Microgravity and Cosmic Radiations During Space Exploration as a Window Into Neurodegeneration on Earth

Microgravity and Cosmic Radiations During Space Exploration as a Window Into Neurodegeneration on Earth. Giulia Sprugnoli, Yvonne D. Cagle, Emiliano Santarnecchi. JAMA Neurol. November 25, 2019. doi:https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaneurol.2019.4003

Astronauts involved in long-duration spaceflight missions are exposed to specific risk factors known to induce profound changes of brain structure and function whose potential long-lasting effects are still under investigation.1 These changes range from sleep alterations, modifications of brain morphometry, vision impairment, mood shifts, and loss of appetite as well as cognitive deficits, including decrements in attention and executive functions.2 Among the substantial list of stressors, the effects of microgravity and galactic cosmic radiations constitute the most relevant ones and are at the core of current and future NASA efforts to identify effective countermeasures. Interestingly, while reduced gravity force seems responsible for cephalad fluid shift that potentially affects protein clearance mechanisms, cosmic radiations seem to promote the accumulation of amyloid-β in mouse models, induce neuroinflammation, and further alter hippocampal-related cognition.2 Considering available evidence, a pattern of spaceflight-induced accelerated brain aging seems to emerge in addition to established aging-like effects on cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems (ie, carotid intima-media thickness increments, inflammatory response, bone loss, muscle atrophy, and DNA telomere modifications, as documented in the recent 1-year long NASA Twin Study1). While this raises important issues about astronauts’ health, it can also constitute a window into the neurophysiopathology of neurodegenerative processes in humans, which could potentially benefit life on Earth.

The Effect of Microgravity
Microgravity determines a conspicuous fluid shift from the lower to upper body (approximately 2 L, mostly on the venous compartment) because of the loss of hydrostatic gradient pressure, normally attracting fluid toward lower limbs.3 On the other hand, the effect of slightly elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the International Space Station is currently under investigation regarding the theoretical potential for arteriolar vasodilatation induction, similarly to what is typically observed after acute high-level carbon dioxide exposure on Earth.3 The loss of hydrostatic gradient seems to cause an imbalance of intracranial pressure (ICP) diurnal variation, now considered the most likely mechanism behind spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS3). In particular, nonpathological partial elevation in ICP during long-term missions (comparable with the nocturnal increase of ICP on Earth) could be transmitted to the subarachnoid space enveloping the optic nerve, consequently causing a pattern characterized by, for example, optic disc edema, hyperopic shifts, globe flattening, cotton-wool spots, and choroidal folds that is experienced by 40% of astronauts after long-term spaceflight.1 Data collected in the recently released NASA Twins study support this pathophysiological model, showing distension and increased pressure in the internal jugular veins as well as SANS signs,1 even though many potential additional factors should be considered, such as the role of reduced central venous pressure.3

Interestingly, venous congestion could also impair cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) outflow, which under normal conditions drains into the dural sinuses via the arachnoid granulations. If the CSF outflow is altered, it is reasonable to postulate that protein clearance might be negatively affected, leading to an accumulation of waste products in the brain, such as amyloid-β and tau protein.4 Moreover, the modification of brain structures experienced after a long-term space mission could also compress venous as well as lymphatic vessels responsible for CSF drainage. In this regard, Roberts and colleagues5 have showed how the subarachnoid space at the vertex of the head and in posterior brain regions is reduced in healthy nonastronaut participants undergoing a spaceflight analog-based experiment (ie, head-down tilt), a phenomenon also partially observed in astronauts after long-duration missions. Such “brain shift” could reduce CSF drainage at the level of arachnoid granulation (ie, vertex) into the meningeal lymphatic vessels. This also aligns with a proposed theory stating that the alteration of the CSF circulatory system may represent a potential substrate of Alzheimer disease (AD) and normal-pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) depending on the prevalent impaired mechanism being CSF production or reabsorption, respectively.4 Accordingly, the coexistence of AD and NPH has been repeatedly demonstrated, suggesting an association between the 2 disorders, even though the evidence is still limited. Interestingly, brain morphology alterations reported in astronauts closely resemble those of NPH (eg, ventriculomegaly, a narrowing of the vertex sulci, and a dilatation of the Sylvian fissures); however, they lack the classic clinical presentation (eg, gait apraxia and urinary incontinence). As recently suggested by Roberts and Petersen,6 hydrocephalus associated with long-term spaceflight (HALS) is likely to represent a peculiar syndrome caused by microgravity in which brain maladaptive mechanisms are to some extent similar to those observed on Earth. Presumably there is no single agent factor responsible for HALS, but rather a multifactorial pathogenesis with structural and functional changes leading up to a synergistic effect. Investigating HALS and SANS syndromes can help elucidate the complex association between exposure to space-related stressors, CSF dynamics, fluid shift, AD, and NPH, with possible insights for space exploration and clinical research on neurodegeneration.

Role of Cosmic Radiation
Within the same framework, cosmic radiation might also play a substantial role. Mice studies involving exposition to space-equivalent radiation (56Fe) doses demonstrate an increase of amyloid-β and fibrillary proteins that is paralleled by impaired cognition and behavior.2 Interestingly, the brain regions most sensitive to cosmic radiation in mice studies are the (1) hippocampus (associated with impairments in episodic and short-term memory as well as recognition and spatial learning) and (2) the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with the alteration of executive functions.2 Microscopically, these regions exhibit immature spine and a reduction of dendritic complexity/density, which are positively associated with the grade of memory impairments and persist for up to 1 year after irradiation. These cellular modifications are similar to those presented by neurodegenerative diseases within the dementia spectrum, with epigenetic studies showing how modifying DNA methylation status can lead to the impairment of memory and learning. Evidence of DNA methylations was also reported in the aforementioned Nasa Twin study1; however, its association with cognitive deficits has not been tested yet. Moreover, alterations of sleep patterns and sleep quality, typically experienced by astronauts during long-duration missions, can increase the accumulation of waste proteins in the brain, considering that perivascular and nonperivascular protein clearance is prominent during sleep. Additionally, anxiety and depression symptoms have been found in irradiated rodents along with a cognitive flexibility deficit, closely resembling symptoms reported by astronauts during sustained exposure to isolated confined environments. However, microgravity seems to indirectly affect the hippocampus as well, inducing oxidative stress mediated by glucocorticoid receptors and decreasing the quantity of β-synuclein responsible for the prevention of α-synuclein aggregation (increased in microgravity studies2). Importantly, although microgravity and cosmic radiation are discussed separately in this article, their association with brain physiology is likely due to a complex synergistic effect. For instance, microgravity-induced fluid shift could affect the dynamics of CSF production (eg, at the level of the choroid plexus) as well as reabsorption (eg, from arachnoid granulations), therefore affecting protein clearance in the context of an already increased level of circulating proteins in the parenchyma due to exposure to cosmic radiations. This, as well as many other potential interactions, should be mapped and addressed as part of a comprehensive multidisciplinary model including neuroimaging, electrophysiology, biological, and clinical data.

Conclusions
All this evidence suggests the opportunity to investigate brain adaptation to long-term spaceflight as a model of aging, possibly informing novel diagnostic markers and countermeasures with relevance for space exploration and patients on Earth. At the same time, recent pathophysiological models of AD and other dementias could be leveraged to adapt countermeasures currently being tested in patients. For instance, gamma aminobutyric acid—ergic dysfunction and inhibitory interneurons’ pathology are getting attention as a core element of Alzheimer pathophysiology, leading to cascade effects, including the deficit of high-frequency brain oscillatory activity, altered brain plasticity and excitation/inhibition balance, the accumulation of amyloid-β/tau proteins, and cognitive deficits. Novel noninvasive promising therapies are currently under investigation (eg, multisensory and transcranial electrical stimulation7) and could constitute a countermeasure to “accelerated aging” during spaceflight as well as on return to Earth.

As scientists and astronauts navigating the field of space-related aging research, we recognize the need for increasing integration between NASA efforts and academic research. Dedicated conferences and other opportunities for a guided exchange of knowledge could be promoted across federal and academic institutions (eg, the National Institute on Aging), possibly leading to access to facilities for high-complexity experiments (eg, irradiation chambers), novel analogs to mimic the association of microgravity with fluid shift and ICP in-vivo, and an overall simplification of data-sharing procedures. A synergistic effort between clinicians, scientists, and aerospace institutions is needed to ensure this unique opportunity for advancing science and benefitting patients and astronauts will not be missed.

References, etc., at the DOI above.

Merit Ptah, The Non-Existent “First Woman Physician”: Crafting of a Feminist History with an Ancient Egyptian Setting

Merit Ptah, “The First Woman Physician”: Crafting of a Feminist History with an Ancient Egyptian Setting. Jakub M Kwiecinski. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, jrz058, November 22 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/jrz058

Abstract: Merit Ptah is widely described as “the first woman physician and scientist” on the Internet and in popular history books. This essay explores the origins of this figure, showing that Merit Ptah came into being in the 1930s when Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead misinterpreted a report about an authentic ancient Egyptian healer. Merit Ptah gradually became a prominent figure in popular historical accounts during second-wave of feminism, and, in the twenty-first century she appeared in Wikipedia and subsequently spread throughout the Internet as a female (sometimes black African) founding figure. The history of Merit Ptah reveals powerful mechanisms of knowledge creation in the network of amateur historians, independently from the scholarly community. The case of Merit Ptah also pinpoints factors enabling the spread of erroneous historical accounts: the absence of professional audience, the development of echo chambers due to an obscured chain of knowledge transmission, the wide reach of the Internet, the coherence with existing preconceptions, the emotional charge of heritage, and even – in the case of ancient Egypt – the tendency to perceive certain pasts through a legendary lens. At the same time, the story of Merit Ptah reveals how important role models have been for women entering science and medicine.

CONCLUSION: IS SHE REAL?

The history of Merit Ptah provides no insight into ancient Egypt, but it could be a starting point for reflection on modern history-making practices. There is no single reason why an invented character, mentioned in a book nearly a century ago, has become a widespread piece of historic trivia. Instead, there is a tangle of explanations. Some of these are specific to the case of Merit Ptah, such as the peculiar popular perception of her ancient Egyptian setting. Others are generalizable for all kinds of amateur historymaking, popular memory, or even for mass-media news: the obscure chain of transmission, the spread outside the expert circles, the conformity to preexisting biases, and the association with emotionally-charged partisan issues. These facilitating factors – and some serendipity – turned the imaginary Merit Ptah into one of the few widely recognizable medical women of antiquity, obscuring her historically attested Egyptian colleagues.

Sometimes it is possible to separate different kinds of the past: the remembered (found in a popular memory), the recovered (a “history” reconstructed by scholars), or the invented (a past designed for a particular purpose).108 However, as the case of Merit Ptah illustrates, these kinds are intertwined more often than not. Invented and retold for a feminist purpose, her story was nevertheless created as a part of a recovery endeavor, and it eventually entered the collective memory. By collapsing the distinctions between different kinds of historical practice, and by straddling the divide between history and popular memory, the case of Merit Ptah demonstrates that “history is not the prerogative of the historian, nor even (...) a historian’s invention. It is, rather, a social form of knowledge.”109 Merit Ptah became famous not despite, but thanks to the amateur environment in which her story was curated. Developed by the interested parties in response to contemporary needs, her history fulfilled the demand for meaningful and usable past.

Merit Ptah’s story is a warning about over-reliance on secondary sources, and about misleading character of historical information in the Internet – including even seemingly well-sourced Wikipedia articles. At the same time, this story points to the way popular history authors can become influential creators of historical knowledge. It also showcases the power of Wikipedia and the Internet to spread this knowledge.

So is Merit Ptah “real”? From a strictly historical standpoint, she is not. No woman of this name was attested as a healer in ancient Egypt, and the entire story of Merit Ptah began in 1930s as a mistaken case of an authentic ancient Egyptian women healer, Peseshet. Yet throughout the nearly 100 years of her literary existence, Merit Ptah left a permanent mark on the world. Her namesake – the Venusian crater – is a lasting extraterrestrial geographical feature. At the same time, on planet Earth, Merit Ptah appears in the most diverse places, from computer games and superhero TV shows, through children’s adventure books, to names of medical social cooperatives and cancer-fighting societies.110 She inspired women to pursue careers in medicine and science. Her history, from the Hurd-Mead’s works to Internet blogs, tracks the evolution of the popular historiography of women’s achievements. She engaged with us in a way that most of past actors never did. Thus, while Merit Ptah is not an authentic ancient Egyptian character and not a good symbolic founding figure, she is a real symbol of the collective effort to write women back into history. She is a genuine hero of the modern feminist struggle.

Impeachment Non-Bombshells Endanger Democrats in 2020. Aaron Maté

Impeachment Non-Bombshells Endanger Democrats in 2020. Aaron Maté. The Nation, Nov 22 2019.

Unmerited hype about Gordon Sondland’s testimony has overshadowed the potential damage that the impeachment saga poses for the presidential election.

https://www.thenation.com/article/impeachment-sondland-democrats/

[full text, lots of references at the link above]

Two weeks of public hearings in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump closed with widespread talk of a new “bombshell” that had sealed the case, and with it the fate of Trump’s presidency. But rather than producing a Watergate-like moment, the Ukrainegate testimony was far more akin to its predecessor, Russiagate, and accordingly, far more likely to produce the same disappointing result.

The basis for the excitement was the testimony of Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union. Sondland is one of the few witnesses to have actually spoken to Trump, and the only known US official said to have relayed to Ukrainian counterparts that money to purchase US weapons—known as “military aid” or “security sector assistance”—was conditioned on Kiev’s commitment to open investigations.

The consensus interpretation of Sondland’s testimony is that he confirmed that such a scheme transpired. Indeed, in his opening statement, Sondland asserted that there was a “quid pro quo” and that “everyone was in the loop.” Widely overlooked is that Sondland was not referring to the military funding. Instead, Sondland said that Rudy Giuliani told US officials and Ukrainians that a Ukrainian commitment to open investigations were “prerequisites” for a White House meeting and phone call sought by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But leveraging a White House meeting or phone call is not the “quid” at the heart of the impeachment inquiry: leveraging military funding is. And on that front, Sondland’s testimony did not advance the Democrats’ case.

When questioning began, Sondland made clear that Trump never told him that the military funding was contingent on investigations. In fact, he said that Trump never mentioned that military funding at all. The idea that it was conditioned on the investigations did not come from Trump, but, as Sondland explained, from his own interpretation “in the absence of any credible explanation” for why the money had been frozen.

Asked by Representative Adam Schiff whether “the military assistance was also being withheld pending Zelensky announcing these investigations,” Sondland replied: “That was my presumption. My personal presumption based on the facts at the time. Nothing was moving.” He then told Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman the same thing: “President Trump never told me directly that the aid was conditioned on the meetings. The only thing we got directly from [Rudy] Guiliani was that the Burisma and 2016 elections were conditioned on the White House meeting. The aid was my own personal, you know, guess.” And yet again: “Nobody told me directly that the aid was tied to anything. I was presuming it was.”

Sondland repeated the same message again and again, including in this exchange with Republican Representative Mike Turner:

Rep Mike Turner No one on this planet told you that President Trump was tying aid to investigations. Yes or no?

Ambass Sondland Yes.

Rep Mike Turner So, you really have no testimony today that ties President Trump to a scheme to withhold aid from Ukraine in exchange for these investigations?

Ambass Sondland Other than my own presumption.

Because he was only operating off of his “own presumption,” Sondland also revealed that a critical conversation with a Ukrainian official, Andriy Yermak, was far less explosive than initially believed. Two US officials—Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, a National Security Council aide—had testified that Sondland had linked the military funding to the investigations in a conversation with Yermak in Warsaw on September 1. This was a critical claim, as it potentially showed the first—and to this date, the only—explicit communication of such a linkage to the Ukrainian side.

But Sondland disclosed that he told Yermak exactly what he told Congress: that in the absence of an explanation for why the military aid had been frozen, he shared with his Ukrainian counterpart—in “a very, very brief pull-aside conversation”—that he merely presumed the freeze was tied to Ukraine’s willingness to announce an investigation:

And I don’t know if I came over to Yermak or he came over to me, but he said, “What’s going on here?” And I said, “I don’t know. It might all be tied together now, I have no idea.” I was presuming that it was, but it was a very short conversation.…
[…]
That was my presumption, my personal presumption based on the facts at the time, nothing was moving.

Sondland reiterated the point under questioning from Goldman, saying that he even told Yermak that: “I didn’t know exactly why” the freeze had been made, but that the investigations “could be a reason.”

Sondland’s presumption may well have been correct. The freeze on the military funding coincided with efforts by Trump officials to pressure the Ukrainian government to open investigations into alleged Ukrainian meddling in 2016 and Burisma, the Ukrainian firm where Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, obtained a lucrative board seat. But as I’ve written previously, a plausible presumption is not the same as evidence for a provable, impeachment-worthy case. And Sondland showed Congress that he only has the former. If he has no actual evidence that the military funding was linked to investigations (as he admitted in his testimony), then what he “presumed” and “believed” is just as useful for the purposes of an impeachment case as what anyone else presumed or believed. Another key US official, Kurt Volker, testified that he saw no such linkage at the time, and that he never conveyed such a connection to Ukraine (Volker has, however, revised his testimony to reflect that he now understands that an investigation of Biden was sought). And given that Sondland is the only known Trump official thought to have communicated the military funding precondition to the Ukrainian side, then he is in fact providing evidence that when such linkage, the basis for the impeachment case, was communicated to the Ukrainians, it was not at Trump’s behest.

If the evidence presented by the Democrats’ star witness is in fact only his “personal presumption” on the core issue, then Democrats face a major evidentiary hole. To date, no one else has filled it.

The impeachment hearings leave us with a gap between the evidence presented and the maximalist, “bombshell” interpretations drawn from it. That’s nothing new. The same dynamic drove Russiagate for nearly three years until it collapsed. And just like Russiagate, a major driver of Ukrainegate is an underlying hawkish posture toward Russia. It is abundantly clear that witness after witness disagreed with Trump’s decision to briefly freeze the military funding, and firmly believes that the United States should arm Ukraine in its conflict with Russian-backed forces in the Donbass region.

What is not at all clear is why anyone beyond Beltway war hawks should be enrolled in their Cold War designs. Schiff, the impeachment leader, declared that Ukrainians fighting Russian-backed forces are “fighting our fight too, to defend our country against Russian aggression.” In reality, Ukrainians are fighting a war that the United States helped start by backing the overthrow of a democratically elected Ukrainian government in 2014. President Barack Obama, who bears some responsibility for that war, tried to scale it back by rejecting intense Beltway pressure to send the military funding now at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. Among those national security state voices whose pleas Obama rebuffed was Bill Taylor, the Democrats’ opening witness.

If Democrats weren’t so invested in championing military spending that President Obama once resisted, they might see other phone calls beyond the July 25 Trump-Zelensky conversation to take issue with. In closed-door testimony, Pentagon official Laura Cooper revealed that concern about the frozen military funding arose after the defense department heard complaints from the funding’s prime beneficiaries: weapons manufacturers. After mid-August, Cooper said, “various folks in the Department started to get phone calls from industry”—the military industry that wanted its weapons purchased. “All of these US firms that were implementing [the weapons sales to Ukraine]—they were getting concerned,” Cooper added. So was the US Chamber of Commerce, which called her as well.

In a different time, a liberal opposition movement might be raising concerns of its own about war-profiteering phone calls; or the merits of fueling a war on the borders of the world’s other top nuclear power; or doing so in a way that arms and empowers far-right forces incorporated within the Ukrainian military. Instead, Democrats have been enlisted to champion that proxy war and the coffers of the military firms that profit from it.

The domestic consequences are no less important. As Democrats and media outlets devote endless hours to venerating a procession of hawkish bureaucrats and parsing their every word, issues that materially affect the lives of average voters are going—just as they were in the Russiagate era—largely ignored.

And for all of the speculation about a Trump presidency in peril and Republicans jumping ship, some signs point in a different direction. “As a political matter, the longer this goes, it is a real opportunity for Republicans to paint Democrats as unconcerned about the issues voters care more about,” a Republican strategist told The New York Times. Eyeing that chance, Republicans are discussing a strategy that would prolong a Senate impeachment trial as long as possible so as to overshadow the Democratic primary—“potentially keeping six contenders in Washington until the eve of the Iowa caucuses or longer,” The Washington Post notes.

Two of those contenders include the leading progressive candidates, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Couple the prospect of slowing their momentum with an impeachment process that to date has failed to substantiate its core allegation, and it is hard not to wonder if Democrats are staging a Russiagate sequel in more ways than one: “bombshells” that fizzle out, dangerous Cold War chauvinism emboldened, and Trump handed another gift for the fast-approaching 2020 campaign.

Aaron Maté is a frequent contributor to The Nation and the host of the new show Pushback, airing on The Grayzone.

We argue against a “post-truth” interpretation, whereby people deliberately share false content because it furthers their political agenda

Pennycook, Gordon, Ziv Epstein, Mohsen Mosleh, Antonio A. Arechar, Dean Eckles, and David G. Rand. 2019. “Understanding and Reducing the Spread of Misinformation Online.” PsyArXiv. November 13. doi:10.31234/osf.io/3n9u8

Abstract: The spread of false and misleading news on social media is of great societal concern. Why do people share such content, and what can be done about it? In a first survey experiment (N=1,015), we demonstrate a dissociation between accuracy judgments and sharing intentions: even though true headlines are rated as much more accurate than false headlines, headline veracity has little impact on sharing. We argue against a “post-truth” interpretation, whereby people deliberately share false content because it furthers their political agenda. Instead, we propose that the problem is simply distraction: most people do not want to spread misinformation, but are distracted from accuracy by other salient motives when choosing what to share. Indeed, when directly asked, most participants say it is important to only share accurate news. Accordingly, across three survey experiments (total N=2775) and an experiment on Twitter in which we messaged N=5,482 users who had previously shared news from misleading websites, we find that subtly inducing people to think about the concept of accuracy decreases their sharing of false and misleading news relative to accurate news. Together, these results challenge the popular post-truth narrative. Instead, they suggest that many people are capable of detecting low-quality news content, but nonetheless share such content online because social media is not conducive to thinking analytically about truth and accuracy. Furthermore, our results translate directly into a scalable anti-misinformation intervention that is easily implementable by social media platforms.


---
Given the greater complexity of the experimental design and tweet data, there are numerous reasonable ways to analyze the data. For simplicity, we focus on an analysis in which both primary tweets and retweets are analyzed, data is excluded from one day on which a technical issue led to randomization failure, and the simplest admissible model structure is used (wave fixed effects, p-values calculated in the standard fashion using linear regression with robust standard errors clustered on user); and then assess robustness to varying the specification.
Consistent with our survey experiments, we find clear evidence that the accuracy message made users more discerning in their subsequent sharing decisions. Relative to baseline, the accuracy message increased the average quality of the news sources shared, t(5481)=2.61, p=0.009, and the total quality of shared sources summed over all posts, t(5481)=2.68, p=0.007, by 1.9% and 3.5% respectively. Furthermore, the treatment roughly doubled the level of sharing discernment (0.05 more mainstream than misinformation links shared per user-day pre-treatment; 0.10 more mainstream than misinformation links shared per user-day post-treatment; interaction between post-treatment dummy and link type, t(5481)=2.75, p=0.006). Conversely, we found no significant treatment effect on the number of posts without links to any of the 60 rated news sites, t(5481)=.31, p=0.76, which is consistent with the specificity of the treatment.
This pattern of results is not unique to one particular set of analytic choices. Figure 3C shows the distribution of p-values observed in 96 different analyses assessing the treatment effect on average quality, summed quality, or discernment under a variety of analytic choices. Of these analyses, 80.2% indicate a significant positive treatment effect (and none of 32 analyses of posts without links to a rated site find a significant treatment effect). For statistical details, see SI.
Finally, we examine the data at the level of the domain (Figure 3D). We see that the treatment effect is driven by increasing the fraction of rated-site posts with links to mainstream new sites with strong editorial standards such as the New York Times, and decreasing the fraction of rated-site posts that linked to relatively untrustworthy hyperpartisan sites such as the Daily Caller. Indeed, a domain-level pairwise correlation between fact-checker rating and change in sharing due to the intervention shows a very strong positive relationship (domains weighted by number of pre-treatment posts; r=0.70). In sum, our accuracy message successfully induced Twitter users who regularly shared misinformation to increase the quality of the news they shared.
Together, these studies shed new light on why people share misinformation, and introduce a new class of interventions aimed at reducing its spread. Our results suggest that, at least for many people, the misinformation problem is not driven by a basic inability to tell which content is inaccurate, or a desire to purposefully share inaccurate content. Instead, our findings implicate inattention on the part of people who are able to determine the accuracy of content (if they put their mind to it) and who are motivated to avoid sharing inaccurate content (if they realize it is inaccurate). It seems as though people are often distracted from considering the content’s accuracy by other motives when deciding what to share on social media – and therefore, drawing attention to the concept of accuracy can nudge people toward reducing their sharing of misinformation.
These findings have important implications for theories of partisan bias, political psychology, and motivated reasoning. First, at a general level, the dissociation we observed between accuracy judgments and sharing intentions suggests that just because someone shares a piece of news on social media does not necessarily mean that they believe it – and thus, that the widespread sharing of false or misleading partisan content should not necessarily be taken as an indication of the widespread adoption of false beliefs or explicit agreement with hyperpartisan narratives. Furthermore, our results sound a rather optimistic note in an arena which is typically much more pessimistic: rather than partisan bias blinding our participants to the veracity of claims (Kahan, 2017; Kahan et al., 2017), or making them knowing disseminators of ideologically-confirming misinformation (Hochschild & Einstein, 2016; McIntyre, 2018; Petersen et al., 2018), our results suggest that many people mistakenly choose to share misinformation because they were merely distracted from considering the content’s accuracy.
Identifying which particular motives are most active when on social media – and thus are most important for distracting people from accuracy – is an important direction for future work. Another issue for future work is more precisely identifying people’s state of belief when not reflecting on accuracy: Is it that people hold no particular belief one way or the other, or that they tend to assume content is true by default (31)? Although our results do not differentiate between these possibilities, prior work suggesting that intuitive processes support belief in false headlines (10, 32) lends some credence to the latter possibility. Similarly, future work should investigate why most people think it is important to only share accuracy content (33) – differentiating, for example, between an internalized desire for accuracy versus reputation-based concerns. Finally, future work should examine how these results generalize across different subsets of the American population, and – even more importantly – cross-culturally, given that misinformation is a major problem in areas of the world that have very different cultures and histories from the United States.
From an applied perspective, our results highlight an often overlooked avenue by which social media fosters the spread of misinformation. Rather than (or in addition to) the phenomenon of echo chambers and filter-bubbles (34, 35), social media platforms may actually discourage people from reflecting on accuracy (36). These platforms are designed to encourage users to rapidly scroll and spontaneously engage with feeds of content, and mix serious news content with emotionally engaging content where accuracy is not a relevant feature (e.g., photos of babies, videos of cats knocking objects off tables for no good reason). Social media platforms also provide immediate quantified social feedback (e.g., number of likes, shares, etc.) on users’ posts and are a space which users come to relax rather than engage in critical thinking. These factors imply that social media platforms may, by design, tilt users away from considering accuracy when making sharing decisions.
But this need not be the case. Our treatment translates easily into interventions that social media platforms could employ to increase users' focus on accuracy. For example, platforms could periodically ask users to rate the accuracy of randomly selected headlines (e.g. “to help inform algorithms”) – thus reminding them about accuracy in a subtle way that should avoid reactance. The platforms also have the resources to optimize the presentation and details of the messaging, likely leading to effect sizes much larger than what we observed here in the proof-of-concept offered by Study 5. This optimization should include investigations of which messaging and sample headlines lead to the largest effects for which subgroups, how the effect decays over time (our stepped-wedge design did not provide sufficient statistical power to look beyond a 24 hour window), how to minimize adaptation to repeated exposure to the intervention (e.g. by regularly changing the form and content of the messages), and whether adding a normative component to our primarily cognitive intervention can increase its effectiveness. Approaches such as the one we propose could potentially increase the quality of news circulating online without relying on a centralized institution to certify truth and censor falsehood.

Stress-tested banks have sharply reduced home equity loans to small businesses; & counties with a higher exposure to those banks have seen a decline in patent applications by young firms, as well as a fall in labour productivity

Unintended side effects: stress tests, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Sebastian Doerr. BIS Working Papers, No 823, November 22 2019. https://www.bis.org/publ/work823.htm

Regulators have introduced stress tests for the largest banks with the aim of ensuring that they hold enough capital to withstand another crisis. Stress tests have effectively reduced systemic risk and improved risk management and capital planning at individual institutions. However, policymakers and academics worry about the potential negative effects on credit and the real economy. This paper investigates how regulatory stress tests may have affected entrepreneurship in the United States.
Contribution

Contributing to the literature that highlights some negative consequences of stress tests on credit supply to small businesses, this paper presents new evidence on the real effects of financial regulation. Regulatory stress tests for the largest banks might have an unintended side effect by curtailing credit to young businesses, which are especially dependent on external financing. The contraction in lending has the potential to stymie entrepreneurship and innovation. This novel channel, through which stress tests dampen economic dynamism, could help to explain the persistent decline in entrepreneurship since the crisis.

Findings
Stress-tested banks have sharply reduced home equity loans to small businesses, an important source of financing for entrepreneurs. The resulting contraction in loan supply has affected the real economy. By exploiting geographical variation in county exposure to stress-tested banks, the paper shows that counties with a higher exposure have experienced a relative decline in employment at young firms during the recovery, especially in industries that rely more on home equity financing.

Additional findings also suggest that counties with a higher exposure to stress-tested banks have seen a decline in patent applications by young firms, as well as a fall in labour productivity. The latter finding reflects the disproportionate contribution of young firms to innovation and growth. While the results do not imply that stress tests have reduced overall welfare, they highlight a possible trade-off between financial stability and economic dynamism.

Abstract: Post-crisis stress tests have helped to enhance financial stability and to reduce banks' risk-taking. In order to quantify their overall impact, regulators have turned to evaluating the effects of stress tests on financing and the real economy. Using the U.S. as a laboratory, this paper shows that stress tests have had potentially unintended side effects on entrepreneurship and innovation at young firms. Banks subject to stress tests have strongly cut small business loans secured by home equity, an important source of financing for entrepreneurs. Lower credit supply has led to a relative decline in entrepreneurship during the recovery in counties with higher exposure to stress tested banks. The decline has been steeper in sectors with a higher share of young firms using home equity financing, i.e. where the reduction in credit hit hardest. Counties with higher exposure have also seen a decline in patent applications by young firms. I provide suggestive evidence that the decline in credit has negatively affected labor productivity, reflecting young firms' disproportionate contribution to growth. My results do not imply that stress tests reduce welfare, but highlight a possible trade-off between financial stability and economic dynamism. The effects of stress tests on entrepreneurship should be taken into account when evaluating their effectiveness.

JEL codes: G20, G21, L26
Keywords: stress tests, small business lending, entrepreneurship, innovation, productivity slowdown

Infidelity: Men indicated significantly higher jealousy to sexual as opposed to emotional messages with the reverse pattern evident in women; women & men differed in jealousy when her sister & his brother were involved

Infidelity-Revealing Snapchat Messages Arouse Different Levels of Jealousy Depending on Sex, Type of Message and Identity of the Opposite Sex Rival. Michael J. Dunn, Kayleigh Ward. Evolutionary Psychological Science, August 13 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-019-00210-3

Abstract: Research highlighting sex-differentiated jealousy resulting from imagined scenarios has now been reaffirmed when the infidelity-revealing message is discovered on a social media platform. Participants in the current study were presented with both sexually and emotionally charged infidelity-revealing scenarios featuring a same-sex sibling, a friend and a stranger in the format of a ‘Snapchat’ message. Men indicated significantly higher jealousy to sexual as opposed to emotional messages with the reverse pattern evident in women. Sex differences were also evident in the extent of jealousy elicited by ‘third-party’ identity. Women were significantly more jealous when the imagined infidelity occurred between their sister compared to both a best friend and a stranger with males showing significantly lower jealousy directed towards their brother compared to a stranger. These findings are supportive not only of a parental investment (PI) interpretation of sex differences in jealousy but also an interpretation consistent with aspects of inclusive fitness theory.

Keywords: Infidelity Snapchat Evolutionary psychology Jealousy type Sex differences Genetic relatedness

Discussion

The central thrust of the current research was to (1) establish if sex differences existing in jealousy manifestation upon the discovery of infidelity-revealing social media (Snapchat) messages are reflective of those found in the offline world and (2) to explore the extent to which feelings of jealousy elicited by imagined infidelity discovered whilst snooping on a partner’s Snapchat account differ depending on the identity of the third party. Broad support for the evolutionary psychological perspective was found as women reported more jealousy to emotional than sexual infidelity and higher emotional jealousy overall in comparison to males, whereas males reported higher jealousy to sexual as opposed to emotional partner infidelity. No differences were recorded however between men and women with regard to jealousy elicited by sexual infidelity. The identity of the ‘other-person’ was also shown to have a considerable bearing on reported jealousy and, once again, intriguing sex differences were evident. Women experienced significantly higher jealousy when the same-sex rival was a sibling than when the rival was either a best friend or a stranger. Conversely, men reported significantly lower imagined infidelity-elicited jealousy directed towards their own brother than imagined infidelity-elicited jealousy occurring between their partner and a same-sex stranger.

Firstly, the current study augments a growing body of research showing modest yet consistent sex differences in jealousy manifestation resulting from the discovery of infidelity online with women showing more pronounced emotional jealousy than sexual jealousy, and men more pronounced sexual jealousy than emotional jealousy (Dunn and Billett 2018; Dunn and McLean 2015; Groothof et al. 2009; Guadagno and Sagarin 2010; Hudson et al. 2015; Muise et al. 2014). These findings are supportive of sex differences consistently reported in offline jealousy-evoking scenarios (Archer 1996; Cann et al. 2001; Cramer et al. 2001; Fernandez et al. 2007; Harris 2002; Harris and Christenfeld 1996; Pietrzak et al. 2002; Schützwohl 2005; Schützwohl and Koch 2004). The findings also challenge the criticism that sex differences in jealousy are only evident using a forced-choice paradigm. Just as in the case of Bendixen et al. (2015), sex differences in the current study were found using continuous measures. In utilising Snapchat, this study has revealed that sex differences in jealousy manifestation in response to partner infidelity discovery are not restricted to text messages (Dunn and McLean 2015) or Facebook (Dunn and Billett 2018). One hypothesis, however, ‘males will be significantly more jealous over the sexual messages than females’, was not supported. A plausible explanation for this is that society may have become more sexualised over recent years (Gill 2012) and females have become more promiscuously inclined (Thornhill and Gangestad 2008) and more likely to engage in infidelity (Brand et al. 2007). Possibly, the enhanced opportunity to engage in online infidelity has resulted in both sexes becoming extra-vigilant of sexual betrayal. In a similar vein, Klettke et al. (2014) published a systematic literature review revealing no differences in the prevalence of sexting behaviour between men and women.

One unexpected finding relates to the fact that women were shown to be more jealous by the thought of infidelity occurring between their partner and their sister than between their partner and both their best friend or with a stranger. Biegler and Kennair (2016) found that when asked to list the relevance of traits either for their own or their sisters’ idealised long-term partner even though they agreed on the majority of traits, differences were reported. Participants emphasised the importance of genetic fitness for their own idealised partners compared to what they thought would be good for their sister’s idealised partner, e.g. that their sister’s potential partners would prioritise extended family members. Consequently, there would be more direct rivalry between sisters for access to the best genetic mates during ovulation and these evolved mechanisms of heightened jealousy have filtered down to the modern technological world. In summary, the current study found that female relatives appear to possess more actual and genetic conflict than male relatives (Biegler and Kennair 2016) with sisters perhaps being more emotionally invested in each other than brothers (Fletcher et al. 2013).

One finding of particular prominence and significance in the current study is the fact that men were more tolerant of the distressing thought of infidelity revealed by a Snapchat message between their partner and their own brother than they were between their partner and a same-sex stranger. This is in direct contradiction of previous research findings showing that when invited to imagine partners having cheated, participants evidenced significantly higher distress when the partner infidelity was with a relative compared to a non-relative (Fisher et al. 2009). Kostic and Yadon (2014) have argued that such higher distress may be explained by the fact that this is related to greater feelings of closeness with genetically related relatives. The current study differed in one prominent way from these earlier studies in that the jealousy-evoking scenarios were contextualised within a social media platform. The mitigation of jealousy by genetic relatedness in this case could be explained once again by adopting an evolutionary interpretation. Evolutionary psychology, like all scientific movements is guided by and owes enormous gratitude to the formulation and inception of key seminal theories. Hamilton’s (1964a, b) inclusive fitness theory is one such theory. Not only did the theory solve the seemingly imponderable mystery of the existence of altruism in nature, it also allowed researchers to construct and test intricate hypotheses relating to a range of social behaviours. One key postulate is that individuals should show greater selfish restraint, and behave altruistically, when interacting with closer genetic relatives including those who are not directly related, e.g. sibling’s offspring (Hamilton 1964a, b). In support of the theory, countless studies have shown that in a social context as genetic relatedness diminishes so does the degree of altruism directed from the donor to the recipient (Essock-Vitale and McGuire 1985; Burnstein et al. 1994; Korchmaros and Kenny 2008) with genetic relatedness being a strong predictor of subjective closeness (Stewart-Williams 2008). Apparent concerns for inclusive fitness costs pertaining to infidelity have been shown in a study where participants, regardless of their own sex, expressed most distress by a brother’s partner’s sexual infidelity and a sister’s partner’s emotional infidelity (Michalski et al. 2007). In summary, the current study illustrates that Hamilton’s inclusive fitness theory is still relevant today in the technological era of ‘Snapchat’ at least with regard to explaining male jealousy attenuation to partner/sibling infidelity. After all, extra-pair copulation between a man’s partner and a brother may still result nevertheless in genetically related offspring enhancing that man’s inclusive fitness.

Before concluding, it is worthwhile pointing out potential weaknesses in the methodology of the study. Since the incorporation of scenario methods into research pertaining to infidelity and jealousy, and in an attempt to address challenges to the evolutionary position presented by authors such as DeSteno and Salovey (1996), researchers have repeatedly attempted to present sexual and emotional infidelity scenarios as being mutually exclusive (Buss et al. 1999). When constructing infidelity-revealing messages in a social media context, it is difficult for example to create an emotional infidelity scenario without at least hinting at the potential for future sexual liaison and vice versa. In addition to emphasising message ‘ecological validity’, future studies need to further disambiguate the two by for example making it clear that sexual infidelity is restricted to sexual cheating alone without any emotional involvement. For example, current research in our laboratory uses wording contained within a message such as ‘we both know our affair will only ever be sexual’ or ‘no-strings attached’ sexual fun.

In conclusion and in support of previous findings, it is argued that manifestly different jealousy inclinations in both sexes evolved as they were advantageous during the time of our EEA to help solve adaptive problems differentially pertinent to each sex (Geher and Miller 2012; Hart 2010). Moreover, the current study has provided evidence that sex differences in jealousy extend farther than purely inclinations towards jealousy type; there may also be sex differences in the extent to which third-party identity evokes jealousy. Miscellaneous adaptations pertaining to jealousy appear impervious to change in the current technological age. With a current pandemic in social media–mediated, jealousy-elicited infidelity, research utilising fictitious, jealousy-evoking scenarios may help shed light on, and hopefully mitigate, societal and personal problems associated with this phenomenon.

Evolved antisuicide defenses may account for many otherwise puzzling aspects of humans, like susceptibility to depression, addictions, self-harm, & certain other symptoms, posited to be protective responses to suicidogenic pain

Adaptation to the Suicidal Niche. C. A. Soper. Evolutionary Psychological Science, December 2019, Volume 5, Issue 4, pp 454–471. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-019-00202-3

Abstract: Primarily a precis of the book The Evolution of Suicide (Soper 2018), this article argues that behaviorally modern humans are specifically adapted to survive in what the author calls the “suicidal niche,” an ecological arena characterized by the endemic fitness threat of deliberate self-killing. A “pain-and-brain” model of suicide’s evolution is proposed, which explains suicide as a noxious by-product of two adaptations combined: the aversiveness of pain, which demands that the organism act to end or escape it, and the cognitive sophistication of the mature human brain, which offers self-killing as an effective means to satisfy that demand for escape. These “pain” and “brain” primary adaptations are posited to be both sufficient conditions for suicide and universal among mature humans, which suggests that the fitness threat of suicide would have posed a predictable and severe adaptive problem in the evolution of our species. Adaptive solutions, which emerged to address the problem, are hypothesized to be psychological and sometimes culturally informed mechanisms that either dull the “pain” motivation for suicide or deny the “brain” means to conceive and enact suicide—or, most likely, a combination of the two strategies. Evolved antisuicide defenses may account for many otherwise puzzling aspects of human behavior and psychology, including susceptibilities to depression, addictions, self-harm, and certain other common psychiatric symptoms, which the author posits to be protective, autonomic responses to suicidogenic pain. The precision of human adaptation to the suicidal niche makes it unlikely that deliberate self-killings can, even in principle, be predicted with useful accuracy at the individual level.

Keywords: Suicide Suicidology Evolution Evolutionary psychology Human evolution Suicidal niche Depression Addiction Mental disorder Positive psychology Fender Keeper Cognitive floor

Check also Evolutionary Psychology and Suicidology. John F. Gunn III, Pablo Malo, and C. A. Soper. SAGE Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, Vol 3, Part 7, Chapter 69. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/11/evolutionary-psychology-and-suicidology.html

Men perceived sexual advances as less negative than women, especially when the advances arise from a (physically) attractive actor; & the higher the sociosexual orientation, the less harmful the sexual advances are perceived

Oppression or Opportunity? Sexual Strategies and the Perception of Sexual Advances. Lisa Klümper, Sascha Schwarz. Evolutionary Psychological Science, November 25 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-019-00215-y

Abstract: From an evolutionary perspective, the perception and interpretation of sexual advances depend on sex-specific mechanisms, individual differences in the perceivers’ mating strategies, and the actor’s attractiveness. In two studies (N = 1516), participants evaluated hypothetical situations of sexual advances from a coworker varying in attractiveness (study 1) and physical appearance or status (study 2). In both studies, men perceived sexual advances as less negative than women, especially when the advances arise from a (physically) attractive actor. Furthermore, the higher the sociosexual orientation of the participants, the less harmful these sexual advances are perceived. Finally, the same behavior from an attractive or physically attractive actor is perceived as less harmful than from an unattractive actor. Results are discussed from an evolutionary perspective on the perception of sexual advances.

Keywords: Sex differences Mating strategies Sociosexual orientation Sexual advances Attractiveness

Narcissistic admiration is adaptive for speech performance & predicts higher self & observer-rated speech performance & lower anxiety; narcissistic rivalry is associated with greater anxiety

The effect of narcissistic admiration and rivalry on speaking performance. Harry Manley, Nuttha Paisarnsrisomsuk, Ross Roberts. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 154, 1 February 2020, 109624. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109624

Highlights
•    Narcissistic admiration predicts better self and observer-rated speech quality.
•    Narcissistic admiration is associated with lower state anxiety.
•    Narcissistic rivalry is unrelated to speech performance.
•    Narcissistic rivalry predicts higher state anxiety.

Abstract
Objective: A narcissistic individual can seek to maintain his/her grandiose self-view through different processes associated with assertive self-enhancement (narcissistic admiration) or antagonistic self-protection (narcissistic rivalry). Here, we examine how admiration and rivalry affect anxiety and performance in a speaking task. Because the behaviours associated with narcissistic rivalry are motivated by ego threat, we further examined the moderating effect of self-affirmation, a process designed to reduce ego threat, on performance.

Method: We assigned 90 Thai students to a self-affirmation or control group and asked them to deliver a short speech. We assessed speech performance through self-report and observer ratings, and state anxiety using self-report.

Results: Narcissistic admiration was adaptive for speech performance and predicted higher self and observer-rated speech performance and lower anxiety. In contrast, narcissistic rivalry was associated with greater anxiety but was unrelated to speech performance. Self-affirmation moderated the effect of narcissistic rivalry on self-rated speech performance but in an unexpected direction such that rivalry was negatively related to speech performance following self-affirmation.

Conclusion: These results add to the developing literature on the behavioural correlates of narcissistic admiration and rivalry, with admiration reflecting the more socially adaptive component of grandiose narcissism.

Happiness Enrichment and Sustainable Happiness: Model of future research framework

Happiness Enrichment and Sustainable Happiness. Eyal Eckhaus, Zachary Sheaffer. Applied Research in Quality of Life, September 2019, Volume 14, Issue 4, pp 1079–1097. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11482-018-9641-0

Abstract: Sustainable happiness research has recently received renewed attention. Studies present exercises intended to enhance happiness. A comprehensive process by which to sustain happiness has not thus far been studied comprehensively. Drawing on the Goal-Setting and Experimental Learning theories, we endeavour to form a Happiness Enrichment Perspective (HSP). A cyclic Happiness Sustainability Model of four stages is presented aimed at advancing a future research framework. Predicated on data gleaned from 458 respondents, we applied SEM aimed at validating HSP. Findings corroborate the proposed Happiness Sustainability Cycle (HSC). Implications and suggestions for future studies on happiness sustainability are proposed in order to further validate the proposed model.

Keywords: Sustainable happiness Well-being Goal-setting Experiential learning

Discussion

The results indicate the adequacy of ELT and GST as theoretical bases to the formation

of a comprehensive process of sustainable happiness. ELT illustrates a continuous

cycle, where conclusions based on concrete experience are key to improving the

learning process (Tomkins and Ulus 2016), and the ability to enhance and sustain

happiness. Exercising happiness and the following conclusion phase form the two

foundations of our HSC model. Findings corroborate that much like in ELT, each of the

phases affect the next in a continuous and logically evolving cycle which gradually

augments and sustains happiness. GST complements EST because both focus on the

goal itself, stating that a challenging goal leads to higher performance (Gary P. Latham

2016), and that individuals must be able to monitor progress (Bruhn et al. 2016), in

order to achieve their goal. Accordance with the GST approach, our findings imply that

a continuous work is required in order to reach sustainable happiness, where feedback

from experience enables the conclusion phase that, ultimately allows for undertaking

improvements in performance.

Concurrent with the prevailing view that discounts the inability to attain sustainable

happiness, and constitutes an obstacle to research on the sustainable happiness (Seligman

2004), we explore the process by which happiness may be enriched and sustained.

Largely findings corroborate the Cognitive Appraisal Theory (CAT), positing that

appraisal or perceptions of events elicit emotional response (Rooij et al. 2015).

Accordingly, goal-conduciveness and goal-obstruction refer to the way in which an

event affects progress towards attaining individuals goals (Kreibig et al. 2012). ‘Meaning, evaluation of whether an event is indicative of being helpful or it hinders goal

attainment, which in-turn stimulates positive or negative emotions (Aue and Scherer

2008). Our HSP approach postulates that individuals can control and shape happiness

iteratively through the process exemplified by the HSC model. The progress towards

goal that individuals experience by following HSC phases, gradually enhances positive

emotions and encourages happiness sustainability, as argued by both CAT and GST.

An example of personal control of happiness offered by following the HSC

model, may be observed by the Facial Feedback Hypothesis, which states that

facial muscles do not only express emotions, but also initiate emotions

(Dimberg and Söderkvist 2011). That is, by performing a voluntary action or exercise,

individuals can augment positive emotions.

The study offers several contributions.

First, despite growing awareness regarding the possibility of sustainable happiness

(cf. O'Brien 2016), few studies provide evidence as to how to reach sustainable

happiness (Ganser 2012), and no study has yet to present a comprehensive process

by which lasting happiness may be sustained. We argue that human beings have the

power to boost and sustain their lasting happiness, by following the Happiness Sustainability Cycle Model.

Second, while goals attainment has been shown to be a factor that impacts happiness

positively (Headey 2008), scholars have recently suggested to set happiness itself as a

goal (cf. Kagan 2016). We corroborate this supposition and provide empirical evidence

showing that by setting happiness itself as a goal, it may be enriched and sustained.

Third, drawing on the GST and the ELT perspectives, we offer a tentative Happiness

Enrichment Model, or the four-stage HSC model. This model may serve as a framework for future research in the domain of happiness sustainability.

Limitations and Future Studies

Whilst we have managed to successfully validate key theoretical constructs, they

should be critically reassessed predicated on different research populations and in

different research loci. Specifically, research shows that the concept and prediction of

happiness vary cross-culturally (Oishi and Gilbert 2016). Future studies may benefit

from examining our model in diverse cultures.

According to O'Brien (2016), “Sustainable happiness is happiness that contributes to

individual, community, or global well-being without exploiting other people, the

environment, or future generations.” (p. 1). This definition places individual happiness

and wellbeing in a broader context and underscores that happiness and well-being do

not exist in isolation (Harwood 2011). Accordingly, O’Brien (ibid) describes activities

for encouraging one’s gratitude towards the environment, seeing the environment as

key for personal development of happiness. For instance, “what feeling and images

come to mind when you think about the environment?”…., “what feeling and images

come to mind when you think about nature?”…“compare the comments about the

environments and nature, does this reveal anything to you?” (p. 17). O’Brien also

outlines the Earth Charter Project (http://earthcharter.org/), an ethical framework for

building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the twenty-first century. This

is followed by suggestions of activities that highlights how this framework enhances

sustainable happiness. Also outlined by O’Brien is the World Happiness Report, which

describes sustainable development as “a holistic approach to well-being that calls on

societies to pursue economic, social, and environmental objectives in an integrated

manner” (World Happiness Report 2016, p.6). The World Happiness Report is a

groundbreaking survey of the state of happiness around the world (White 2017). Since

2012 this report has been manually updating the rank of 156 countries based on their

happiness levels (Ngoo 2017). The report reflects an emerging worldwide awareness to

happiness as a criterion for government policy (Folgieri et al. 2017). Noteworthy are

studies that address happiness at a national level including the Ecological Well-being

Performance (IEWP). This study aims at measuring the efficiency of transforming

ecological consumption to human wellbeing (Zhang et al. 2018). The Happy Planet

Index measures how well nations are doing at achieving long, happy, sustainable lives

(Suciu et al. 2018), and wellbeing environmental efficiency also referred to as the

ecological intensity of wellbeing (Mayer 2017). This is a sustainability measure

affected by economic development, climate, and social factors (Lv 2017).

A valuable future research may be to introduce sustainable happiness practices and

explore if the HSC Model is viable and if these interventions engender Lasting

Sustainable Happiness rather than simply lasting happiness, embracing a broader,

interdisciplinary perspective of happiness.

Additionally, numerous studies show a significant association between religiousness, measured by attendance at religious services, and happiness (Sander 2017). This

view is also supported and presented in the qualitative findings section. We encourage

therefore future investigators to extend the HSC Model by integrating religiousness in

order to examine the extent to which it affects happiness. Such controls as demographics, including gender, and ethnic origin have also been found to affect happiness

(Glaeser et al. 2016), where woman, white Caucasians, and married people are shown

to be happier (ibid). Hence, we would recommend investigators to integrate and

examine such and other demographic effects on happiness employing the HSC Model.

An additional and potentially revealing factor would be national culture. Cultures differ

in the way happiness is perceived and achieved (Bieda et al. 2017; Oishi and Gilbert

2016), and hence a comparative study that examines cultural differences with respect to

the HSC model would be of interest.

The Effect of Unemployment on Life Satisfaction: A Cross-National Comparison Between Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States

The Effect of Unemployment on Life Satisfaction: A Cross-National Comparison Between Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. Wen-Hao Chen, Feng Hou. Applied Research in Quality of Life, September 2019, Volume 14, Issue 4, pp 1035–1058. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11482-018-9638-8

Abstract: This paper investigates the effect of unemployment on life satisfaction from a comparative perspective. It also tests whether the link between unemployment and life satisfaction is moderated or reinforced by contextual unemployment across regions within a country—either through a negative spillover or a positive social-norm effect, or both. The results suggest that noticeable non-pecuniary costs are associated with unemployment in the four countries studied. Cross-national differences also emerged in the impact of the moderating factors. Regional unemployment is a strong moderating factor of own unemployment in Canada and to a lesser extent in the United States; the effect is ambiguous in the United Kingdom and exacerbating in Germany. The results also support a negative spillover effect of regional unemployment on the employed in the United States and Germany, no spillover effect in the United Kingdom and, surprisingly, a positive overall spillover effect in Canada. Sensitivity testing further revealed that this Canadian anomaly was a phenomenon mainly in Atlantic Canada, not across the whole country.

Keywords: Unemployment Subjective well-being Employment insecurity Social norm


Cross-National Differences and Possible Explanations
The results reveal some interesting cross-country similarities and differences in the well-being of the employed and the unemployed among the four countries studied. In all cases, noticeable non-pecuniary costs are associated with unemployment, net of observable characteristics. Unemployed Canadians, like the unemployed in the other countries, tend to have lower levels of life satisfaction than the employed, witheverything else held equal. The estimated employed–unemployed life satisfaction gap looks remarkably similar in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. It is significantly wider in Germany.

This overall pattern is consistent withour prior expectation that the negativeeffect of own unemployment on life satisfaction is exacerbated in countries where employment protection legislation (EPL) is strict. Empirical studies often find that strict EPL negatively affects unemployment inflow and outflow,because stricter EPL entails higher firing costs and reduces the propensity tohire by employers (for a review, see OECD2013). The differences in EPL among the four countries (over their respective sample periods) reported inTable5 support this claim. Germany had relatively more stringent EPL againstdismissals for regular and temporary workers than, in order, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.

Job Security and Prospects
The other possible explanation for the wide employed–unemployed life satisfaction gapin Germany is labour market security and prospects. Knabe and Ratzel (2011) showed that individuals’ perceptions of labour market risk have a greater impact on their well-being than their employment status. Clark et al. (2010) divided sample in the labourforce into four mutually exclusive groups according to their job security and prospects. They found that the employed with high job security had the highest life satisfaction, while the unemployed with poor job prospects had the lowest life satisfaction. Interestingly, the average life satisfaction of the insecurely employed and of the unemployed with good job prospects is similar. The wide employed–unemployed life satisfactiongap in Germany may indicate a polarized labour market, where the employed are secure and the unemployed have poor job prospects (as a result of, for instance, significantentry or re-entry barriers).

The summary labour market and institution indicators for the four countries reported in Table5 were used to determine whether the labour market in Germanyis polarized.23The results support the idea of a polarization between job security and job prospects in the German labour market. Germany stands out as having the lowest incidence of short job tenures, as well as the highest incidence of long job tenures, among the four countries. Over the study period, nearly 60% of German employees had five years or more of tenure with their current employer. Only 46%to 48% of employees in the three other countries had five years of more of tenure with their current employers over their corresponding periods. The employee turnover rate was lower in Germany: only about 15% of employees experienced a short job tenure of less than a year, versus 20% or more of employees in thethree other countries. These results suggest that German employees are relatively more secure in their jobs. Table 5 also confirms that prospects for job seekers are relatively gloomy in Germany: over 50% of the unemployed were out of work longer than one year. The long-term unemployment rates are much lower in thethree other countries, at 12%for Canada, 15% for the United States and 27% United Kingdom. This also explains why unemployed Germans had significantly lower predicted life satisfaction scores (see Section 4.3) than their otherwise-equal counterparts in other countries.

Happier Indonesians in 2007 earned more money, were more likely to be married, less likely to be divorced or unemployed, and in better health when the survey was conducted again seven years later

Does Happiness Pays? A Longitudinal Family Life Survey. Sujarwoto Sujarwoto. Applied Research in Quality of Life, November 23 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11482-019-09798-x

Abstract: Most of the research on happiness has documented that income, marriage, employment and health affect happiness. Very few studies examine whether happiness itself affect income, marriage, employment and health. This study does so, benefiting from data drawn from the panel longitudinal Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) 2007 and 2014. The survey includes 23,776 individuals from 15,067 households living in about 262 neighborhoods between 2007 and 2014. The findings show that happier Indonesians in 2007 earned more money, were more likely to be married, were less likely to be divorced or unemployed, and were in better health when the survey was conducted again seven years later. Policy makers may consider that increasing citizen happiness is vital to achieve citizen success on labor markets, to improve their job performance and to maintain their health.

Keywords: Happiness Positive cognitive bias Income Indonesia

Check also Individual and Contextual Factors of Happiness and Life Satisfaction in a Low Middle Income Country. Sujarwoto Sujarwoto, Gindo Tampubolon, Adi Cilik Pierewan. Applied Research in Quality of Life 13(4), October 2017. DOI: 10.1007/s11482-017-9567-y:

Abstract: Understanding individual and contextual factors of happiness and life satisfaction in a low- and middle-income country setting are important in the study of subjective well-being. This study aims to examine individual and contextual factors of happiness and life satisfaction in one of the happiest countries in the world: Indonesia. Data comes from the Indonesian Family Life Survey 2014 (N individual = 31,403; N household = 15,160; N district = 297). Results from a three-level ordered logit model show that factors of happiness and life satisfaction are beyond individual factors. Happiness and life satisfaction are also strongly associated with factors within an individual’s household and at the district government level. Individuals living in households with better economic welfare are happier and more satisfy. Poor health and unemployment have a detrimental effect on happiness and life satisfaction. Individuals living in districts whose governments’ better deliver public services are happier and more satisfy. In contrast, those living in areas with conflict and violence is less happy and satisfy. Individual religiosity and community social capital in the form of indigenous tradition benefit individual happiness and life satisfaction.

People higher in dark-personality constructs may perceive others’ dark characteristics as less undesirable (“darkness tolerance”); it may result from similarity-liking mechanisms

Desirability of others' dark characteristics: The role of perceivers’ dark personality. William Hart, Kyle Richardson. Personality and Individual Differences, November 22 2019, 109722. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109722

Abstract: Previous research suggests people higher in dark-personality constructs may perceive others’ dark characteristics as less undesirable (“darkness tolerance”). To advance understanding, we examined darkness tolerance in the context of various dark-personality constructs and addressed different explanations for its occurrence. Participants (N = 567) indicated the desirability of dark characteristics in others under conditions where dark characteristics would be either highly or less undesirable; also, participants self-reported possession of these characteristics and completed measures of dark-personality constructs (narcissism constructs, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy). Dark-personality constructs related to enhanced desirability ratings for dark characteristics in ways that generally matched how the constructs related to enhanced self-ratings on the same characteristics; also, dark characteristics were rated less favorably under highly-undesirable vs. less-undesirable conditions, and this effect was not modified by any dark-personality construct. In sum, darkness tolerance occurs across dark-personality constructs; it may result from similarity-liking mechanisms but not from insensitivity to contextual features that make dark characteristics particularly undesirable.

Keywords: Dark personalityPerson perceptionPersonality


3. Discussion

Prior work had generally focused on darkness tolerance in the context of narcissism, but the present findings suggest that darkness tolerance is a common thread running through dark-personality constructs; darkness tolerance was present across six dark-personality constructs, albeit it appeared smaller for arguably the least “dark” constructs (GN, VN, and NARQ-A). Indeed, Lamkin et al. (2018) showed darkness tolerance as a function of trait antagonism, and trait antagonism might unite dark-personality constructs. This study provided novel insights on the underpinnings of darkness tolerance. Theorists suggested that darkness tolerance could spring from similarity-liking mechanisms and/or an apparent tone-deafness (Adams et al., 2015; Wallace et al., 2015). The present study provided novel tests of these accounts. Inconsistent with the tone-deafness account, perceivers high and low in dark-personality constructs agreed on the extent to which dark (and bright) characteristics were undesirable as a function of the darkness-desirability manipulation. These null interaction findings are unlikely due to limited power or the un-modifiable nature of the darkness-desirability effect on desirability ratings; indeed, the darkness-desirability effect was moderated by scenario. Hence, darkness tolerance might not arise from tone-deafness. The present data supported the similarity-liking account using a novel method for testing this account (for other support, Burton et al., 2017; Hart & Adams, 2014); specifically, dark-personality constructs generally related to desirability ratings of the dark/bright characteristics in ways that matched how they related to self-ratings on these characteristics.5 But, this matching was less impressive for vulnerable narcissism. Perhaps people high in VN showed weak similarity-liking effects because they have low self-esteem (Klohnen & Mendelsohn, 1998); in this study, VN inversely related to self-esteem (r = −0.34). To check on this idea, we first removed self-esteem variance from VN; we predicted VN from self-esteem and saved the residual. Second, we related this residualized version of VN to (a) the 13 desirability ratings and (b) the 13 self-ratings (for these rs, see supplemental Table S4). Finally, we computed the relation between these two “sets” of rs (i.e., set “a” and set “b” rs). This computation revealed weak profile mismatch (r = −0.18). So, it seems that low self-esteem, if anything, contributed similarity-liking effects in VN. Perhaps people high in VN showed weak similarity-liking effects because their self-views are not held with much confidence (Hart, Adams, Burton & Tortoriello, 2017) and are therefore less likely to factor into evaluating others’ characteristics. The present study is not without limitations. First, because we used superficial methods to investigate darkness tolerance and examined the phenomenon in a college sample with a high proportion of females, it remains unclear whether the results are applicable to different settings or populations. Second, because the study was limited to unidimensional indicators of Machiavellianism and psychopathy, it remains unclear whether the present results are applicable to all features of these constructs. Third, we used single items to assess desirability and selfratings of the 13 dark/bright characteristics, and single item indicators are prone to low reliability. This suggests findings pertaining to analyses of the single items might not be highly precise. Finally, although evidence was consistent with a similarity-liking mechanism, this evidence was correlational and does not show causation.

Moral foundations (Care/Injury, Fairness/Deception, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sacred/Fallen) are based on emotions and intuitions, but are substantially associated with cognitive ability

Moral foundations and cognitive ability: Results from a Japanese sample. Tetsuya Kawamoto, Takahiro Mieda, Atsushi Oshio. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 149, October 15 2019, Pages 31-36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.05.050

Abstract: Research has indicated that human morality is associated with cognitive ability. However, morality is not a unified concept but rather is a multi-faceted concept. Moral Foundation Theory suggests that human beings have at least five innate moral foundations: Care/Injury, Fairness/Deception, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sacred/Fallen. The present study aimed to investigate the associations between these moral values and cognitive ability. A large-scale cross-sectional survey was conducted online, which was completed by a total of 4863 Japanese adults (2922 females, 1935 males, and 6 “other;” Mage = 48.78, SDage = 10.93, range 20–70). Correlation and multiple regression analyses revealed that cognitive ability was positively linked to Care/Injury, Fairness/Deception, and Sacred/Fallen. Notably, the positive associations of cognitive ability with Loyalty/Betrayal and Authority/Subversion were statistically significant only for people below the age of approximately 50. These findings indicate that although moral foundations are based on emotions and intuitions, they are substantially associated with cognitive ability. In addition, the positive direction of associations of cognitive ability with Loyalty/Betrayal and Authority/Subversion was inconsistent with previous findings in Western countries, which suggests that these associations are culture-dependent.

Keywords: Cognitive abilitySyllogism-solvingMoral foundationMoral decision-makingAgeJapanese


4. Discussion

The present study examined the associations between moral foundations and cognitive ability and the moderating effect of age on these
associations using a large Japanese adult sample. Cognitive ability was
positively associated with individualizing foundations (Care/Injury and
Fairness/Deception) in this study. This result is basically consistent
with previous findings (Carl, 2014, 2015; Deary et al., 2008; Schoon
et al., 2010; Van Leeuwen et al., 2014). In addition, cognitive ability
was also positively correlated with binding foundations (Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sacred/Fallen). These associations
were inconsistent with previous Western findings (Pennycook et al.,
2014; Sidanius et al., 1996; Stankov, 2009). However, as Kemmelmeier
(2008) noted, the associations between cognitive ability and
conservatism-related values might be moderated by environmental
political interest. Since Japanese people, especially young ones, have
among the lowest political interest and engagement rates (Cabinet
Office, 2014), the positive associations of cognitive ability with binding
foundations were expected. Hence, the present hypotheses on the
moral-cognitive ability associations were supported by this study. As for
age as a moderator, interaction terms were significant for all moral
foundations. A subsequent simple slope test showed that the links to
each moral foundation were stronger for younger people. Moreover, the
Johnson–Neyman test revealed that the moral-cognitive ability links
became significant among people below the age of approximately 50 for
binding foundations other than Sacred/Fallen. Therefore, the present
age-as-moderator hypothesis was partially supported in this study.
Five moral foundations are considered as innate psychological
systems that give rise to moral intuitions throughout the world (Graham
et al., 2009, 2011, 2013). According to the MFT, the five intuitive
systems are respectively linked to distinct moral values: Care/Injury,
Fairness/Deception, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and
Sacred/Fallen (Graham et al., 2009, 2011, 2013). The MFT focuses on
the role of emotional intutions in determining moral judgment and
insists that moral judgements derive almost entirely from intuitive
processes (Graham et al., 2013). That is, although they do not deny the
role of cognitive reasoning processes (Graham et al., 2011), deliberate
cognitive reasoning is not overly assumed in MFT. The present results
showed that higher cognitive ability is linked to higher levels of every
moral foundation, especially Care/Injury, Fairness/Deception, and
Sacred/Fallen. While the present results basically conformed to previous findings (Carl, 2014, 2015; Deary et al., 2008; Schoon et al.,
2010; Van Leeuwen et al., 2014), the underlying reason why these
foundations are positively related to cognitive ability remains unknown. Moreover, the present study showed that age exerted a moderating effect on the associations between cognitive ability and moral
foundations. In particular, with respect to Loyalty/Betrayal and Authority/Subversion, the associations with cognitive ability were observed only in younger people. Considering that Japanese young people
show low political interest and engagement (Cabinet Office, 2014), this
age-by-cognitive ability interaction is consistent with previous research
findings (Kemmelmeier, 2008; Kemmelmeier et al., 1999; Krosnick,
1988, 1990).
The associations between cognitive ability and moral foundations
observed in this study can be interpreted from the viewpoint of social
learning or enculturation. According to MFT, moral foundations are
basically innate (Graham et al., 2011, 2013). However, they also note
that these foundations are malleable, and there is room for cultural
learning (Graham et al., 2013). Cognitive ability is a fundamental tool
for human learning, and is also a useful tool for social learning
(Christie, 2017). Although there are some differences in the moral values regarded as important among various cultures or societies, care
and justice are seen as basic morality in at least developed countries.
Children socially learn their importance as moral principles and become
socialized (Smetana, 1999). Cognitive ability plays an important role in
this social learning process, which promotes positive associations with
Care/Injury and Fairness/Deception, that is, individualizing foundations.
Sacred/Fallen is considered as one of the binding foundations
(Graham et al., 2009). However, the present results on Sacred/Fallen
were not consistent with Loyalty/Betrayal and Authority/Subversion,
but rather similar with Care/Injury and Fairness/Deception. Considering the raw inter-scale correlations among moral foundations,
Sacred/Fallen can be construed as more closely associated with individualizing foundations in Japanese people. Previous research also
showed that openness to experience and honesty-humility are positively
associated with Care/Injury, Fairness/Deception and Sacred/Fallen in
Japanese (Kawamoto et al., 2017). Based on these findings, the location
of Sacred/Fallen in moral foundation factor structure for Japanese
people may be different from that for Westerners.
The present results pointing to age as a moderator of the associations between cognitive ability and moral foundations are novel. In
particular, the associations with Loyalty/Betrayal and Authority/
Subversion were observed only for people below the age of 50. Loyalty/
Betrayal and Authority/Subversion are linked to social conservatism
(Graham et al., 2009, 2011). People with little political interest tend to
have less opportunities to think about and discuss political issues; this
tendency is conducive to maintaining high consistency between values
and beliefs (Kemmelmeier et al., 1999; Krosnick, 1988, 1990). Besides,
Japanese young people have little political interest and engagement
(Cabinet Office, 2014). Considering these previous findings, Japanese
young people may passively accept conservative values that are widely
endorsed in the Japanese society without questioning them, since their
surroundings are characterized by low political interest. This holds
especially true for young individuals with relatively high cognitive
ability, since the processes involved in learning social values or norms
necessitate high cognitive ability (Buckholtz & Marois, 2012; Christie,
2017). Therefore, it is plausible to argue that younger and smarter
people are more likely to passively accept conservative values, which
are widely endorsed in Japan, without analyzing them.
The present study had some strengths including a sufficient sample
size and the use of a Japanese sample. As research on moral foundations
has been mainly conducted in Western countries, the present results
extended previous findings. Despite these strengths, this study also had
some limitations. First, we relied on self-reported moral foundation
scores; mono-rater measures of psychological traits are vulnerable to
random and systematic errors (Campbell & Fiske, 1959). Future research ought to use other self-rating measures or other methods to assess people's morality. Second, the present sample was composed only
of Japanese individuals. Accordingly, future research should recruit
culturally and ethnically diverse samples. Third, cognitive ability was
measured with the BAROCO Short, which has been well validated but is
a relatively simple test. In order to further examine the associations
between moral foundations and detailed facets of cognitive ability,
future research should use tests that can capture the multiple facets of
cognitive ability.
This study offered the positive associations between binding foundations and cognitive ability. Notably, the associations were significantly moderated by the participants' age. These findings were
novel, and additionally, suggested that the associations between moral
values and cognitive ability could be modified by external factors. This
study focused only on the participants' age as a moderator, however,
future research should explore possible interactions between cognitive
ability and other factors. In addition, the present findings implied that
lower political interest predispose people to accept moral values that
widely prevailed in their society without thinking. We can say that it is
important to encourage younger people to get an interest in their society and politics in education.