainly because it is cognitively demanding. Others, however, conclude that reciprocity is widespread and of great importance to many species. Yet, it is unclear how these species reciprocate, given its apparent cognitive complexity. Therefore, our aim was to unravel the psychological processes underlying reciprocity. By bringing together findings from studies investigating different aspects of reciprocity, we show that reciprocity is a rich concept with different behavioural strategies and cognitive mechanisms that require very different psychological processes. We reviewed evidence from three textbook examples, i.e. the Norway rat, common vampire bat and brown capuchin monkey, and show that the species use different strategies and mechanisms to reciprocate. We continue by examining the psychological processes of reciprocity. We show that the cognitive load varies between different forms of reciprocity. Several factors can lower the memory demands of reciprocity such as distinctiveness of encounters, memory of details and network size. Furthermore, there are different information operation systems in place, which also vary in their cognitive load due to assessing the number of encounters and the quality and quantity of help. We conclude that many species possess the psychological processes to show some form of reciprocity. Hence, reciprocity might be a widespread phenomenon that varies in terms of strategies and mechanisms.
Keywords: Cooperation Reciprocity Cognition Emotion Norway rat Vampire bat Capuchin monkey
Introduction
The theory of natural selection predicts that only those behaviours evolve that increase the actor’s own survival and reproductive success (Darwin, 1859). Paradoxically, many species provide benefits to others, for instance, by providing care, food, information and support to con- and heterospecifics (Dugatkin, 1997). Cooperation is such a widespread phenomenon that we find evidence across the animal kingdom, ranging from bacteria (Crespi, 2001) to humans (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003). The paradox of the evolution of cooperation was resolved for interactions between related individuals, i.e. by helping kin, shared genes are more likely to be transmitted to the next generations, which is in the interest of the helper (Hamilton, 1964). Still, the kin selection theory cannot explain the frequent occurrence of cooperation among unrelated individuals. Trivers (1971) offered a solution: reciprocal cooperation, i.e. helping those that were cooperative before. While several theoretical models have shown that cooperation can evolve via reciprocity (reviewed in Nowak, 2012), the theory has faced considerable resistance (e.g. Clutton-Brock, 2009; Connor, 2010; Hammerstein, 2003; Russell & Wright, 2009; Sánchez-Amaro & Amici, 2015; Stevens, Cushman, & Hauser, 2005; Stevens & Hauser, 2004, 2005; West, Griffin, & Gardner, 2007).
It is a central problem of the theory of reciprocity, and explaining cooperation more generally (especially among non-kin), that the extent to which behavioural exchanges are based on reciprocity is unknown. This problem is tightly linked to the cognitive underpinnings of reciprocity. Researchers, who assume reciprocity to be highly cognitively demanding, came to the conclusion that reciprocity is virtually absent in non-human animals (Amici et al., 2014; Clements & Stephens, 1995; Hauser, McAuliffe, & Blake, 2009; Pelé, Dufour, Thierry, & Call, 2009; Pelé, Thierry, Call, & Dufour, 2010; Sánchez-Amaro & Amici, 2015; Stephens, McLinn, & Stevens, 2002; Stevens et al., 2005; Stevens & Hauser, 2004). In contrast, researchers who assume that reciprocity varies in its cognitive load came to the opposite conclusion that reciprocity is widespread (Brosnan & de Waal, 2002; Brosnan, Salwiczek, & Bshary, 2010; Carter, 2014; Freidin, Carballo, & Bentosela, 2017; Melis & Semmann, 2010; Raihani & Bshary, 2011; Schino & Aureli, 2009, 2010b; Taborsky, Frommen, & Riehl, 2016). Here, we argue that the debate can be enriched and potentially resolved by identifying and discussing the concrete psychological processes of all different forms of reciprocity by using and incorporating findings from different lines of research. Although several authors have discussed the various mechanisms that may underlie reciprocal exchanges between individuals (e.g. Brosnan & de Waal, 2002; Schino & Aureli, 2010b), as far as we know, no attempt has been made to systematically relate those mechanisms to the psychological processes underlying them. Our aim in this article is to bring attention to this issue as a necessary step towards the ultimate goal of elucidating the psychological processes underlying different forms of reciprocity. Accordingly, our article is organised as follows: First, we summarise different behavioural strategies and cognitive mechanisms enabling reciprocity. Second, we apply this framework to three textbook examples of reciprocity, i.e. the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus), the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) and the brown capuchin monkey (Cebus apella). Third, we discuss the crucial behavioural, cognitive and emotional components enabling different forms of reciprocity. These psychological processes will allow us to draw clear predictions under which conditions reciprocity is likely to evolve. Finally, we provide concrete examples for prospective studies to better understand the evolutionary and psychological origins of reciprocity.
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Three textbook examples of reciprocity
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Norway rat
Wild Norway rats live in large multi-female, multi-male colonies, which may be composed of more than 150 individuals (Davis, 1953). They frequently interact with related and unrelated colony members and form dominance hierarchies (Calhoun, 1979). They engage in various social behaviours like alarm calls, food sharing, huddling, social grooming and social play (reviewed in Schweinfurth, under review).
Norway rats have been repeatedly shown to reciprocate help in different paradigms (reviewed in Schweinfurth in press). The most commonly used paradigm is the food-exchange setup. Here one rat, i.e. the cooperating partner, provides food via a movable platform to the focal rat (cf. Rutte & Taborsky, 2007). After a delay of up to six days, the roles are exchanged and the focal rat can provide food to its previous partner (e.g. Stieger, Schweinfurth, & Taborsky, 2017). To ensure that food donations by the focal rats are based on the previous help by a partner, focal rats are always also tested with a defecting partner that did not provide food to them. Several controls have been conducted to ensure that, for instance, differential food intake, activity, copying, or other factors cannot explain their helping levels (for a discussion, see Dolivo, Rutte, & Taborsky, 2016; Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2018b).
Rats help each other reciprocally according to at least two behavioural strategies. First, they help each other according to direct reciprocity. Female and male rats donate food to others reciprocally by providing more food to cooperating than defecting partners (Li & Wood, 2017; Rutte & Taborsky, 2008; Schneeberger, Dietz, & Taborsky, 2012; Schweinfurth, Aeschbacher, Santi, & Taborsky, 2019; Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2016, 2017, 2018c; Simones, 2007; Viana, Gordo, Sucena, & Moita, 2010). In addition, female rats apply direct reciprocity when grooming each other (Schweinfurth, Stieger, & Taborsky, 2017). Such reciprocal allogrooming has significant fitness benefits, as reciprocal groomers live longer and suffer less mammary tumours in the lab (Yee, Cavigelli, Delgado, & McClintock, 2008). Finally, female rats also exchange allogrooming for food and vice versa (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2018b; Stieger et al., 2017). Besides direct reciprocity, female, but not male, rats engage in generalised reciprocity (Rutte & Taborsky, 2007, 2008; Schweinfurth et al., 2019). In a direct comparison, however, female rats donate over 20% more food to a partner with whom they have interacted, showing that direct reciprocity generates higher levels of cooperation than generalised reciprocity (Rutte & Taborsky, 2008).
What is the mechanism underlying reciprocity in Norway rats? First, hard-wired reciprocity cannot explain reciprocity among Norway rats because they tailor their help to the partner’s helping quality (Dolivo & Taborsky, 2015) and the partner’s need (Márquez, Rennie, Costa, & Moita, 2015; Schneeberger et al., 2012; Schneeberger, Röder, & Taborsky, submitted; Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2018a). Furthermore, rats reciprocate help by using different actions (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2017) and different commodities (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2018b; Stieger et al., 2017), making a fixed response unlikely. Second, emotion-based reciprocity is also unlikely to explain reciprocity in Norway rats. They seem not to form social bonds even after being housed together for more than one and a half years (Schweinfurth, Neuenschwander, et al., 2017). They do not accumulate social information with their partners, but rather use the last experience (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, under review; Stieger et al., 2017). Third, there is no evidence for calculated reciprocity either. The amounts of received and immediate given help are not matched in male and female rats (Schweinfurth et al., 2019; Schweinfurth & Taborsky, under review). This is in line with their numerical ability being limited to six items, which is below the amount of grooming bouts they are known to reciprocate (cf. Davis & Bradford, 1986; Schweinfurth, Stieger, et al., 2017).
Reciprocity in Norway rats is probably best explained by attitudinal reciprocity (reviewed in Schweinfurth, in press). Rats form attitudes that are based on the last encounter with a partner (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, under review). Importantly, using the last encounters for reciprocity is not a result of memory interference as rats have been shown to memorise several partners (Kettler, Schweinfurth, & Taborsky, under review), several food preferences (Galef, Lee, & Whiskin, 2005) and several unique events (Panoz-Brown et al., 2016) despite a long time delay with potentially disruptive experiences. Importantly, attitudes are linked to received cooperation and not just the product of ‘feeling good’, as a study showed in which rats refused to reciprocate food donations that they received in the presence of, but not by, another rat (Schmid, Schneeberger, & Taborsky, 2017). Attitudes can be generalised to other partners because female rats show not only direct but also generalised reciprocity (Rutte & Taborsky, 2008). In addition, attitudes are not binary responses, like a cooperator or defector tag, but can be modulated by different values of help. For instance, rats groom a partner more often that has provided food to them than vice versa, suggesting that one food item is valued more than one allogrooming bout (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2018b). In addition, rats are more likely to provide oat flakes to a partner that provided them with banana pieces, i.e. highly preferred food, than with carrot pieces, i.e. less preferred food (Dolivo & Taborsky, 2015).
Common vampire bat
Vampire bats, which include three species, feed exclusively on the blood of other mammals (Dalquest, 1955). Common vampire bats live in small groups of eight to twelve individuals (Wilkinson, 1984). Such groups roost together in large colonies, ranging from a few individuals to over 2,000, whereby females often move between different roosts (Wilkinson, 1988). Groups usually consist of one male and its female harem or male bachelor groups (Wilkinson, 1985b, 1985a). Vampire bats are the only bats that regurgitate food to donate it to others (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013a). Besides food donations, vampire bats show high levels of allogrooming compared to other bats (Carter & Leffer, 2015). In addition, they adopt and nurse offspring of other colony members (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013a; Wilkinson, Carter, Bohn, & Adams, 2016).
Common vampire bats regurgitate blood to donate it to others. Early studies used numerous observations of these bats in their natural habitat and found that given and received help is correlated and reciprocated (Denault & McFarlane, 1995; Wilkinson, 1984). Recently, these findings have been replicated (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c) and extended by several controlled experiments with captive bats (reviewed in Carter & Wilkinson, 2013b). In several experiments, individual focal bats were removed from their colony and fasted for one day. After the hungry focal individual was returned to its group, all food donations to this individual were recorded. The focal individuals received blood mostly from partners, which they had provided food before (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c).
They mainly donate blood with conspecifics with which they roost together frequently but that do not necessarily belong to their group (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013b). Food donations are more common between females, which form stable social bonds, but males have also been shown to regurgitate blood for others in the laboratory (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013b). Such donations are highly valuable to recipients because vampire bats die within two to three days without a blood meal (Freitas, Welker, Millan, & Pinheiro, 2003; McNab, 1973). They reciprocate blood with both kin and non-kin, whereby donations are better explained by reciprocity than by relatedness (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c). Extending the network to non-kin has been shown to be beneficial for the bats because when their main association partner was temporarily removed, those that had more associations with unrelated roost mates received more food donations (Carter, Farine, & Wilkinson, 2017; Carter & Wilkinson, 2015b). Besides exchanging blood, the bats also exchange allogrooming for food according to direct reciprocity (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c; Wilkinson, 1986). In contrast, they seem not to use generalised reciprocity (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c).
What is the mechanism underlying reciprocity in common vampire bats? First, hard-wired reciprocity cannot explain reciprocity since the bats exchange different services, like allogrooming with food (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c). In addition, reciprocity is limited to few closely bonded individuals (Carter et al., 2017), which makes automatic responses to received help unlikely. Second, attitudes based on recent encounters seem to be unable to generate reciprocity because reciprocity can only be detected over long time frames or when socially bonded bats are observed in captivity (reviewed in Carter & Wilkinson, 2013b; Wilkinson et al., 2016). Third, calculated reciprocity is an unlikely explanation for their reciprocity. Like Norway rats, common vampire bats do not match the actual amount of received and given help (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c), which makes reciprocity based on calculations unlikely. However, little is known about their cognitive capabilities that could elucidate the underlying cognitive processes that they use (for the only studies of examining cognitive skills, see Ratcliffe, Fenton, & Galef, 2003; Vrtilek, Carter, Patriquin, Page, & Ratcliffe, 2018).
Reciprocity in vampire bats is probably best explained by emotion-based reciprocity. Rather than considering the last encounters as Norway rats do, the bats reciprocate help over long time spans (see above). They form enduring social bonds with kin and non-kin, which can last over more than ten years (Carter et al., 2017; Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c, 2015b; Wilkinson, 1985b, 1985a, 1986). Importantly, their food-sharing network closely mirrors their social-bonding network (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c). This suggests that social bonds play a crucial role in their decisions to help conspecifics. In line with this, the amounts of donated blood and grooming are linked to oxytocin levels, which suggests an emotional component in the decision to reciprocate (Carter & Wilkinson, 2015a).
Brown capuchin monkey
Brown capuchin monkeys, also called tufted or black-capped capuchin monkeys, live in colonies of up to 30 individuals (Carosi, Linn, & Visalberghi, 2005). They show a distinct linear hierarchy in both sexes (Janson, 1985). Further, their breeding system can be described as either one-male, multi-female or multi-male, multi-female (Carosi et al., 2005). These monkeys show various social behaviours, such as alarm calls, collaborative hunting, food sharing, social grooming and social play (Fragaszy, Visalberghi, & Fegan, 2009; Izawa, 1980).
Brown capuchin monkeys are probably the best-known example for reciprocity. Reciprocity has been demonstrated repeatedly by using various methods under controlled captive conditions. For instance, they donate food to others by handing over or dropping food close to a partner in an adjacent compartment, who will return the favour in the same way (de Waal, 2000; see de Waal, 1997, for a detailed ethogram of the donations). To ensure that food donations are a product of received help and partner directed, several control conditions have been conducted with partners of differing relationship quality or partners being absent (reviewed in de Waal & Brosnan, 2006). In addition to these active and passive food transfers, the monkeys also reciprocate food donations by using various less intuitive testing apparatuses, i.e. bar pulling, joysticks, lever boxes and token exchanges (Hattori, Kuroshima, & Fujita, 2005; Mendres & de Waal, 2000; Parrish, Brosnan, & Beran, 2015; Suchak & de Waal, 2012).
All the tests described above investigated direct reciprocity. In addition, capuchin monkeys show generalised reciprocity (Leimgruber et al., 2014). As far as we are aware, there has been no published report of indirect reciprocity in brown capuchin monkeys. However, they pay attention to third-party interactions and are inclined to accept exchange offers from humans that were observed to frequently reject such exchange requests from other monkeys (Anderson, Kuroshima, Takimoto, & Fujita, 2013). This might suggest indirect reciprocity, but further studies are needed that directly test this possibility.
What is the mechanism underlying reciprocity in brown capuchin monkeys? In contrast to Norway rats and common vampire bats, the mechanism of reciprocity among these monkeys is less obvious. The only mechanism that can be almost certainly excluded is hard-wired reciprocity. When the monkeys help each other, they consider the quality of received help (de Waal, 2000) and the quality of their relationship (Sabbatini, De Bortoli Vizioli, Visalberghi, & Schino, 2012). This makes a fixed response unlikely. Furthermore, calculated reciprocity seems unlikely but possible because two studies found that the amount of received and given help was correlated, which suggests memory and score keeping of previous helpful events to some degree (e.g. de Waal, 1997, 2000). In fact, capuchin monkeys have been shown to add items to a pool of non-visible items, suggesting that they can keep track of multiple food donations, which is needed for calculations (Beran, Evans, Leidghty, Harris, & Rice, 2008). However, not all studies found such a correlation between received and given help (Brosnan, Freeman, & de Waal, 2006; Sabbatini et al., 2012; Suchak & de Waal, 2012). Finally, studies set out to test for calculated reciprocity found no evidence (Amici et al., 2014; Pelé et al., 2010). It should be noted, however, that the monkeys in these studies did not pass the task-understanding condition. Therefore, additional studies on calculated reciprocity are needed.
There is less ambiguous evidence for the two remaining mechanisms underlying reciprocity. There is good evidence for attitudinal reciprocity (reviewed in Brosnan & de Waal, 2002; de Waal & Brosnan, 2006). In contrast to common vampire bats and in accordance with Norway rats, brown capuchin monkeys show short-term reciprocity (see above). Furthermore, they reciprocate help with familiar and unfamiliar partners (Suchak & de Waal, 2012), which suggests short-term attitudes rather than long-term bonds being the reason to help. However, there is also good evidence for emotion-based reciprocity. In a direct comparison, the monkeys were more likely to allow access to their food to a socially bonded individual than to an individual that provided food to them before (Sabbatini et al., 2012). This study suggests that the monkeys probably cooperate over long time frames and an emotional bond can become more important that attitudinal reciprocity in a partner choice situation. This is in line with observations from the wild that showed evidence for long-term reciprocity (di Bitetti, 1997; Izawa, 1980; Schino, di Giuseppe, & Visalberghi, 2009a; Schino, Di Giuseppe, & Visalberghi, 2009b; Tiddi, Aureli, Polizzi di Sorrentino, Janson, & Schino, 2011; Tiddi, Aureli, & Schino, 2012).
Hence, reciprocity in brown capuchin monkeys is probably a result of attitudinal reciprocity and emotion-based reciprocity. While attitudinal reciprocity cannot explain the selective helping of bonded individuals, emotion-based reciprocity cannot explain the repeatedly observed short-term reciprocity. Still, the results must not be contradictory, and both may explain some aspects of cooperation in these monkeys. For instance, Sabbatini et al. (2012) found that the same monkeys show short-term reciprocity in dyads, but long-term reciprocity in trios. This is an interesting finding because it suggests that individuals can possess multiple mechanisms to achieve reciprocity. The same may apply to other species, although this has not been studied extensively other than in humans.
Humans use different mechanisms to achieve different forms of reciprocity. People employ a calculated reciprocity approach with unfamiliar (Andreoni & Miller, 1993; Gachter & Falk, 2002) or business partners (Anderson, Hakansson, & Johanson, 1994; Steidlmeier, 1999). If, however, it gets difficult to memorise several events with a partner, people focus on the attitude towards partners based on the last encounter (Milinski & Wedekind, 1998). In contrast, we rarely use short-term reciprocity when interacting with friends; instead, we rely on emotional bonds based on long-term reciprocity (reviewed in Massen, Sterck, & de Vos, 2010; Silk, 2003). Overall, we help friends more than strangers (Gächter, Kessler, & Königstein, 2011) because we trust them (Buchan, Croson, & Dawes, 2002; Majolo et al., 2013) and expect them to return favours (Deutsch, 1975; Walker, 1995). Interestingly, donations towards strangers can be increased by applying oxytocin, which is associated with emotional bonds (Zak, Stanton, & Ahmadi, 2007). In addition, the more often strangers interact, the more trust is built up and the more they are treated like friends (Gächter et al., 2011). This suggests that we use multiple mechanisms that can transform into each other rather than being static.
Abstract: Reciprocity is probably one of the most debated theories in evolutionary research. After more than 40 years of research, some scientists conclude that reciprocity is an almost uniquely human trait mainly because it is cognitively demanding. Others, however, conclude that reciprocity is widespread and of great importance to many species. Yet, it is unclear how these species reciprocate, given its apparent cognitive complexity. Therefore, our aim was to unravel the psychological processes underlying reciprocity. By bringing together findings from studies investigating different aspects of reciprocity, we show that reciprocity is a rich concept with different behavioural strategies and cognitive mechanisms that require very different psychological processes. We reviewed evidence from three textbook examples, i.e. the Norway rat, common vampire bat and brown capuchin monkey, and show that the species use different strategies and mechanisms to reciprocate. We continue by examining the psychological processes of reciprocity. We show that the cognitive load varies between different forms of reciprocity. Several factors can lower the memory demands of reciprocity such as distinctiveness of encounters, memory of details and network size. Furthermore, there are different information operation systems in place, which also vary in their cognitive load due to assessing the number of encounters and the quality and quantity of help. We conclude that many species possess the psychological processes to show some form of reciprocity. Hence, reciprocity might be a widespread phenomenon that varies in terms of strategies and mechanisms.
Keywords: Cooperation Reciprocity Cognition Emotion Norway rat Vampire bat Capuchin monkey
Introduction
The theory of natural selection predicts that only those behaviours evolve that increase the actor’s own survival and reproductive success (Darwin, 1859). Paradoxically, many species provide benefits to others, for instance, by providing care, food, information and support to con- and heterospecifics (Dugatkin, 1997). Cooperation is such a widespread phenomenon that we find evidence across the animal kingdom, ranging from bacteria (Crespi, 2001) to humans (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003). The paradox of the evolution of cooperation was resolved for interactions between related individuals, i.e. by helping kin, shared genes are more likely to be transmitted to the next generations, which is in the interest of the helper (Hamilton, 1964). Still, the kin selection theory cannot explain the frequent occurrence of cooperation among unrelated individuals. Trivers (1971) offered a solution: reciprocal cooperation, i.e. helping those that were cooperative before. While several theoretical models have shown that cooperation can evolve via reciprocity (reviewed in Nowak, 2012), the theory has faced considerable resistance (e.g. Clutton-Brock, 2009; Connor, 2010; Hammerstein, 2003; Russell & Wright, 2009; Sánchez-Amaro & Amici, 2015; Stevens, Cushman, & Hauser, 2005; Stevens & Hauser, 2004, 2005; West, Griffin, & Gardner, 2007).
It is a central problem of the theory of reciprocity, and explaining cooperation more generally (especially among non-kin), that the extent to which behavioural exchanges are based on reciprocity is unknown. This problem is tightly linked to the cognitive underpinnings of reciprocity. Researchers, who assume reciprocity to be highly cognitively demanding, came to the conclusion that reciprocity is virtually absent in non-human animals (Amici et al., 2014; Clements & Stephens, 1995; Hauser, McAuliffe, & Blake, 2009; Pelé, Dufour, Thierry, & Call, 2009; Pelé, Thierry, Call, & Dufour, 2010; Sánchez-Amaro & Amici, 2015; Stephens, McLinn, & Stevens, 2002; Stevens et al., 2005; Stevens & Hauser, 2004). In contrast, researchers who assume that reciprocity varies in its cognitive load came to the opposite conclusion that reciprocity is widespread (Brosnan & de Waal, 2002; Brosnan, Salwiczek, & Bshary, 2010; Carter, 2014; Freidin, Carballo, & Bentosela, 2017; Melis & Semmann, 2010; Raihani & Bshary, 2011; Schino & Aureli, 2009, 2010b; Taborsky, Frommen, & Riehl, 2016). Here, we argue that the debate can be enriched and potentially resolved by identifying and discussing the concrete psychological processes of all different forms of reciprocity by using and incorporating findings from different lines of research. Although several authors have discussed the various mechanisms that may underlie reciprocal exchanges between individuals (e.g. Brosnan & de Waal, 2002; Schino & Aureli, 2010b), as far as we know, no attempt has been made to systematically relate those mechanisms to the psychological processes underlying them. Our aim in this article is to bring attention to this issue as a necessary step towards the ultimate goal of elucidating the psychological processes underlying different forms of reciprocity. Accordingly, our article is organised as follows: First, we summarise different behavioural strategies and cognitive mechanisms enabling reciprocity. Second, we apply this framework to three textbook examples of reciprocity, i.e. the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus), the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) and the brown capuchin monkey (Cebus apella). Third, we discuss the crucial behavioural, cognitive and emotional components enabling different forms of reciprocity. These psychological processes will allow us to draw clear predictions under which conditions reciprocity is likely to evolve. Finally, we provide concrete examples for prospective studies to better understand the evolutionary and psychological origins of reciprocity.
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Three textbook examples of reciprocity
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Norway rat
Wild Norway rats live in large multi-female, multi-male colonies, which may be composed of more than 150 individuals (Davis, 1953). They frequently interact with related and unrelated colony members and form dominance hierarchies (Calhoun, 1979). They engage in various social behaviours like alarm calls, food sharing, huddling, social grooming and social play (reviewed in Schweinfurth, under review).
Norway rats have been repeatedly shown to reciprocate help in different paradigms (reviewed in Schweinfurth in press). The most commonly used paradigm is the food-exchange setup. Here one rat, i.e. the cooperating partner, provides food via a movable platform to the focal rat (cf. Rutte & Taborsky, 2007). After a delay of up to six days, the roles are exchanged and the focal rat can provide food to its previous partner (e.g. Stieger, Schweinfurth, & Taborsky, 2017). To ensure that food donations by the focal rats are based on the previous help by a partner, focal rats are always also tested with a defecting partner that did not provide food to them. Several controls have been conducted to ensure that, for instance, differential food intake, activity, copying, or other factors cannot explain their helping levels (for a discussion, see Dolivo, Rutte, & Taborsky, 2016; Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2018b).
Rats help each other reciprocally according to at least two behavioural strategies. First, they help each other according to direct reciprocity. Female and male rats donate food to others reciprocally by providing more food to cooperating than defecting partners (Li & Wood, 2017; Rutte & Taborsky, 2008; Schneeberger, Dietz, & Taborsky, 2012; Schweinfurth, Aeschbacher, Santi, & Taborsky, 2019; Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2016, 2017, 2018c; Simones, 2007; Viana, Gordo, Sucena, & Moita, 2010). In addition, female rats apply direct reciprocity when grooming each other (Schweinfurth, Stieger, & Taborsky, 2017). Such reciprocal allogrooming has significant fitness benefits, as reciprocal groomers live longer and suffer less mammary tumours in the lab (Yee, Cavigelli, Delgado, & McClintock, 2008). Finally, female rats also exchange allogrooming for food and vice versa (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2018b; Stieger et al., 2017). Besides direct reciprocity, female, but not male, rats engage in generalised reciprocity (Rutte & Taborsky, 2007, 2008; Schweinfurth et al., 2019). In a direct comparison, however, female rats donate over 20% more food to a partner with whom they have interacted, showing that direct reciprocity generates higher levels of cooperation than generalised reciprocity (Rutte & Taborsky, 2008).
What is the mechanism underlying reciprocity in Norway rats? First, hard-wired reciprocity cannot explain reciprocity among Norway rats because they tailor their help to the partner’s helping quality (Dolivo & Taborsky, 2015) and the partner’s need (Márquez, Rennie, Costa, & Moita, 2015; Schneeberger et al., 2012; Schneeberger, Röder, & Taborsky, submitted; Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2018a). Furthermore, rats reciprocate help by using different actions (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2017) and different commodities (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2018b; Stieger et al., 2017), making a fixed response unlikely. Second, emotion-based reciprocity is also unlikely to explain reciprocity in Norway rats. They seem not to form social bonds even after being housed together for more than one and a half years (Schweinfurth, Neuenschwander, et al., 2017). They do not accumulate social information with their partners, but rather use the last experience (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, under review; Stieger et al., 2017). Third, there is no evidence for calculated reciprocity either. The amounts of received and immediate given help are not matched in male and female rats (Schweinfurth et al., 2019; Schweinfurth & Taborsky, under review). This is in line with their numerical ability being limited to six items, which is below the amount of grooming bouts they are known to reciprocate (cf. Davis & Bradford, 1986; Schweinfurth, Stieger, et al., 2017).
Reciprocity in Norway rats is probably best explained by attitudinal reciprocity (reviewed in Schweinfurth, in press). Rats form attitudes that are based on the last encounter with a partner (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, under review). Importantly, using the last encounters for reciprocity is not a result of memory interference as rats have been shown to memorise several partners (Kettler, Schweinfurth, & Taborsky, under review), several food preferences (Galef, Lee, & Whiskin, 2005) and several unique events (Panoz-Brown et al., 2016) despite a long time delay with potentially disruptive experiences. Importantly, attitudes are linked to received cooperation and not just the product of ‘feeling good’, as a study showed in which rats refused to reciprocate food donations that they received in the presence of, but not by, another rat (Schmid, Schneeberger, & Taborsky, 2017). Attitudes can be generalised to other partners because female rats show not only direct but also generalised reciprocity (Rutte & Taborsky, 2008). In addition, attitudes are not binary responses, like a cooperator or defector tag, but can be modulated by different values of help. For instance, rats groom a partner more often that has provided food to them than vice versa, suggesting that one food item is valued more than one allogrooming bout (Schweinfurth & Taborsky, 2018b). In addition, rats are more likely to provide oat flakes to a partner that provided them with banana pieces, i.e. highly preferred food, than with carrot pieces, i.e. less preferred food (Dolivo & Taborsky, 2015).
Common vampire bat
Vampire bats, which include three species, feed exclusively on the blood of other mammals (Dalquest, 1955). Common vampire bats live in small groups of eight to twelve individuals (Wilkinson, 1984). Such groups roost together in large colonies, ranging from a few individuals to over 2,000, whereby females often move between different roosts (Wilkinson, 1988). Groups usually consist of one male and its female harem or male bachelor groups (Wilkinson, 1985b, 1985a). Vampire bats are the only bats that regurgitate food to donate it to others (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013a). Besides food donations, vampire bats show high levels of allogrooming compared to other bats (Carter & Leffer, 2015). In addition, they adopt and nurse offspring of other colony members (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013a; Wilkinson, Carter, Bohn, & Adams, 2016).
Common vampire bats regurgitate blood to donate it to others. Early studies used numerous observations of these bats in their natural habitat and found that given and received help is correlated and reciprocated (Denault & McFarlane, 1995; Wilkinson, 1984). Recently, these findings have been replicated (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c) and extended by several controlled experiments with captive bats (reviewed in Carter & Wilkinson, 2013b). In several experiments, individual focal bats were removed from their colony and fasted for one day. After the hungry focal individual was returned to its group, all food donations to this individual were recorded. The focal individuals received blood mostly from partners, which they had provided food before (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c).
They mainly donate blood with conspecifics with which they roost together frequently but that do not necessarily belong to their group (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013b). Food donations are more common between females, which form stable social bonds, but males have also been shown to regurgitate blood for others in the laboratory (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013b). Such donations are highly valuable to recipients because vampire bats die within two to three days without a blood meal (Freitas, Welker, Millan, & Pinheiro, 2003; McNab, 1973). They reciprocate blood with both kin and non-kin, whereby donations are better explained by reciprocity than by relatedness (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c). Extending the network to non-kin has been shown to be beneficial for the bats because when their main association partner was temporarily removed, those that had more associations with unrelated roost mates received more food donations (Carter, Farine, & Wilkinson, 2017; Carter & Wilkinson, 2015b). Besides exchanging blood, the bats also exchange allogrooming for food according to direct reciprocity (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c; Wilkinson, 1986). In contrast, they seem not to use generalised reciprocity (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c).
What is the mechanism underlying reciprocity in common vampire bats? First, hard-wired reciprocity cannot explain reciprocity since the bats exchange different services, like allogrooming with food (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c). In addition, reciprocity is limited to few closely bonded individuals (Carter et al., 2017), which makes automatic responses to received help unlikely. Second, attitudes based on recent encounters seem to be unable to generate reciprocity because reciprocity can only be detected over long time frames or when socially bonded bats are observed in captivity (reviewed in Carter & Wilkinson, 2013b; Wilkinson et al., 2016). Third, calculated reciprocity is an unlikely explanation for their reciprocity. Like Norway rats, common vampire bats do not match the actual amount of received and given help (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c), which makes reciprocity based on calculations unlikely. However, little is known about their cognitive capabilities that could elucidate the underlying cognitive processes that they use (for the only studies of examining cognitive skills, see Ratcliffe, Fenton, & Galef, 2003; Vrtilek, Carter, Patriquin, Page, & Ratcliffe, 2018).
Reciprocity in vampire bats is probably best explained by emotion-based reciprocity. Rather than considering the last encounters as Norway rats do, the bats reciprocate help over long time spans (see above). They form enduring social bonds with kin and non-kin, which can last over more than ten years (Carter et al., 2017; Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c, 2015b; Wilkinson, 1985b, 1985a, 1986). Importantly, their food-sharing network closely mirrors their social-bonding network (Carter & Wilkinson, 2013c). This suggests that social bonds play a crucial role in their decisions to help conspecifics. In line with this, the amounts of donated blood and grooming are linked to oxytocin levels, which suggests an emotional component in the decision to reciprocate (Carter & Wilkinson, 2015a).
Brown capuchin monkey
Brown capuchin monkeys, also called tufted or black-capped capuchin monkeys, live in colonies of up to 30 individuals (Carosi, Linn, & Visalberghi, 2005). They show a distinct linear hierarchy in both sexes (Janson, 1985). Further, their breeding system can be described as either one-male, multi-female or multi-male, multi-female (Carosi et al., 2005). These monkeys show various social behaviours, such as alarm calls, collaborative hunting, food sharing, social grooming and social play (Fragaszy, Visalberghi, & Fegan, 2009; Izawa, 1980).
Brown capuchin monkeys are probably the best-known example for reciprocity. Reciprocity has been demonstrated repeatedly by using various methods under controlled captive conditions. For instance, they donate food to others by handing over or dropping food close to a partner in an adjacent compartment, who will return the favour in the same way (de Waal, 2000; see de Waal, 1997, for a detailed ethogram of the donations). To ensure that food donations are a product of received help and partner directed, several control conditions have been conducted with partners of differing relationship quality or partners being absent (reviewed in de Waal & Brosnan, 2006). In addition to these active and passive food transfers, the monkeys also reciprocate food donations by using various less intuitive testing apparatuses, i.e. bar pulling, joysticks, lever boxes and token exchanges (Hattori, Kuroshima, & Fujita, 2005; Mendres & de Waal, 2000; Parrish, Brosnan, & Beran, 2015; Suchak & de Waal, 2012).
All the tests described above investigated direct reciprocity. In addition, capuchin monkeys show generalised reciprocity (Leimgruber et al., 2014). As far as we are aware, there has been no published report of indirect reciprocity in brown capuchin monkeys. However, they pay attention to third-party interactions and are inclined to accept exchange offers from humans that were observed to frequently reject such exchange requests from other monkeys (Anderson, Kuroshima, Takimoto, & Fujita, 2013). This might suggest indirect reciprocity, but further studies are needed that directly test this possibility.
What is the mechanism underlying reciprocity in brown capuchin monkeys? In contrast to Norway rats and common vampire bats, the mechanism of reciprocity among these monkeys is less obvious. The only mechanism that can be almost certainly excluded is hard-wired reciprocity. When the monkeys help each other, they consider the quality of received help (de Waal, 2000) and the quality of their relationship (Sabbatini, De Bortoli Vizioli, Visalberghi, & Schino, 2012). This makes a fixed response unlikely. Furthermore, calculated reciprocity seems unlikely but possible because two studies found that the amount of received and given help was correlated, which suggests memory and score keeping of previous helpful events to some degree (e.g. de Waal, 1997, 2000). In fact, capuchin monkeys have been shown to add items to a pool of non-visible items, suggesting that they can keep track of multiple food donations, which is needed for calculations (Beran, Evans, Leidghty, Harris, & Rice, 2008). However, not all studies found such a correlation between received and given help (Brosnan, Freeman, & de Waal, 2006; Sabbatini et al., 2012; Suchak & de Waal, 2012). Finally, studies set out to test for calculated reciprocity found no evidence (Amici et al., 2014; Pelé et al., 2010). It should be noted, however, that the monkeys in these studies did not pass the task-understanding condition. Therefore, additional studies on calculated reciprocity are needed.
There is less ambiguous evidence for the two remaining mechanisms underlying reciprocity. There is good evidence for attitudinal reciprocity (reviewed in Brosnan & de Waal, 2002; de Waal & Brosnan, 2006). In contrast to common vampire bats and in accordance with Norway rats, brown capuchin monkeys show short-term reciprocity (see above). Furthermore, they reciprocate help with familiar and unfamiliar partners (Suchak & de Waal, 2012), which suggests short-term attitudes rather than long-term bonds being the reason to help. However, there is also good evidence for emotion-based reciprocity. In a direct comparison, the monkeys were more likely to allow access to their food to a socially bonded individual than to an individual that provided food to them before (Sabbatini et al., 2012). This study suggests that the monkeys probably cooperate over long time frames and an emotional bond can become more important that attitudinal reciprocity in a partner choice situation. This is in line with observations from the wild that showed evidence for long-term reciprocity (di Bitetti, 1997; Izawa, 1980; Schino, di Giuseppe, & Visalberghi, 2009a; Schino, Di Giuseppe, & Visalberghi, 2009b; Tiddi, Aureli, Polizzi di Sorrentino, Janson, & Schino, 2011; Tiddi, Aureli, & Schino, 2012).
Hence, reciprocity in brown capuchin monkeys is probably a result of attitudinal reciprocity and emotion-based reciprocity. While attitudinal reciprocity cannot explain the selective helping of bonded individuals, emotion-based reciprocity cannot explain the repeatedly observed short-term reciprocity. Still, the results must not be contradictory, and both may explain some aspects of cooperation in these monkeys. For instance, Sabbatini et al. (2012) found that the same monkeys show short-term reciprocity in dyads, but long-term reciprocity in trios. This is an interesting finding because it suggests that individuals can possess multiple mechanisms to achieve reciprocity. The same may apply to other species, although this has not been studied extensively other than in humans.
Humans use different mechanisms to achieve different forms of reciprocity. People employ a calculated reciprocity approach with unfamiliar (Andreoni & Miller, 1993; Gachter & Falk, 2002) or business partners (Anderson, Hakansson, & Johanson, 1994; Steidlmeier, 1999). If, however, it gets difficult to memorise several events with a partner, people focus on the attitude towards partners based on the last encounter (Milinski & Wedekind, 1998). In contrast, we rarely use short-term reciprocity when interacting with friends; instead, we rely on emotional bonds based on long-term reciprocity (reviewed in Massen, Sterck, & de Vos, 2010; Silk, 2003). Overall, we help friends more than strangers (Gächter, Kessler, & Königstein, 2011) because we trust them (Buchan, Croson, & Dawes, 2002; Majolo et al., 2013) and expect them to return favours (Deutsch, 1975; Walker, 1995). Interestingly, donations towards strangers can be increased by applying oxytocin, which is associated with emotional bonds (Zak, Stanton, & Ahmadi, 2007). In addition, the more often strangers interact, the more trust is built up and the more they are treated like friends (Gächter et al., 2011). This suggests that we use multiple mechanisms that can transform into each other rather than being static.
Optimistic people live longer & better predicts mortality than income, including health and other controls; predicted trends show declining optimism (1976–95) for those with low education
Longer, more optimistic, lives: Historic optimism and life expectancy in the United States. Kelsey J. O'Connor, CarolGraham. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, November 2 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.10.018
Highlights
• Optimistic people live longer, based on nearly 50 years of longitudinal data (PSID).
• Optimism better predicts mortality than income, including health and other controls.
• Optimism changes over time and is positively associated with socio-economic status.
• Predicted trends show declining optimism (1976–95) for those with low education.
• Our findings illustrate the importance of tracking optimism in a systematic manner.
Abstract: How was optimism related to mortality before the rise in “deaths of despair” that began in the late 1990s? Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we show that as early as 1968 more optimistic people lived longer. The relationship depends on many factors including gender, race, health, and education. We then evaluate these and other variables as correlates of individual optimism over the period 1968–1975. We find women and African Americans were less optimistic at the time than men and whites, although this changed beginning in the late 1970′s. Greater education is associated with greater optimism and so is having wealthy parents. We then predict optimism for the same individuals in subsequent years, thus generating our best guess as to how optimism changed for various demographic groups from 1976–1995. We find people with less than a high school degree had the greatest declines in optimism, a trend with long-run links to premature mortality and deaths of despair. Our findings highlight the importance of better understanding optimism's causes and consequences.
Keywords: MortalityOptimismExpectationsDeaths of despairDemographic trendsPrediction
Highlights
• Optimistic people live longer, based on nearly 50 years of longitudinal data (PSID).
• Optimism better predicts mortality than income, including health and other controls.
• Optimism changes over time and is positively associated with socio-economic status.
• Predicted trends show declining optimism (1976–95) for those with low education.
• Our findings illustrate the importance of tracking optimism in a systematic manner.
Abstract: How was optimism related to mortality before the rise in “deaths of despair” that began in the late 1990s? Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we show that as early as 1968 more optimistic people lived longer. The relationship depends on many factors including gender, race, health, and education. We then evaluate these and other variables as correlates of individual optimism over the period 1968–1975. We find women and African Americans were less optimistic at the time than men and whites, although this changed beginning in the late 1970′s. Greater education is associated with greater optimism and so is having wealthy parents. We then predict optimism for the same individuals in subsequent years, thus generating our best guess as to how optimism changed for various demographic groups from 1976–1995. We find people with less than a high school degree had the greatest declines in optimism, a trend with long-run links to premature mortality and deaths of despair. Our findings highlight the importance of better understanding optimism's causes and consequences.
Keywords: MortalityOptimismExpectationsDeaths of despairDemographic trendsPrediction
Beneficial effect of difficult learning tests: The effect was moderated by intelligence; no positive effect of testing for those of lower intelligence; average & especially higher intelligent learners got benefits
Relatively unintelligent individuals do not benefit from intentionally hindered learning: The role of desirable difficulties. Kristin Wenzel, Marc-André Reinhard. Intelligence, Volume 77, November–December 2019, 101405. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2019.101405
Highlights
• In two studies intelligence was positively correlated with later learning success.
• Study 2 also showed a beneficial effect of difficult learning tests.
• This effect was moderated by intelligence.
• There was no positive effect of testing for learners with lower intelligence.
• Average and especially higher intelligent learners profited from difficulties.
Abstract: Intelligence is an important predictor of long-term learning and academic achievement. In two studies we focused on the relation among intelligence, desirable difficulties–active generation/production of information and taking tests–, and long-term learning. We hypothesized that intelligence is positively correlated to long-term learning and that difficult learning situations, as opposed to easier reading, increase later long-term learning. We further assumed that the beneficial effects of difficult learning would be moderated by intelligence, thus, we supposed the positive effects to be stronger for learners with higher intelligence and weaker for learners with lower intelligence. We in turn conducted two experiments (N1 = 149, N2 = 176, respectively), measured participants' intelligence, applied desirable difficulties–generation/testing–in contrast to control tasks, and later assessed long-term learning indicated by delayed final test performance. Both studies showed positive correlations between intelligence and later long-term learning. Study 2 further found the expected beneficial effect of difficult learning, which was also moderated by intelligence. There was no difference between difficult tasks and control tasks for participants with relatively low intelligence. Retrieving answers in learning tests was, however, beneficial for participants with average intelligence and even more beneficial for participants with higher intelligence. In general, our two experiments highlight the importance of intelligence for complex and challenging learning tasks that are supposed to stimulate deeper encoding and more cognitive processing. Thus, specifically learners with higher, or at least average, intelligence should be confronted with difficulties to increase long-term learning and test performance.
Keywords: IntelligenceTesting effectRetrievalGeneration effectDesirable difficultiesLong-term learning
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4. Generaldiscussion
In two studies, we analyzed the linkage between participants' intelligenceandtheirlong-termlearning, as well as moderating effects of intelligence on difficult learning situations like generation and testing that are supposed to increase long-term learning. Asmentionedinthe introduction, intelligence has often been assumed to be one of the best predictors for learning and academic achievement, especiallyregarding complexand stimulatinglearning. Higher intelligence was further discussedtoincrease the effectiveness of intentionally hindered and more difficult learningsituationsandtobelinked to better and more effortful cognitive information processing. Theresults of our two studies highlight the importance of general intelligence and the inevitability of focusing on intelligence for predicting long-term learning. The positive linkage of intelligence and long-term learning remained robust and strong when controlling for participants' previous knowledge and when manipulating the learning situation. Moreover, although desirable difficulties, at least regarding tests in our second study, were also beneficial, intelligence even moderated the effectiveness of such difficult learning. This moderation effect regarding complex and difficult information is the most important contribution of our second study to the existing intelligence literature. Notably, tests were not more effective than re-reading control tasks for participants with relatively low intelligence but were beneficial for average and highly intelligent participants. Highly intelligent learners profited especially from using learning tests. Hence, intelligence was not only generallylinkedto long-term learning but also moderated situations, processes, andmethods thatwerespecificallyconstructed to increase long-term learning. This is in line with the above-mentionedtheoriesstatingtheimportanceofageneral intelligence factor for learning, success, and academic achievement in different contexts (e. g. , Kuncel et al., 2004; Roth et al., 2015; Spearman, 1904). Additionally, our results are similar to previous (controversial) research stating educational interventions and learning methods to be especially–or even only–advantageous for individuals with at least average cognitive abilities like intelligence: Thus, methods trying to improve longterm learning and academic achievement for everyone are often suggested to only further increase the disparity between high and low abilitylearners (see also the Matthew or rich-get-richer effects; e. g. , Rapport, Brines, Theisen, &Axelrod, 1997; Stern, 2015, 2017; Walberg&Tsai, 1983). Our results further support the literature assuming the importance of higher cognitive abilities for the beneficial effects of desirable difficulties (e. g. , Kaiser et al. , 2018; McDaniel et al. , 2002; Minear et al. , 2018). Our findings present a unique contribution to theunderstandingoftherole of intelligence forlearningingeneral, aswellasforstimulating learning situationsusing difficult, challenging, and complexmaterials. Thus, atleast average and higher intelligence facilitates effective deeper semantic encoding, cognitive processing, cognitive effort, and consolidation of information that is triggered by tests. Due to ourresults, we can advise the implementation of learningtests foruniversitystudents, at least for averagelyandhighly intelligentlearners. These profit from using difficult learning tests, even when applying a rather short, low-stake test only once. Fortunately, suchlearning tests areadvantageousfor a larger population of university studentsandcanbe implemented easily into university courses. Still, lecturers must remain vigilant that the applied learning testsareactually difficultandcomplex enough to trigger the beneficial effects. Concerning relatively unintelligent learners, we cannot unconditionally advise lecturers to use tests because suchlearners would have to indulge in difficult learning without profiting from it. Nonetheless, we also cannot advise against using difficult tests because at the very least, participants with lower intelligence suffered no disadvantages on their long-term learning due to the application of learningtests (see also the often assumed poor-get-poorer effect; e. g. , Stanovich, 1986). However, one might also argue that difficult learning is correlated withstressor frustration for less intelligent learners, because difficult tasks were in general found to increase perceived anxiety, and even low-stake quizzes were linked to pressure compared to a re-readingcontroltask (e. g. , Hinze&Rapp, 2014; O'Neil, Spielberger, & Hansen, 1969). Regarding generation tasks, implications are not that clea rbecause the manipulation of the learning condition in Study1was unsuccessful. In line with this, Study 1 did not result in a significant effect of the learning condition, thus, generation was not more beneficial than a reading control task. At the very least the generation tasks did not reduce participants'long-term learning, thus, they were not harmful. There were some positive and negative aspects of our studies that we care to mention and that could be applied or adapted in future work. For instance, the intelligence test we used was a rather detailed one with high quality factors; future research should use similar measures. This applies especially to the importance and predictivity of a general intelligencefactor. Still, we only used the basis module of the intelligence test, which measures a general intelligence factor similar to g or to fluid intelligence encompassing knowledge components. Future studies may add the existing knowledge tests to additionally assess fluid and crystalline intelligence so that more information regarding intelligence is available. Both of our studies used different curricular and realistic learning materials that are actually used in school and university courses; that said, the results can be generalized for actual learning materials and for information that is complex and difficult instead of relatively abstract learning of word pairs, vocabulary, or associations. It is vital that the difficult learning tasks are perceived as more difficult than the easier control tasks and that both conditions are clearly distinguishable. As a limitation, we only observed the influence of a single manipulated learning condition–one generation task or one learning test–on one single final test assessing long-termlearning. However, itis important to test if the moderating effects of intelligence remain the same when applying multiple learning tests or multiple re-reads over the course of an entire semester. In line with this, future studies should use multiple follow-up final tests to check if the effects change over time. Although the positive effect of intelligence was found in previous studies over long periods, the beneficial effect of tests could decline. One main limitation of our studies is that in regard to intelligence, we were only able to observe correlations. Although we did infer causal effects due to the different times of measurements of intelligence and long-term learning, further causal analyses are still advantageous. Future studies should implement longitudinal designs because these are supposed to serve as a basis for causal effects (cf. Strenze, 2007, 2015). All in all, there remain open questions regarding the tested linkage among intelligence, cognitive processes, generation, testing, and longterm learning. This applies for instance to the underlying effects of cognitive processing for learning. Although we argue that intelligence is positively correlated to better retrieval as well as to deeper processing of information, and although we know that higher intelligence is generallyimportantfor learning, wedonotknowexactlywhy. Thesame applies to the consideration of why desirabledifficultiesincrease cognitive processes that lead to higher long-term learning. It is possible that higherworkingmemory capacities, theability to handle simultaneously more pieces of information, the amount of cognitive resources, or higher memory skills are responsible for increased long-term learning. However, higher success could also be due to the abilities to reason, abstract thinking, or elaboration, or to higher processing speed, or simply to the ability to handle more cognitive effort and to overcome challenging tasks. So, in addition to general intelligence, futurestudies could focus on the linkage between even more aspects of cognitive abilities, likeprocessingspeed, workingmemorycapacity, memory, or reasoning, on long-term learning and the effectiveness of generation/ testing. Moreover, future work should also focus on increasing the benefit of desirable difficulties for learners with all–and especially lower–ability levels and not only for average or highly intelligent individuals. Thus, future studies may try to design difficulties that are adequately difficult for every individual; the tasks should be difficult enough to elicit the beneficial effects of desirable difficulties but still easy enough that learners with lower intelligence are able to overcome them without being completely overwhelmed (see e. g. , Minear et al. , 2018). Future studies should there foremonitor and test which level of difficulty is beneficial for which individual. Lecturers could, for instance, also give lower ability learners more time or apply graded learning aids to support them (see e. g. , Hänze, Schmidt-Weigand, & Stäudel, 2010). Besides, researchers could test if lowerability learners would benefit from longer initial learning phases or from applications of desirable difficulties later in the learning process when these learners have already mastered some of the basic information or formed sufficient previous knowledge (see also the above-mentioned expertise-reversal effect or the aptitude-treatment-interaction; e. g. , Kalyugaetal. , 2003; Snow, 1989). Future work could also test if multiple applications of desirable difficulties or the usage of tests in high-stake learning situations in actual university courses may improve long-term learning forlowerabilityindividuals. In general, future work could also use a more naturalsetting, awithinsubjectdesign, or it could even implement further difficulty nuancesregarding the information as well as the desirable difficulties themselves. Although the forced application of learning tasks is rather common in university courses, it is advantageous to explore the effects of intelligence and desirable difficulties using self-regulated learning. Thus, one could explore if intelligence also moderates the decision to use generation tasks or tests instead of relatively easy re-reading tasks, and also if intelligence moderates learners' persistence while working on such difficulties.
Highlights
• In two studies intelligence was positively correlated with later learning success.
• Study 2 also showed a beneficial effect of difficult learning tests.
• This effect was moderated by intelligence.
• There was no positive effect of testing for learners with lower intelligence.
• Average and especially higher intelligent learners profited from difficulties.
Abstract: Intelligence is an important predictor of long-term learning and academic achievement. In two studies we focused on the relation among intelligence, desirable difficulties–active generation/production of information and taking tests–, and long-term learning. We hypothesized that intelligence is positively correlated to long-term learning and that difficult learning situations, as opposed to easier reading, increase later long-term learning. We further assumed that the beneficial effects of difficult learning would be moderated by intelligence, thus, we supposed the positive effects to be stronger for learners with higher intelligence and weaker for learners with lower intelligence. We in turn conducted two experiments (N1 = 149, N2 = 176, respectively), measured participants' intelligence, applied desirable difficulties–generation/testing–in contrast to control tasks, and later assessed long-term learning indicated by delayed final test performance. Both studies showed positive correlations between intelligence and later long-term learning. Study 2 further found the expected beneficial effect of difficult learning, which was also moderated by intelligence. There was no difference between difficult tasks and control tasks for participants with relatively low intelligence. Retrieving answers in learning tests was, however, beneficial for participants with average intelligence and even more beneficial for participants with higher intelligence. In general, our two experiments highlight the importance of intelligence for complex and challenging learning tasks that are supposed to stimulate deeper encoding and more cognitive processing. Thus, specifically learners with higher, or at least average, intelligence should be confronted with difficulties to increase long-term learning and test performance.
Keywords: IntelligenceTesting effectRetrievalGeneration effectDesirable difficultiesLong-term learning
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4. Generaldiscussion
In two studies, we analyzed the linkage between participants' intelligenceandtheirlong-termlearning, as well as moderating effects of intelligence on difficult learning situations like generation and testing that are supposed to increase long-term learning. Asmentionedinthe introduction, intelligence has often been assumed to be one of the best predictors for learning and academic achievement, especiallyregarding complexand stimulatinglearning. Higher intelligence was further discussedtoincrease the effectiveness of intentionally hindered and more difficult learningsituationsandtobelinked to better and more effortful cognitive information processing. Theresults of our two studies highlight the importance of general intelligence and the inevitability of focusing on intelligence for predicting long-term learning. The positive linkage of intelligence and long-term learning remained robust and strong when controlling for participants' previous knowledge and when manipulating the learning situation. Moreover, although desirable difficulties, at least regarding tests in our second study, were also beneficial, intelligence even moderated the effectiveness of such difficult learning. This moderation effect regarding complex and difficult information is the most important contribution of our second study to the existing intelligence literature. Notably, tests were not more effective than re-reading control tasks for participants with relatively low intelligence but were beneficial for average and highly intelligent participants. Highly intelligent learners profited especially from using learning tests. Hence, intelligence was not only generallylinkedto long-term learning but also moderated situations, processes, andmethods thatwerespecificallyconstructed to increase long-term learning. This is in line with the above-mentionedtheoriesstatingtheimportanceofageneral intelligence factor for learning, success, and academic achievement in different contexts (e. g. , Kuncel et al., 2004; Roth et al., 2015; Spearman, 1904). Additionally, our results are similar to previous (controversial) research stating educational interventions and learning methods to be especially–or even only–advantageous for individuals with at least average cognitive abilities like intelligence: Thus, methods trying to improve longterm learning and academic achievement for everyone are often suggested to only further increase the disparity between high and low abilitylearners (see also the Matthew or rich-get-richer effects; e. g. , Rapport, Brines, Theisen, &Axelrod, 1997; Stern, 2015, 2017; Walberg&Tsai, 1983). Our results further support the literature assuming the importance of higher cognitive abilities for the beneficial effects of desirable difficulties (e. g. , Kaiser et al. , 2018; McDaniel et al. , 2002; Minear et al. , 2018). Our findings present a unique contribution to theunderstandingoftherole of intelligence forlearningingeneral, aswellasforstimulating learning situationsusing difficult, challenging, and complexmaterials. Thus, atleast average and higher intelligence facilitates effective deeper semantic encoding, cognitive processing, cognitive effort, and consolidation of information that is triggered by tests. Due to ourresults, we can advise the implementation of learningtests foruniversitystudents, at least for averagelyandhighly intelligentlearners. These profit from using difficult learning tests, even when applying a rather short, low-stake test only once. Fortunately, suchlearning tests areadvantageousfor a larger population of university studentsandcanbe implemented easily into university courses. Still, lecturers must remain vigilant that the applied learning testsareactually difficultandcomplex enough to trigger the beneficial effects. Concerning relatively unintelligent learners, we cannot unconditionally advise lecturers to use tests because suchlearners would have to indulge in difficult learning without profiting from it. Nonetheless, we also cannot advise against using difficult tests because at the very least, participants with lower intelligence suffered no disadvantages on their long-term learning due to the application of learningtests (see also the often assumed poor-get-poorer effect; e. g. , Stanovich, 1986). However, one might also argue that difficult learning is correlated withstressor frustration for less intelligent learners, because difficult tasks were in general found to increase perceived anxiety, and even low-stake quizzes were linked to pressure compared to a re-readingcontroltask (e. g. , Hinze&Rapp, 2014; O'Neil, Spielberger, & Hansen, 1969). Regarding generation tasks, implications are not that clea rbecause the manipulation of the learning condition in Study1was unsuccessful. In line with this, Study 1 did not result in a significant effect of the learning condition, thus, generation was not more beneficial than a reading control task. At the very least the generation tasks did not reduce participants'long-term learning, thus, they were not harmful. There were some positive and negative aspects of our studies that we care to mention and that could be applied or adapted in future work. For instance, the intelligence test we used was a rather detailed one with high quality factors; future research should use similar measures. This applies especially to the importance and predictivity of a general intelligencefactor. Still, we only used the basis module of the intelligence test, which measures a general intelligence factor similar to g or to fluid intelligence encompassing knowledge components. Future studies may add the existing knowledge tests to additionally assess fluid and crystalline intelligence so that more information regarding intelligence is available. Both of our studies used different curricular and realistic learning materials that are actually used in school and university courses; that said, the results can be generalized for actual learning materials and for information that is complex and difficult instead of relatively abstract learning of word pairs, vocabulary, or associations. It is vital that the difficult learning tasks are perceived as more difficult than the easier control tasks and that both conditions are clearly distinguishable. As a limitation, we only observed the influence of a single manipulated learning condition–one generation task or one learning test–on one single final test assessing long-termlearning. However, itis important to test if the moderating effects of intelligence remain the same when applying multiple learning tests or multiple re-reads over the course of an entire semester. In line with this, future studies should use multiple follow-up final tests to check if the effects change over time. Although the positive effect of intelligence was found in previous studies over long periods, the beneficial effect of tests could decline. One main limitation of our studies is that in regard to intelligence, we were only able to observe correlations. Although we did infer causal effects due to the different times of measurements of intelligence and long-term learning, further causal analyses are still advantageous. Future studies should implement longitudinal designs because these are supposed to serve as a basis for causal effects (cf. Strenze, 2007, 2015). All in all, there remain open questions regarding the tested linkage among intelligence, cognitive processes, generation, testing, and longterm learning. This applies for instance to the underlying effects of cognitive processing for learning. Although we argue that intelligence is positively correlated to better retrieval as well as to deeper processing of information, and although we know that higher intelligence is generallyimportantfor learning, wedonotknowexactlywhy. Thesame applies to the consideration of why desirabledifficultiesincrease cognitive processes that lead to higher long-term learning. It is possible that higherworkingmemory capacities, theability to handle simultaneously more pieces of information, the amount of cognitive resources, or higher memory skills are responsible for increased long-term learning. However, higher success could also be due to the abilities to reason, abstract thinking, or elaboration, or to higher processing speed, or simply to the ability to handle more cognitive effort and to overcome challenging tasks. So, in addition to general intelligence, futurestudies could focus on the linkage between even more aspects of cognitive abilities, likeprocessingspeed, workingmemorycapacity, memory, or reasoning, on long-term learning and the effectiveness of generation/ testing. Moreover, future work should also focus on increasing the benefit of desirable difficulties for learners with all–and especially lower–ability levels and not only for average or highly intelligent individuals. Thus, future studies may try to design difficulties that are adequately difficult for every individual; the tasks should be difficult enough to elicit the beneficial effects of desirable difficulties but still easy enough that learners with lower intelligence are able to overcome them without being completely overwhelmed (see e. g. , Minear et al. , 2018). Future studies should there foremonitor and test which level of difficulty is beneficial for which individual. Lecturers could, for instance, also give lower ability learners more time or apply graded learning aids to support them (see e. g. , Hänze, Schmidt-Weigand, & Stäudel, 2010). Besides, researchers could test if lowerability learners would benefit from longer initial learning phases or from applications of desirable difficulties later in the learning process when these learners have already mastered some of the basic information or formed sufficient previous knowledge (see also the above-mentioned expertise-reversal effect or the aptitude-treatment-interaction; e. g. , Kalyugaetal. , 2003; Snow, 1989). Future work could also test if multiple applications of desirable difficulties or the usage of tests in high-stake learning situations in actual university courses may improve long-term learning forlowerabilityindividuals. In general, future work could also use a more naturalsetting, awithinsubjectdesign, or it could even implement further difficulty nuancesregarding the information as well as the desirable difficulties themselves. Although the forced application of learning tasks is rather common in university courses, it is advantageous to explore the effects of intelligence and desirable difficulties using self-regulated learning. Thus, one could explore if intelligence also moderates the decision to use generation tasks or tests instead of relatively easy re-reading tasks, and also if intelligence moderates learners' persistence while working on such difficulties.
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