Is Empathy the Default Response to Suffering? A Meta-Analytic Evaluation of Perspective Taking’s Effect on Empathic Concern. William H. B. McAuliffe et al. Personality and Social Psychology Review, November 27, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868319887599
Abstract: We conducted a series of meta-analytic tests on experiments in which participants read perspective-taking instructions—that is, written instructions to imagine a distressed persons’ point of view (“imagine-self” and “imagine-other” instructions), or to inhibit such actions (“remain-objective” instructions)—and afterwards reported how much empathic concern they experienced upon learning about the distressed person. If people spontaneously empathize with others, then participants who receive remain-objective instructions should report less empathic concern than do participants in a “no-instructions” control condition; if people can deliberately increase how much empathic concern they experience, then imagine-self and imagine-other instructions should increase empathic concern relative to not receiving any instructions. Random-effects models revealed that remain-objective instructions reduced empathic concern, but “imagine” instructions did not significantly increase it. The results were robust to most corrections for bias. Our conclusions were not qualified by the study characteristics we examined, but most relevant moderators have not yet been thoroughly studied.
Keywords: empathy, perspective taking, altruism, meta-analysis, publication bias
Introduction
Perspective taking, the act of imagining the thoughts and feelings of others, is a common precursor to prosocial behav-ior (Batson, 2011). Researchers have also found that per-spective taking causes empathic concern (an emotion that is congruent with and elicited by perceived suffering), which reflects altruistic motivation (i.e., a non+instrumental desire to improve the welfare of another person). But do people as a matter of course experience empathic concern for needy others they observe?
Here, we present a series of meta-analyses designed to address three questions: (a) Do people spontaneously empathize with those in distress? If so, then (b) could they experience even more empathic concern if they deliberately engaged in perspective taking? Finally, (c) do moderators—such as the identity of the victim or the medium by which participants learn about the victim’s need—affect the extent to which people spontaneously empathize or successfully increase empathic concern via deliberate effort?1 To assess to what extent our answers to these questions depend on specific assumptions about how publication bias affects the primary literature, we compared the results from nine different esti-mators, each of which depend on either a different model of how publication bias works or how to best correct for it.Extant theorizing is divided on whether people will experi-ence empathic concern in response to distressed others in the normal course of experience. On one hand, much research suggests that people avoid empathic concern by default, at least when helping requires a considerable sacrifice (Cameron & Payne, 2011; Zaki, 2014). This tendency might explain why numerous tragedies—especially those involving large numbers of people occurring far away—routinely fail to sus-tain bystanders’ emotional attention (Loewenstein & Small, 2007; Slovic, Västfjäll, Erlandsson, & Gregory, 2017). On the other hand, empathizing may come more naturally in situations where the perceived costs of helping do not overwhelm how much observers value victims. For example, the experiments that established the relationship between empathic concern and altruistic motivation typically had participants learn about just one victim who is a fellow in-group member (Batson, 2011). Another set of experiments found that participants reported the same other-oriented thoughts and feelings upon deliberately trying to take the perspective of a single victim as when they just responded naturally. Thoughts that distracted from focusing on a victim’s needs, such as thinking about her appearance rather than her plight, did not occur naturally. Rather, they were common only when participants deliberately attempted to not consider how the victim felt about her plight (Davis et al., 2004). Notably, participants who tried to emotionally distance themselves from the victim still reported strong other-oriented emotions, suggesting that they found it difficult to respond with apathy.Even if people sometimes do spontaneously empathize with victims, it is nevertheless possible that they have untapped potential for how much empathic concern they could experience. For instance, multiple research groups have found that compassion training—which involves deliberately cultivating concern for others—increases helping of distressed groups relative to control trainings (Leiberg, Klimecki, & Singer, 2011; Weng et al., 2013). Given that neither research group intentionally recruited participants who were particularly low in trait empathic concern, the efficacy of compassion training implies that normally empathic people could, with effort, experience more empathic concern than they do by default.
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
From 2017... Remembering Past Lives: The Cognitive Foundations of why People Believe that They have Lived Before
Remembering Past Lives: The Cognitive Foundations of why People Believe that They have Lived Before. Claire White. IAPR Conference, Jun 2017.
Abstract: This research concerns the question of why people think they have lived before and, in particular, the role of memory in supporting this conviction. Although popular representations of reincarnation assume that the veracity of past-life memories are evidenced by distinctive and verifiable details contained in the memory our results, based on of a series of semi-structured interviews with over 200 Western spiritual seekers, suggests otherwise. People reasoned that memory plays a fundamental role in past-life beliefs because of the sense of personal identity (i.e. that the event happened to them) contained in episodic memory. Contrary to popular portrayals, people were not at all concerned or motivated with fact checking the details of recounted episodes. Rather, they expressed the powerfulness of the experiential process of evoking a memory they did not, otherwise, know they had, how it moved them, and gave them insight into the self that was, they believed, hidden from sight until now. We conclude that past-life convictions are underpinned by the common sense association between memory ownership and personal identity in line with cognitive accounts of religion.
Keywords: past life, episodic memory, new age, spiritual seekers, personal identity, experimental philosophy
Abstract: This research concerns the question of why people think they have lived before and, in particular, the role of memory in supporting this conviction. Although popular representations of reincarnation assume that the veracity of past-life memories are evidenced by distinctive and verifiable details contained in the memory our results, based on of a series of semi-structured interviews with over 200 Western spiritual seekers, suggests otherwise. People reasoned that memory plays a fundamental role in past-life beliefs because of the sense of personal identity (i.e. that the event happened to them) contained in episodic memory. Contrary to popular portrayals, people were not at all concerned or motivated with fact checking the details of recounted episodes. Rather, they expressed the powerfulness of the experiential process of evoking a memory they did not, otherwise, know they had, how it moved them, and gave them insight into the self that was, they believed, hidden from sight until now. We conclude that past-life convictions are underpinned by the common sense association between memory ownership and personal identity in line with cognitive accounts of religion.
Keywords: past life, episodic memory, new age, spiritual seekers, personal identity, experimental philosophy
Hormones in speed-dating: The role of testosterone and cortisol in attraction
Hormones in speed-dating: The role of testosterone and cortisol in attraction. Leander van der Meij et al. Hormones and Behavior, Volume 116, November 2019, 104555. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2019.07.003
Highlights
• Testosterone and cortisol levels are probably related to romantic attraction.
• We conducted a study with a romantic speed-dating condition and control condition.
• We found strong anticipatory hormonal responses.
• In women, but not in men, testosterone levels increased during speed-dating.
• Cortisol was related more to the attraction of a romantic partner than testosterone.
Abstract: There is evidence that testosterone and cortisol levels are related to the attraction of a romantic partner; testosterone levels relate to a wide range of sexual behaviors and cortisol is a crucial component in the response to stress. To investigate this, we conducted a speed-dating study among heterosexual singles. We measured salivary testosterone and cortisol changes in men and women (n = 79) when they participated in a romantic condition (meeting opposite-sex others, i.e., potential romantic partners), as well as a control condition (meeting same-sex others, i.e., potential friends). Over the course of the romantic speed-dating event, results showed that women's but not men's testosterone levels increased and cortisol levels decreased for both men and women. These findings indicate that men's testosterone and cortisol levels were elevated in anticipation of the event, whereas for women, this appears to only be the case for cortisol. Concerning the relationship between attraction and hormonal change, four important findings can be distinguished. First, men were more popular when they arrived at the romantic speed-dating event with elevated cortisol levels. Second, in both men and women, a larger change in cortisol levels during romantic speed-dating was related to more selectivity. Third, testosterone alone was unrelated to any romantic speed-dating outcome (selectivity or popularity). However, fourth, women who arrived at the romantic speed-dating event with higher testosterone levels were more selective when their anticipatory cortisol response was low. Overall, our findings suggest that changes in the hormone cortisol may be stronger associated with the attraction of a romantic partner than testosterone.
4. Discussion
4.1. Testosterone change
Our findings showed that testosterone levels increased in women
during romantic speed-dating and decreased in women during the
control condition. Although these changes were small-medium effect
sizes, they are in line with theoretical models predicting that high
testosterone levels relate to more mate acquisition (Archer, 2006;
Roney, 2016; Zilioli and Bird, 2017) and more competitive behavior
(van Anders et al., 2011). However, surprisingly, in men, testosterone
levels did not change during romantic speed-dating and remained high
throughout the event. This is not in line with some previous research, as
numerous studies have shown that men experience an increase in testosterone
levels when talking to a potential mate in a waiting room
situation (Roney et al., 2010, 2007, 2003; van der Meij et al., 2008),
although one other study also showed that testosterone levels did not
change during romantic speed-dating (Lefevre et al., 2013). A speculative
explanation for these divergent findings is that romantic speeddating
is a much more arousing social context than a waiting room
situation. Unlike a waiting room situation, romantic speed-dating is an
unambiguous dating context where individuals scan each other as potential
mates. While the waiting room situation is unlikely to trigger
prior expectations because participants do not know that they will be
waiting together, participants of a romantic speed-dating do know that
they will be evaluated as a potential romantic partner.
Thus, it could be that, in contrast to women's testosterone levels,
men's testosterone levels did not increase further due to negative
feedback from already high testosterone levels on the hypothalamuspituitary-
gonadal (HPG) axis. This may also have held true for the
control condition, as testosterone levels were similar in this condition.
In both conditions, men may have experienced greater amounts of social
evaluative stress than women, as they were being evaluated on
either suitability as a romantic partner or were checking the competition
in the control condition. This finding is in line with other recent
studies showing that testosterone levels increase in men during stress
tasks with a social evaluative component (Bedgood et al., 2014;
Lennartsson et al., 2012; Phan et al., 2017; Turan et al., 2015), although
some older studies found no change in testosterone levels after psychosocial
stress (Gerra et al., 2000; Heinz et al., 2003; Schoofs and
Wolf, 2011) and one other study showed a decrease (Schulz et al.,
1996). This increase in testosterone levels may be part of an adaptive
response that assists an individual to cope with social challenges
(Salvador, 2005; Salvador and Costa, 2009). Indeed, previous research
has shown that the more men experienced a testosterone increase the
more they affiliated with women (van der Meij et al., 2012).
4.2. Testosterone and attraction
An important finding is that testosterone levels were unrelated to
popularity and selectivity in both men and women. This null finding for
men may be related to the previously discussed elevated hormonal levels.
Male testosterone levels may have been too elevated for most
participants even before the romantic speed-dating began, which reduced
variance in testosterone levels such that we were unable to detect
a relationship with their behavior (either in selectivity or popularity).
However, it is important to note that we may have lacked the power to
detect smaller effect sizes, since men and women have different testosterone
levels, and thus we had to analyze their testosterone data
separately. In men, we did find an indication that a larger anticipatory
testosterone response was related to less selectivity, although this effect
was statistically not significant. Future studies with larger sample sizes
may untangle if heightened testosterone levels during romantic speeddating
makes the relationship between attraction and testosterone undetectable
in men.
For women, there was also no relationship between attraction and
testosterone levels. This null finding is more difficult to explain, as
testosterone levels in women did increase during romantic speeddating.
Additionally, previous research shows that, in a lab setting, an
increase in testosterone levels was related to more sexual arousal in
women (Tuiten et al., 2000), which suggests that increased testosterone
levels could decrease selectivity. A speculative explanation for this null
finding in women is that temporal changes in their testosterone levels
had less of an effect on their behavior in an ecologically valid environment
such as romantic speed-dating. Perhaps women more rationally
deliberated the pros and cons of a potential romantic partner
and were not so much affected by their own bodily and psychological
state. Also interesting was that female popularity was unaffected by
their testosterone levels. A possible explanation here could be that that
men's selectivity is not so much influenced by female behavior during
these speed dates. Men may largely determine beforehand if they will
say yes to a date based on physical appearance. For example, in one
particular study, BMI predicted 25% of female popularity alone
(Kurzban and Weeden, 2005). Another explanation could be that variance
in female popularity was limited and this reduced the power to
detect an effect of anticipatory testosterone. Indeed, men said yes to
72% of their dates whereas women said yes to 48% of their dates.
4.3. Cortisol change
Results showed that both men and women arrived at both the romantic
speed-dating and control condition with elevated cortisol levels
and that during the course of both conditions their cortisol levels decreased.
Furthermore, this decrease was a very large effect size in the
control condition and less so in the romantic speed-dating condition
(small-medium effect size). Also, cortisol levels were higher at the end
of romantic speed-dating than at the end of the control condition.
Together these findings indicate that participants perceived the romantic
speed-dating as more challenging and stressful than friendship
dating. This implies that being judged as a potential romantic partner is
more stressful, and requires more impression management than when
being judged as a potential friend. Furthermore, results showed that
cortisol levels decreased during the course of romantic speed-dating
and control condition. These results contrast with other studies showing
that a brief social contact with a potential romantic partner produces an
increase in cortisol levels in heterosexual men (Roney et al., 2010,
2007), although another study showed that cortisol levels only increased
when in such encounters men perceived their potential partner
as attractive (van der Meij et al., 2010).
There are two speculative explanations for these different results.
First, our speed-dating study took over an hour to complete, thus cortisol
levels may have started decreasing towards more normal values
due to negative feedback from high cortisol levels on the hypothalamuspituitary-
adrenal (HPA) axis. Second, unlike these other studies, our
participants probably arrived with relatively high cortisol levels in
anticipation of the event. Thus, after having experienced several speed
dates they may have habituated. Adding to this, social affiliation may
have reduced anxiety through the release of oxytocin (for a review see
Heinrichs et al., 2009). Indeed, previous research has shown that oxytocin
administration reduces cortisol secretion during social evaluative
stress (Heinrichs et al., 2003).
4.4. Cortisol and attraction
There are two interesting findings concerning cortisol and attraction.
First, only in men, cortisol release in anticipation of romantic
speed-dating was related to more popularity. This effect was substantial
as women said “yes” to 34% of their dates when men experienced a
small anticipatory cortisol response, whereas they said “yes” to 65% of
their dates when men experienced a high anticipatory cortisol response.
A possible explanation is that men who arrived with these high levels
were more interested in dating women. Consequently, they may have
put more energy into making positive impressions during the speeddates.
Additionally, they may have had more energy at their disposal
since cortisol secretion increases local cerebral glucose utilization and
cardiovascular tone (Sapolsky et al., 2000). However, it is important to
note that a causal effect of cortisol on mate attraction could not be
established in the current study. Other third variables, such as a high
speed-dating motivation, may have produced more mate attraction
behaviors as well as a rise in cortisol levels in anticipation of the event.
Why women with elevated cortisol levels were not more popular may
have to do with the small variance in female popularity. Similar to the
function of testosterone, the function of these elevated cortisol levels in
men may help them cope with social challenges (Salvador, 2005;
Salvador and Costa, 2009). Furthermore, it could also reflect an effort
to affiliate, as it has been shown that, in men, increased cortisol secretions
during social evaluative stress predicted their feelings of closeness
to a stranger in a subsequent interaction (Berger et al., 2016).
Thus, our finding lends support for a “tend and befriend response” in
men during stressful times (Geary and Flinn, 2002). Finally, this finding
is in line with the Physiology of Romantic Pair Bond Initiation and
Maintenance Model, as this model posits that HPA-axis activation in
mating contexts is necessary to improve evaluations by potential mates
(Mercado and Hibel, 2017).
Second, contrary to our hypothesis, in both men and women, a
larger cortisol change during romantic speed-dating was related to
more selectivity (controlling for baseline and cortisol change in the
control condition), although this effect was small to medium. A speculative
explanation is that romantic speed-dating was not a positive
experience for all participants. Those men and women that experienced
an increase in cortisol levels may have been worried that they would
end up with no or very few matches. This would be in line with the
stress literature as cortisol release is more prominent in social situations
that are uncontrollable and pose a social-evaluative threat (for a review
see Dickerson and Kemeny, 2004). Romantic speed-dating has both
these elements: participants can only guess whether their interaction
partner likes them (low control) and they are being evaluated as a
potential partner at each date (high social-evaluative threat). In such a
scenario, two different effects can be argued. The most rational strategy
would be to say “yes” to many dates (low selectivity), to increase the
chances of a match. However, our data shows the opposite: a larger
cortisol change was related to more selectivity. This shows that a different
process may have been occuring. Perhaps those participants who
experienced a larger increase in cortisol levels during speed-dating
were more preoccupied with impression management and found it,
therefore, more difficult to connect with their dates. As a result, they
could have subjectively experienced fewer matches and said “yes” to
fewer dates.
4.5. Testosterone×Cortisol
Our results showed overall weak support for the dual-hormone
hypothesis (Mehta and Josephs, 2010) in a mating context. The most
direct prediction from this hypothesis would be that popularity in romantic
speed-dating was related to the interaction between testosterone
and cortisol levels, yet we did not find evidence for this. These null
findings could mean that the dual-hormone hypothesis is limited to
social contexts in which social status can be gained more openly, for
example in competition with others (Zilioli and Watson, 2012) or in
leadership positions (Sherman et al., 2016). A potential alternative
explanation for these null findings is that saying yes or no to other dates
may depend on unique conversation dynamics for which we could not
control. Perhaps this reduced our power to detect the interaction between
both hormones. Indeed, many of the studies showing support for
the dual-hormone hypothesis use laboratory tasks (Mehta et al., 2015)
in which it is far easier to control for confounding variables.
Nonetheless, we did find support for one of our mutually exclusive
predictions based on the dual-hormone hypothesis. Only in women, a
higher anticipatory testosterone response was related to more selectivity
when their anticipatory cortisol response was low. Women
with this hormone profile may not have been motivated to gain social
status by going for more matches (thus by being less selective). Instead,
these women may have been motivated to gain social status by appearing
exclusive. This finding would also be in line with the sexual
double standard (Sagebin Bordini and Sperb, 2013). Women feel they
are being valued more highly as a partner when they are restrictive in
their sexual contacts, whereas for men this is less of a concern.
Highlights
• Testosterone and cortisol levels are probably related to romantic attraction.
• We conducted a study with a romantic speed-dating condition and control condition.
• We found strong anticipatory hormonal responses.
• In women, but not in men, testosterone levels increased during speed-dating.
• Cortisol was related more to the attraction of a romantic partner than testosterone.
Abstract: There is evidence that testosterone and cortisol levels are related to the attraction of a romantic partner; testosterone levels relate to a wide range of sexual behaviors and cortisol is a crucial component in the response to stress. To investigate this, we conducted a speed-dating study among heterosexual singles. We measured salivary testosterone and cortisol changes in men and women (n = 79) when they participated in a romantic condition (meeting opposite-sex others, i.e., potential romantic partners), as well as a control condition (meeting same-sex others, i.e., potential friends). Over the course of the romantic speed-dating event, results showed that women's but not men's testosterone levels increased and cortisol levels decreased for both men and women. These findings indicate that men's testosterone and cortisol levels were elevated in anticipation of the event, whereas for women, this appears to only be the case for cortisol. Concerning the relationship between attraction and hormonal change, four important findings can be distinguished. First, men were more popular when they arrived at the romantic speed-dating event with elevated cortisol levels. Second, in both men and women, a larger change in cortisol levels during romantic speed-dating was related to more selectivity. Third, testosterone alone was unrelated to any romantic speed-dating outcome (selectivity or popularity). However, fourth, women who arrived at the romantic speed-dating event with higher testosterone levels were more selective when their anticipatory cortisol response was low. Overall, our findings suggest that changes in the hormone cortisol may be stronger associated with the attraction of a romantic partner than testosterone.
4. Discussion
4.1. Testosterone change
Our findings showed that testosterone levels increased in women
during romantic speed-dating and decreased in women during the
control condition. Although these changes were small-medium effect
sizes, they are in line with theoretical models predicting that high
testosterone levels relate to more mate acquisition (Archer, 2006;
Roney, 2016; Zilioli and Bird, 2017) and more competitive behavior
(van Anders et al., 2011). However, surprisingly, in men, testosterone
levels did not change during romantic speed-dating and remained high
throughout the event. This is not in line with some previous research, as
numerous studies have shown that men experience an increase in testosterone
levels when talking to a potential mate in a waiting room
situation (Roney et al., 2010, 2007, 2003; van der Meij et al., 2008),
although one other study also showed that testosterone levels did not
change during romantic speed-dating (Lefevre et al., 2013). A speculative
explanation for these divergent findings is that romantic speeddating
is a much more arousing social context than a waiting room
situation. Unlike a waiting room situation, romantic speed-dating is an
unambiguous dating context where individuals scan each other as potential
mates. While the waiting room situation is unlikely to trigger
prior expectations because participants do not know that they will be
waiting together, participants of a romantic speed-dating do know that
they will be evaluated as a potential romantic partner.
Thus, it could be that, in contrast to women's testosterone levels,
men's testosterone levels did not increase further due to negative
feedback from already high testosterone levels on the hypothalamuspituitary-
gonadal (HPG) axis. This may also have held true for the
control condition, as testosterone levels were similar in this condition.
In both conditions, men may have experienced greater amounts of social
evaluative stress than women, as they were being evaluated on
either suitability as a romantic partner or were checking the competition
in the control condition. This finding is in line with other recent
studies showing that testosterone levels increase in men during stress
tasks with a social evaluative component (Bedgood et al., 2014;
Lennartsson et al., 2012; Phan et al., 2017; Turan et al., 2015), although
some older studies found no change in testosterone levels after psychosocial
stress (Gerra et al., 2000; Heinz et al., 2003; Schoofs and
Wolf, 2011) and one other study showed a decrease (Schulz et al.,
1996). This increase in testosterone levels may be part of an adaptive
response that assists an individual to cope with social challenges
(Salvador, 2005; Salvador and Costa, 2009). Indeed, previous research
has shown that the more men experienced a testosterone increase the
more they affiliated with women (van der Meij et al., 2012).
4.2. Testosterone and attraction
An important finding is that testosterone levels were unrelated to
popularity and selectivity in both men and women. This null finding for
men may be related to the previously discussed elevated hormonal levels.
Male testosterone levels may have been too elevated for most
participants even before the romantic speed-dating began, which reduced
variance in testosterone levels such that we were unable to detect
a relationship with their behavior (either in selectivity or popularity).
However, it is important to note that we may have lacked the power to
detect smaller effect sizes, since men and women have different testosterone
levels, and thus we had to analyze their testosterone data
separately. In men, we did find an indication that a larger anticipatory
testosterone response was related to less selectivity, although this effect
was statistically not significant. Future studies with larger sample sizes
may untangle if heightened testosterone levels during romantic speeddating
makes the relationship between attraction and testosterone undetectable
in men.
For women, there was also no relationship between attraction and
testosterone levels. This null finding is more difficult to explain, as
testosterone levels in women did increase during romantic speeddating.
Additionally, previous research shows that, in a lab setting, an
increase in testosterone levels was related to more sexual arousal in
women (Tuiten et al., 2000), which suggests that increased testosterone
levels could decrease selectivity. A speculative explanation for this null
finding in women is that temporal changes in their testosterone levels
had less of an effect on their behavior in an ecologically valid environment
such as romantic speed-dating. Perhaps women more rationally
deliberated the pros and cons of a potential romantic partner
and were not so much affected by their own bodily and psychological
state. Also interesting was that female popularity was unaffected by
their testosterone levels. A possible explanation here could be that that
men's selectivity is not so much influenced by female behavior during
these speed dates. Men may largely determine beforehand if they will
say yes to a date based on physical appearance. For example, in one
particular study, BMI predicted 25% of female popularity alone
(Kurzban and Weeden, 2005). Another explanation could be that variance
in female popularity was limited and this reduced the power to
detect an effect of anticipatory testosterone. Indeed, men said yes to
72% of their dates whereas women said yes to 48% of their dates.
4.3. Cortisol change
Results showed that both men and women arrived at both the romantic
speed-dating and control condition with elevated cortisol levels
and that during the course of both conditions their cortisol levels decreased.
Furthermore, this decrease was a very large effect size in the
control condition and less so in the romantic speed-dating condition
(small-medium effect size). Also, cortisol levels were higher at the end
of romantic speed-dating than at the end of the control condition.
Together these findings indicate that participants perceived the romantic
speed-dating as more challenging and stressful than friendship
dating. This implies that being judged as a potential romantic partner is
more stressful, and requires more impression management than when
being judged as a potential friend. Furthermore, results showed that
cortisol levels decreased during the course of romantic speed-dating
and control condition. These results contrast with other studies showing
that a brief social contact with a potential romantic partner produces an
increase in cortisol levels in heterosexual men (Roney et al., 2010,
2007), although another study showed that cortisol levels only increased
when in such encounters men perceived their potential partner
as attractive (van der Meij et al., 2010).
There are two speculative explanations for these different results.
First, our speed-dating study took over an hour to complete, thus cortisol
levels may have started decreasing towards more normal values
due to negative feedback from high cortisol levels on the hypothalamuspituitary-
adrenal (HPA) axis. Second, unlike these other studies, our
participants probably arrived with relatively high cortisol levels in
anticipation of the event. Thus, after having experienced several speed
dates they may have habituated. Adding to this, social affiliation may
have reduced anxiety through the release of oxytocin (for a review see
Heinrichs et al., 2009). Indeed, previous research has shown that oxytocin
administration reduces cortisol secretion during social evaluative
stress (Heinrichs et al., 2003).
4.4. Cortisol and attraction
There are two interesting findings concerning cortisol and attraction.
First, only in men, cortisol release in anticipation of romantic
speed-dating was related to more popularity. This effect was substantial
as women said “yes” to 34% of their dates when men experienced a
small anticipatory cortisol response, whereas they said “yes” to 65% of
their dates when men experienced a high anticipatory cortisol response.
A possible explanation is that men who arrived with these high levels
were more interested in dating women. Consequently, they may have
put more energy into making positive impressions during the speeddates.
Additionally, they may have had more energy at their disposal
since cortisol secretion increases local cerebral glucose utilization and
cardiovascular tone (Sapolsky et al., 2000). However, it is important to
note that a causal effect of cortisol on mate attraction could not be
established in the current study. Other third variables, such as a high
speed-dating motivation, may have produced more mate attraction
behaviors as well as a rise in cortisol levels in anticipation of the event.
Why women with elevated cortisol levels were not more popular may
have to do with the small variance in female popularity. Similar to the
function of testosterone, the function of these elevated cortisol levels in
men may help them cope with social challenges (Salvador, 2005;
Salvador and Costa, 2009). Furthermore, it could also reflect an effort
to affiliate, as it has been shown that, in men, increased cortisol secretions
during social evaluative stress predicted their feelings of closeness
to a stranger in a subsequent interaction (Berger et al., 2016).
Thus, our finding lends support for a “tend and befriend response” in
men during stressful times (Geary and Flinn, 2002). Finally, this finding
is in line with the Physiology of Romantic Pair Bond Initiation and
Maintenance Model, as this model posits that HPA-axis activation in
mating contexts is necessary to improve evaluations by potential mates
(Mercado and Hibel, 2017).
Second, contrary to our hypothesis, in both men and women, a
larger cortisol change during romantic speed-dating was related to
more selectivity (controlling for baseline and cortisol change in the
control condition), although this effect was small to medium. A speculative
explanation is that romantic speed-dating was not a positive
experience for all participants. Those men and women that experienced
an increase in cortisol levels may have been worried that they would
end up with no or very few matches. This would be in line with the
stress literature as cortisol release is more prominent in social situations
that are uncontrollable and pose a social-evaluative threat (for a review
see Dickerson and Kemeny, 2004). Romantic speed-dating has both
these elements: participants can only guess whether their interaction
partner likes them (low control) and they are being evaluated as a
potential partner at each date (high social-evaluative threat). In such a
scenario, two different effects can be argued. The most rational strategy
would be to say “yes” to many dates (low selectivity), to increase the
chances of a match. However, our data shows the opposite: a larger
cortisol change was related to more selectivity. This shows that a different
process may have been occuring. Perhaps those participants who
experienced a larger increase in cortisol levels during speed-dating
were more preoccupied with impression management and found it,
therefore, more difficult to connect with their dates. As a result, they
could have subjectively experienced fewer matches and said “yes” to
fewer dates.
4.5. Testosterone×Cortisol
Our results showed overall weak support for the dual-hormone
hypothesis (Mehta and Josephs, 2010) in a mating context. The most
direct prediction from this hypothesis would be that popularity in romantic
speed-dating was related to the interaction between testosterone
and cortisol levels, yet we did not find evidence for this. These null
findings could mean that the dual-hormone hypothesis is limited to
social contexts in which social status can be gained more openly, for
example in competition with others (Zilioli and Watson, 2012) or in
leadership positions (Sherman et al., 2016). A potential alternative
explanation for these null findings is that saying yes or no to other dates
may depend on unique conversation dynamics for which we could not
control. Perhaps this reduced our power to detect the interaction between
both hormones. Indeed, many of the studies showing support for
the dual-hormone hypothesis use laboratory tasks (Mehta et al., 2015)
in which it is far easier to control for confounding variables.
Nonetheless, we did find support for one of our mutually exclusive
predictions based on the dual-hormone hypothesis. Only in women, a
higher anticipatory testosterone response was related to more selectivity
when their anticipatory cortisol response was low. Women
with this hormone profile may not have been motivated to gain social
status by going for more matches (thus by being less selective). Instead,
these women may have been motivated to gain social status by appearing
exclusive. This finding would also be in line with the sexual
double standard (Sagebin Bordini and Sperb, 2013). Women feel they
are being valued more highly as a partner when they are restrictive in
their sexual contacts, whereas for men this is less of a concern.
43% of workers refuse to spend 10 min working on tasks associated with other castes, even when offered ten times their daily wage; identity may be an important constraint on labor supply, contributing to misallocation of talent
Does Identity Affect Labor Supply? Suanna Oh. Nov 2019. https://www.suannaoh.com/research
Abstract: Does identity—one's concept of self—influence economic behavior in the labor market? I investigate this question in rural India, focusing on the effect of caste identity on labor supply. In a field experiment, casual laborers belonging to different castes choose whether to take up various real job offers. All offers involve working on a default manufacturing task and an additional task. The additional task changes across offers, is performed in private, and differs in its association with specific castes. Workers' average take-up rate of offers is 23 percentage points lower if offers involve working on tasks that are associated with castes other than their own. This gap increases to 47 pp if the castes associated with the relevant offers rank lower than workers' own in the caste hierarchy. Responses to job offers are invariant to whether or not workers' choices are publicized, suggesting that the role of identity itself—rather than social image—is paramount. Using a supplementary experiment, I show that 43% of workers refuse to spend ten minutes working on tasks associated with other castes, even when offered ten times their daily wage. This paper's findings indicate that identity may be an important constraint on labor supply, contributing to misallocation of talent in the economy.
B.5 Vignette questions related to caste sensitivity
The following questions were used during the follow-up survey to determine caste sensitivity. Participants answered on a 5-point-scale indicating their approval or disapproval.
1. Sameer Jena went to Khorda recently to find work. There he met Sarveshwara Barik, who has been a barber in the area for 10 years. Sarveshwara has been looking for someone to take over the work and offered Sameer the job. Do you think it is acceptable for Sameer to become a barber even though he is from a higher caste?
2. Tukuna Naika is from the Hadi caste. He is currently looking for work in villages around him. Recently a contractor offered him work in his catering business, where Tukuna will be required to serve food to guests at functions. Do you feel it is acceptable for Tukuna to perform this task?
3. Shantilatha Sahoo is currently in the last year of college. She goes to college with a friend Nilakanth Sethi. They have been friends ever since childhood and Shantilatha likes Nilakanth very much. She wants to marry him but her village finds this relationship unacceptable as Shantilatha is from a higher caste and Nilakanth is from a lower caste. Do you think it is acceptable for a higher caste woman to marry a lower caste man?
4. Gagan Dalai has not been finding enough work in his village recently. He is very worried for his family. A contractor had recently come to the village and offered him 7 days’ work in another village. The contractor offered him Rs.350/day for cleaning sewage tanks. Gagan refused the job as it is lower caste work. Do you think Gagan did the right thing?
5. Kartik Behera and Tuna Naika are both agricultural laborers. They work together for the same landlord and in the evenings they come back to the village together. Once, when they were returning to the village, Tuna offered some home-made sweets to Kartik. A senior village member saw this and reprimanded Kartik for eating the sweets because Tuna Naika is of a lower caste. Do you think it’s wrong for a higher caste person to accept home-cooked food from a lower caste person?
6. Bindusagar Behera and Rabi Naika have been friends since childhood. Whenever Rabi went to meet Bindusagar, he was not allowed to enter Bindusagar’s house. They would talk outside Bindusagar’s house. Now Bindusagar is getting married and he has invited Rabi to be a part of the marriage festivities. During the wedding, Rabi sits separately to eat (according to his caste). Do you think these village norms are acceptable as Rabi is from a lower caste?
7. Nerua Naika has recently finished secondary school and is looking for a job. He lives near Ramesh Maharana who is a carpenter. Ramesh offers to train Nerua in carpentry so that he can work with him. Do you think Nerua should try to work as a carpenter although he is from a lower caste?
Abstract: Does identity—one's concept of self—influence economic behavior in the labor market? I investigate this question in rural India, focusing on the effect of caste identity on labor supply. In a field experiment, casual laborers belonging to different castes choose whether to take up various real job offers. All offers involve working on a default manufacturing task and an additional task. The additional task changes across offers, is performed in private, and differs in its association with specific castes. Workers' average take-up rate of offers is 23 percentage points lower if offers involve working on tasks that are associated with castes other than their own. This gap increases to 47 pp if the castes associated with the relevant offers rank lower than workers' own in the caste hierarchy. Responses to job offers are invariant to whether or not workers' choices are publicized, suggesting that the role of identity itself—rather than social image—is paramount. Using a supplementary experiment, I show that 43% of workers refuse to spend ten minutes working on tasks associated with other castes, even when offered ten times their daily wage. This paper's findings indicate that identity may be an important constraint on labor supply, contributing to misallocation of talent in the economy.
B.5 Vignette questions related to caste sensitivity
The following questions were used during the follow-up survey to determine caste sensitivity. Participants answered on a 5-point-scale indicating their approval or disapproval.
1. Sameer Jena went to Khorda recently to find work. There he met Sarveshwara Barik, who has been a barber in the area for 10 years. Sarveshwara has been looking for someone to take over the work and offered Sameer the job. Do you think it is acceptable for Sameer to become a barber even though he is from a higher caste?
2. Tukuna Naika is from the Hadi caste. He is currently looking for work in villages around him. Recently a contractor offered him work in his catering business, where Tukuna will be required to serve food to guests at functions. Do you feel it is acceptable for Tukuna to perform this task?
3. Shantilatha Sahoo is currently in the last year of college. She goes to college with a friend Nilakanth Sethi. They have been friends ever since childhood and Shantilatha likes Nilakanth very much. She wants to marry him but her village finds this relationship unacceptable as Shantilatha is from a higher caste and Nilakanth is from a lower caste. Do you think it is acceptable for a higher caste woman to marry a lower caste man?
4. Gagan Dalai has not been finding enough work in his village recently. He is very worried for his family. A contractor had recently come to the village and offered him 7 days’ work in another village. The contractor offered him Rs.350/day for cleaning sewage tanks. Gagan refused the job as it is lower caste work. Do you think Gagan did the right thing?
5. Kartik Behera and Tuna Naika are both agricultural laborers. They work together for the same landlord and in the evenings they come back to the village together. Once, when they were returning to the village, Tuna offered some home-made sweets to Kartik. A senior village member saw this and reprimanded Kartik for eating the sweets because Tuna Naika is of a lower caste. Do you think it’s wrong for a higher caste person to accept home-cooked food from a lower caste person?
6. Bindusagar Behera and Rabi Naika have been friends since childhood. Whenever Rabi went to meet Bindusagar, he was not allowed to enter Bindusagar’s house. They would talk outside Bindusagar’s house. Now Bindusagar is getting married and he has invited Rabi to be a part of the marriage festivities. During the wedding, Rabi sits separately to eat (according to his caste). Do you think these village norms are acceptable as Rabi is from a lower caste?
7. Nerua Naika has recently finished secondary school and is looking for a job. He lives near Ramesh Maharana who is a carpenter. Ramesh offers to train Nerua in carpentry so that he can work with him. Do you think Nerua should try to work as a carpenter although he is from a lower caste?
An Empirical Study of Child Abandonment and Abduction in China: With the gradual relaxation of the one-child policy after 2002, both child abandonment and child abduction have dropped significantly
Bao, Xiaojia and Galiani, Sebastian and Li, Kai and Long, Cheryl Xiaoning, Where Have All the Children Gone? An Empirical Study of Child Abandonment and Abduction in China (November 16, 2019). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=
Abstract: In the past 40 years, a large number of children have been abandoned by their families or have been abducted in China. We argue that the implementation of the one-child policy has significantly increased both child abandonment and child abduction and that, furthermore, the cultural preference for sons in China has shaped unique gender-based patterns whereby a majority of the children who are abandoned are girls and a majority of the children who are abducted are boys. We provide empirical evidence for the following findings: (1) Stricter one-child policy implementation leads to more child abandonment locally and more child abduction in neighboring regions; (2) A stronger son-preference bias in a given region intensifies both the local effects and spatial spillover effects of the region's one-child policy on child abandonment and abduction; and (3) With the gradual relaxation of the one-child policy after 2002, both child abandonment and child abduction have dropped significantly. This paper is the first to provide empirical evidence on the unintended consequences of the one-child policy in terms of child trafficking in China.
Keywords: One-child policy, Child abandonment, Child abduction, Son-preference bias.
JEL Classification: J13, K42.
Abstract: In the past 40 years, a large number of children have been abandoned by their families or have been abducted in China. We argue that the implementation of the one-child policy has significantly increased both child abandonment and child abduction and that, furthermore, the cultural preference for sons in China has shaped unique gender-based patterns whereby a majority of the children who are abandoned are girls and a majority of the children who are abducted are boys. We provide empirical evidence for the following findings: (1) Stricter one-child policy implementation leads to more child abandonment locally and more child abduction in neighboring regions; (2) A stronger son-preference bias in a given region intensifies both the local effects and spatial spillover effects of the region's one-child policy on child abandonment and abduction; and (3) With the gradual relaxation of the one-child policy after 2002, both child abandonment and child abduction have dropped significantly. This paper is the first to provide empirical evidence on the unintended consequences of the one-child policy in terms of child trafficking in China.
Keywords: One-child policy, Child abandonment, Child abduction, Son-preference bias.
JEL Classification: J13, K42.
An alternative hypothesis for the evolution of same-sex sexual behaviour in animals
An alternative hypothesis for the evolution of same-sex sexual behaviour in animals. Julia D. Monk, Erin Giglio, Ambika Kamath, Max R. Lambert & Caitlin E. McDonough. Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 3, pages 1622–1631(2019), Nov 18 2019. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1019-7
Abstract: Same-sex sexual behaviour (SSB) has been recorded in over 1,500 animal species with a widespread distribution across most major clades. Evolutionary biologists have long sought to uncover the adaptive origins of ‘homosexual behaviour’ in an attempt to resolve this apparent Darwinian paradox: how has SSB repeatedly evolved and persisted despite its presumed fitness costs? This question implicitly assumes that ‘heterosexual’ or exclusive different-sex sexual behaviour (DSB) is the baseline condition for animals, from which SSB has evolved. We question the idea that SSB necessarily presents an evolutionary conundrum, and suggest that the literature includes unchecked assumptions regarding the costs, benefits and origins of SSB. Instead, we offer an alternative null hypothesis for the evolutionary origin of SSB that, through a subtle shift in perspective, moves away from the expectation that the origin and maintenance of SSB is a problem in need of a solution. We argue that the frequently implicit assumption of DSB as ancestral has not been rigorously examined, and instead hypothesize an ancestral condition of indiscriminate sexual behaviours directed towards all sexes. By shifting the lens through which we study animal sexual behaviour, we can more fruitfully examine the evolutionary history of diverse sexual strategies.
Abstract: Same-sex sexual behaviour (SSB) has been recorded in over 1,500 animal species with a widespread distribution across most major clades. Evolutionary biologists have long sought to uncover the adaptive origins of ‘homosexual behaviour’ in an attempt to resolve this apparent Darwinian paradox: how has SSB repeatedly evolved and persisted despite its presumed fitness costs? This question implicitly assumes that ‘heterosexual’ or exclusive different-sex sexual behaviour (DSB) is the baseline condition for animals, from which SSB has evolved. We question the idea that SSB necessarily presents an evolutionary conundrum, and suggest that the literature includes unchecked assumptions regarding the costs, benefits and origins of SSB. Instead, we offer an alternative null hypothesis for the evolutionary origin of SSB that, through a subtle shift in perspective, moves away from the expectation that the origin and maintenance of SSB is a problem in need of a solution. We argue that the frequently implicit assumption of DSB as ancestral has not been rigorously examined, and instead hypothesize an ancestral condition of indiscriminate sexual behaviours directed towards all sexes. By shifting the lens through which we study animal sexual behaviour, we can more fruitfully examine the evolutionary history of diverse sexual strategies.
Reactions to and Forgiveness of Infidelity: Exploring Severity, Length of Relationship, Sex, and Previous Experience Effects
Reactions to and Forgiveness of Infidelity: Exploring Severity, Length of Relationship, Sex, and Previous Experience Effects. Menelaos Apostolou, Anna Aristidou, Christina Eraclide. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, November 26 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40750-019-00119-y
Abstract
Objectives: Infidelity, actual or suspected, can trigger strong emotional reactions, such as jealousy, which could lead to the dissolution of the relationship. These reactions were predicted to vary with the severity of the infidelity, with the sex of the participant, with previous experience with unfaithful partners, and with the length of the relationship.
Method: We employed a sample of 447 Greek-speaking participants who were asked to indicate their reactions in different scenarios of infidelity.
Results: We found that more severe acts of infidelity were associated with higher emotional upset and jealousy and lower probability of forgiveness. Moreover, women indicated stronger emotional upset and jealousy than men, but they were more likely to forgive their partners. Furthermore, participants indicated more emotional upset and jealousy if they were in a long-term than in an early-stage relationship. Finally, participants who were older and who had experienced infidelity from their previous partners were more likely to forgive their partners’ infidelity than participants who were younger and who did not have such experience.
Conclusions: Our results indicated that several factors determined the severityof the reactions to infidelity.
Keywords: Infidelity Cheating Forgiveness Mating Jealousy
Discussion
Our findings indicated that more severe acts of infidelity were associated with higher
emotional upset and jealousy and lower probability of forgiveness. Moreover, women
indicated stronger emotional upset and jealousy than men, but higher willingness to
forgive their partners. In addition, participants indicated more emotional upset and
jealousy in a long-length than in a short-length relationship scenario. Participants who
were older and who had experienced infidelity from their previous partners were more
likely to forgive their partners’ infidelity than participants who were younger and who
did not have such past experience.
As it was originally predicted, people’s negative reactions were contingent on the
severity of the act of infidelity. Acts which involved prolonged emotional and sexual
infidelity, such as having an emotional and sexual extra-pair relationship, were associated
with the most upset and jealousy, and were the least likely to be forgiven. On the
other hand, acts that did not involve emotional infidelity and were less likely to lead to
sexual infidelity, such as visiting a strip club, were associated with lower upset and
jealousy, and were more likely to be forgiven. Nevertheless, participants gave very
similar scores for the scenarios of their partner having feelings for or sexual contact
with another individual, and with the scenarios of their partner having an emotional or
sexual relationship with another individual. We expected the latter scenarios to trigger
more negative responses than the former ones as they indicated more involvement.
Future research needs to investigate why participants did not differentiate between the
two scenarios. Moreover, our findings indicated that sexual infidelity was associated
with more negative reactions and a lower probability of being forgiven than emotional
infidelity. One reason is that sexual infidelity may lead to pregnancy and, thus,
potentially have more severe negative consequences than emotional infidelity.
Our findings suggest that individuals can more easily get away if they employ sex
services, such as prostitution or a strip club or have a one-night stand, than if they
engage in romantic and sexual relationships with extra-pair partners. If people are
aware of this effect, they may employ specific manipulation tactics in order to increase
the probability of being forgiven. For instance, if they are caught having an extra-pair
affair, they may attempt to present it as a one-night stand, in order to reduce their
partners’ negative reactions and increase the probability of being forgiven. We also
need to note that the means we found for each act were associated with large standard
deviations. Therefore, considerable differences are expected in the reactions to each act.
For instance, a one-night stand may be easily forgiven by some people, but could result
to severe negative reactions by others.
Part of the variation in responses is explained by sex, with women indicating more
severe reactions to infidelity. Furthermore, the predicted sex difference was not found;
that is, men did not become more upset by the sexual infidelity of their partners than
women. One possible explanation is that specific cultural factors result in women
exhibiting considerable more negative reactions to infidelity than men, which masks
this sex difference. Moreover, even if women were more upset and more jealous than
men about their partners’ infidelity, they were also more likely to forgive them. One
possible reason why is that women are more emotionally involved in a relationship that
men, which in turn, makes them more likely to forgive their partners. Future research
needs to investigate further the reasons behind this sex difference.
It needs to be said that DeSteno and Salovey (1996) have argued that sex differences
in jealousy may not be the result of evolved psychological adaptations and they simply
reflect the conditional probability that one type of infidelity implies the other type. In
particular, some individuals may not perceive emotional and sexual infidelity as
independent events. For example, if a man has sex with a woman, what is probability
he is in love with her—vs. if a woman has sex with a man, what is the probability she is
in love with him. These two probabilities may be very different. In order to address this
concern, Buss et al. (1999) completely separated the two types of infidelity so that one
type does not imply the existence of the other.
Moving on, in early-stage relationships, people have not yet made considerable
commitment, so the infidelity of their partners has less severe consequences than the
infidelity of their partners in a long-term relationship and, as a consequence, their
reactions were less severe. However, in contrast to our original prediction, the seriousness
of the relationship did not appear to predict the probability of forgiveness, as
people were equally likely to forgive their partners in both an early-stage and a longterm
relationship. One possible reason is that, in both cases, people assess whether their
partners have the potential to remain in a committed relationship. Furthermore, having
partners who were unfaithful in the past did not predict upset and jealousy, but
predicted the probability of forgiveness. People who had unfaithful partners in the past
were more likely to forgive their current partners than people who did not have such
experience, with the effect size indicating that this difference was considerable.
As discussed in the introduction, one possible reason is that people who had
unfaithful partners in the past may be more likely than those who did not to consider
that infidelity is common, expecting in effect their partners to be unfaithful and being,
thus, more likely to forgive them. Yet, if this was the correct explanation, then these
participants would also be less upset and jealous than the rest, which was not the case.
Another possibility is that some people have traits which make them more likely to
forgive infidelity than others. Their partners could detect this high propensity for
forgiveness, and may thus, be more likely to be unfaithful as they know that they will
be forgiven. If this was the case, past experiences did not make people more forgiving
of infidelity, but people who were more forgiving of infidelity were also more likely to
have partners who were unfaithful. Future research needs to investigate this effect
further. Age had also a substantial effect on forgiveness, with older individuals being
more likely to forgive their unfaithful partners than younger individuals. One possible
explanation is that older individuals may have fewer options in attracting partners,
which makes them more reluctant to terminate their current relationship.
The present research had a number of limitations. To begin with, it was based on selfreport
data, and participants may respond differently when they are actually confronted with
the infidelity of their partners than the way they have indicated here. In addition, our research
was based on a non-probability sample, so our findings may not apply to the general
population.Moreover, as discussed above, specific cultural variablesmay affect participants’
reactions to infidelity, so our results may not readily apply to other cultural contexts. Thus,
cross-cultural replication is necessary in order to understand how cultural factors could
potentially affect reactions to infidelity. Also, infidelity may be associated with several
negative emotions (e.g., sadness, anger, despair). In order to keep our survey at a reasonable
length, we did not examine each possible emotional reaction, and future research needs to do
so. Moreover, we have measured the effect of infidelity of one’s partner, but, as discussed
above, this variable can be confounded by other factors such as one’s own infidelity. For
instance, participants who were unfaithful may have been more likely than participants who
were faithful to have partners who were also unfaithful.
In addition, the current study gave to participants’ scenarios of varying relationship
duration. These scenarios were hypothetical, so participants may have failed to provide
accurate answers. Future studies may address this limitation by measuring how long
participants had been in a relationship. Furthermore, the current study did not measure
hormonal birth control usage among women. Prior research shows that women who
were using hormonal birth control responded differently to questions regarding jealousy
and infidelity than women who were not using hormonal birth control (Cobey et al.
2011; Geary et al. 2001; Wade and Fowler 2006; Welling et al. 2012). Similarly,
women’s ovulatory status can affect women’s jealousy responses (Cobey et al. 2012),
but it was not measured in the present research. Last but not least, in our research, we
included several acts of infidelity of varying severity; however, additional acts could be
included, such as cheating with an ex-partner and with a same-sex individual.
In conclusion, infidelity is a common phenomenon and the current study has
provided evidence from the Greek cultural context that upset, jealousy, and the
probability of forgiveness are contingent on the severity of an act of infidelity. Sex
differences, age, length of the relationship, and experience with unfaithful partner
effects were also found, but more research is necessary in order to better understand
reactions to and forgiveness of infidelity.
Abstract
Objectives: Infidelity, actual or suspected, can trigger strong emotional reactions, such as jealousy, which could lead to the dissolution of the relationship. These reactions were predicted to vary with the severity of the infidelity, with the sex of the participant, with previous experience with unfaithful partners, and with the length of the relationship.
Method: We employed a sample of 447 Greek-speaking participants who were asked to indicate their reactions in different scenarios of infidelity.
Results: We found that more severe acts of infidelity were associated with higher emotional upset and jealousy and lower probability of forgiveness. Moreover, women indicated stronger emotional upset and jealousy than men, but they were more likely to forgive their partners. Furthermore, participants indicated more emotional upset and jealousy if they were in a long-term than in an early-stage relationship. Finally, participants who were older and who had experienced infidelity from their previous partners were more likely to forgive their partners’ infidelity than participants who were younger and who did not have such experience.
Conclusions: Our results indicated that several factors determined the severityof the reactions to infidelity.
Keywords: Infidelity Cheating Forgiveness Mating Jealousy
Discussion
Our findings indicated that more severe acts of infidelity were associated with higher
emotional upset and jealousy and lower probability of forgiveness. Moreover, women
indicated stronger emotional upset and jealousy than men, but higher willingness to
forgive their partners. In addition, participants indicated more emotional upset and
jealousy in a long-length than in a short-length relationship scenario. Participants who
were older and who had experienced infidelity from their previous partners were more
likely to forgive their partners’ infidelity than participants who were younger and who
did not have such past experience.
As it was originally predicted, people’s negative reactions were contingent on the
severity of the act of infidelity. Acts which involved prolonged emotional and sexual
infidelity, such as having an emotional and sexual extra-pair relationship, were associated
with the most upset and jealousy, and were the least likely to be forgiven. On the
other hand, acts that did not involve emotional infidelity and were less likely to lead to
sexual infidelity, such as visiting a strip club, were associated with lower upset and
jealousy, and were more likely to be forgiven. Nevertheless, participants gave very
similar scores for the scenarios of their partner having feelings for or sexual contact
with another individual, and with the scenarios of their partner having an emotional or
sexual relationship with another individual. We expected the latter scenarios to trigger
more negative responses than the former ones as they indicated more involvement.
Future research needs to investigate why participants did not differentiate between the
two scenarios. Moreover, our findings indicated that sexual infidelity was associated
with more negative reactions and a lower probability of being forgiven than emotional
infidelity. One reason is that sexual infidelity may lead to pregnancy and, thus,
potentially have more severe negative consequences than emotional infidelity.
Our findings suggest that individuals can more easily get away if they employ sex
services, such as prostitution or a strip club or have a one-night stand, than if they
engage in romantic and sexual relationships with extra-pair partners. If people are
aware of this effect, they may employ specific manipulation tactics in order to increase
the probability of being forgiven. For instance, if they are caught having an extra-pair
affair, they may attempt to present it as a one-night stand, in order to reduce their
partners’ negative reactions and increase the probability of being forgiven. We also
need to note that the means we found for each act were associated with large standard
deviations. Therefore, considerable differences are expected in the reactions to each act.
For instance, a one-night stand may be easily forgiven by some people, but could result
to severe negative reactions by others.
Part of the variation in responses is explained by sex, with women indicating more
severe reactions to infidelity. Furthermore, the predicted sex difference was not found;
that is, men did not become more upset by the sexual infidelity of their partners than
women. One possible explanation is that specific cultural factors result in women
exhibiting considerable more negative reactions to infidelity than men, which masks
this sex difference. Moreover, even if women were more upset and more jealous than
men about their partners’ infidelity, they were also more likely to forgive them. One
possible reason why is that women are more emotionally involved in a relationship that
men, which in turn, makes them more likely to forgive their partners. Future research
needs to investigate further the reasons behind this sex difference.
It needs to be said that DeSteno and Salovey (1996) have argued that sex differences
in jealousy may not be the result of evolved psychological adaptations and they simply
reflect the conditional probability that one type of infidelity implies the other type. In
particular, some individuals may not perceive emotional and sexual infidelity as
independent events. For example, if a man has sex with a woman, what is probability
he is in love with her—vs. if a woman has sex with a man, what is the probability she is
in love with him. These two probabilities may be very different. In order to address this
concern, Buss et al. (1999) completely separated the two types of infidelity so that one
type does not imply the existence of the other.
Moving on, in early-stage relationships, people have not yet made considerable
commitment, so the infidelity of their partners has less severe consequences than the
infidelity of their partners in a long-term relationship and, as a consequence, their
reactions were less severe. However, in contrast to our original prediction, the seriousness
of the relationship did not appear to predict the probability of forgiveness, as
people were equally likely to forgive their partners in both an early-stage and a longterm
relationship. One possible reason is that, in both cases, people assess whether their
partners have the potential to remain in a committed relationship. Furthermore, having
partners who were unfaithful in the past did not predict upset and jealousy, but
predicted the probability of forgiveness. People who had unfaithful partners in the past
were more likely to forgive their current partners than people who did not have such
experience, with the effect size indicating that this difference was considerable.
As discussed in the introduction, one possible reason is that people who had
unfaithful partners in the past may be more likely than those who did not to consider
that infidelity is common, expecting in effect their partners to be unfaithful and being,
thus, more likely to forgive them. Yet, if this was the correct explanation, then these
participants would also be less upset and jealous than the rest, which was not the case.
Another possibility is that some people have traits which make them more likely to
forgive infidelity than others. Their partners could detect this high propensity for
forgiveness, and may thus, be more likely to be unfaithful as they know that they will
be forgiven. If this was the case, past experiences did not make people more forgiving
of infidelity, but people who were more forgiving of infidelity were also more likely to
have partners who were unfaithful. Future research needs to investigate this effect
further. Age had also a substantial effect on forgiveness, with older individuals being
more likely to forgive their unfaithful partners than younger individuals. One possible
explanation is that older individuals may have fewer options in attracting partners,
which makes them more reluctant to terminate their current relationship.
The present research had a number of limitations. To begin with, it was based on selfreport
data, and participants may respond differently when they are actually confronted with
the infidelity of their partners than the way they have indicated here. In addition, our research
was based on a non-probability sample, so our findings may not apply to the general
population.Moreover, as discussed above, specific cultural variablesmay affect participants’
reactions to infidelity, so our results may not readily apply to other cultural contexts. Thus,
cross-cultural replication is necessary in order to understand how cultural factors could
potentially affect reactions to infidelity. Also, infidelity may be associated with several
negative emotions (e.g., sadness, anger, despair). In order to keep our survey at a reasonable
length, we did not examine each possible emotional reaction, and future research needs to do
so. Moreover, we have measured the effect of infidelity of one’s partner, but, as discussed
above, this variable can be confounded by other factors such as one’s own infidelity. For
instance, participants who were unfaithful may have been more likely than participants who
were faithful to have partners who were also unfaithful.
In addition, the current study gave to participants’ scenarios of varying relationship
duration. These scenarios were hypothetical, so participants may have failed to provide
accurate answers. Future studies may address this limitation by measuring how long
participants had been in a relationship. Furthermore, the current study did not measure
hormonal birth control usage among women. Prior research shows that women who
were using hormonal birth control responded differently to questions regarding jealousy
and infidelity than women who were not using hormonal birth control (Cobey et al.
2011; Geary et al. 2001; Wade and Fowler 2006; Welling et al. 2012). Similarly,
women’s ovulatory status can affect women’s jealousy responses (Cobey et al. 2012),
but it was not measured in the present research. Last but not least, in our research, we
included several acts of infidelity of varying severity; however, additional acts could be
included, such as cheating with an ex-partner and with a same-sex individual.
In conclusion, infidelity is a common phenomenon and the current study has
provided evidence from the Greek cultural context that upset, jealousy, and the
probability of forgiveness are contingent on the severity of an act of infidelity. Sex
differences, age, length of the relationship, and experience with unfaithful partner
effects were also found, but more research is necessary in order to better understand
reactions to and forgiveness of infidelity.
Predicting educational achievement from genomic measures and socioeconomic status
Predicting educational achievement from genomic measures and socioeconomic status. Sophie von Stumm et al. Developmental Science, November 23 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12925
Abstract: The two best predictors of children’s educational achievement available from birth are parents’ socioeconomic status (SES) and, recently, children’s inherited DNA differences that can be aggregated in genome‐wide polygenic scores (GPS). Here we chart for the first time the developmental interplay between these two predictors of educational achievement at ages 7, 11, 14 and 16 in a sample of almost 5,000 UK school children. We show that the prediction of educational achievement from both GPS and SES increases steadily throughout the school years. Using latent growth curve models, we find that GPS and SES not only predict educational achievement in the first grade but they also account for systematic changes in achievement across the school years. At the end of compulsory education at age 16, GPS and SES respectively predict 14% and 23% of the variance of educational achievement. Analyses of the extremes of GPS and SES highlight their influence and interplay: In children who have high GPS and come from high SES families, 77% go to university, whereas 21% of children with low GPS and from low SES backgrounds attend university. We find that the associations of GPS and SES with educational achievement are primarily additive, suggesting that their joint influence is particularly dramatic for children at the extreme ends of the distribution.
Conclusions
Our major finding is that SES and inherited DNA differences aggregated in GPS are powerful
predictors of educational achievement, accounting together for 27% of children's differences in
achievement across the course of compulsory schooling. The influence of GPS and SES is
particularly dramatic at the extremes of the distribution. We suggested, for example, that
GPS partially compensates for the disadvantages of children from low-SES families, increasing
their chances of going to university from 21% to 47%. This raises the possibility of doing more to
help this group reach its full potential. Nonetheless, the substantial overlap between the
distributions of scores within the lowest and highest deciles for GPS and SES indicates the limits
of prediction at the level of individual students.
The potential application of predictive capacity of the kind demonstrated here will require
complex decision-making. The basis for those decisions goes beyond purely scientific criteria to
issues of ethics and social values. Papers like the present one provide an essential empirical
grounding for discussion. It is our hope that our results and others like them can serve to open
doors for individual children, not close them, by stimulating the development and provision of
personalized environments that can appropriately enhance, supplement, and remediate
educational achievement.
Abstract: The two best predictors of children’s educational achievement available from birth are parents’ socioeconomic status (SES) and, recently, children’s inherited DNA differences that can be aggregated in genome‐wide polygenic scores (GPS). Here we chart for the first time the developmental interplay between these two predictors of educational achievement at ages 7, 11, 14 and 16 in a sample of almost 5,000 UK school children. We show that the prediction of educational achievement from both GPS and SES increases steadily throughout the school years. Using latent growth curve models, we find that GPS and SES not only predict educational achievement in the first grade but they also account for systematic changes in achievement across the school years. At the end of compulsory education at age 16, GPS and SES respectively predict 14% and 23% of the variance of educational achievement. Analyses of the extremes of GPS and SES highlight their influence and interplay: In children who have high GPS and come from high SES families, 77% go to university, whereas 21% of children with low GPS and from low SES backgrounds attend university. We find that the associations of GPS and SES with educational achievement are primarily additive, suggesting that their joint influence is particularly dramatic for children at the extreme ends of the distribution.
Conclusions
Our major finding is that SES and inherited DNA differences aggregated in GPS are powerful
predictors of educational achievement, accounting together for 27% of children's differences in
achievement across the course of compulsory schooling. The influence of GPS and SES is
particularly dramatic at the extremes of the distribution. We suggested, for example, that
GPS partially compensates for the disadvantages of children from low-SES families, increasing
their chances of going to university from 21% to 47%. This raises the possibility of doing more to
help this group reach its full potential. Nonetheless, the substantial overlap between the
distributions of scores within the lowest and highest deciles for GPS and SES indicates the limits
of prediction at the level of individual students.
The potential application of predictive capacity of the kind demonstrated here will require
complex decision-making. The basis for those decisions goes beyond purely scientific criteria to
issues of ethics and social values. Papers like the present one provide an essential empirical
grounding for discussion. It is our hope that our results and others like them can serve to open
doors for individual children, not close them, by stimulating the development and provision of
personalized environments that can appropriately enhance, supplement, and remediate
educational achievement.
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Interpreting Behavior Genetic Models: Complexity, compression, and the gloomy prospect
Interpreting Behavior Genetic Models: Seven Developmental Processes to Understand. Daniel A. Briley et al. Behavior Genetics, March 2019, Volume 49, Issue 2, pp 196–210, November 22 2018. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10519-018-9939-6
Abstract: Behavior genetic findings figure in debates ranging from urgent public policy matters to perennial questions about the nature of human agency. Despite a common set of methodological tools, behavior genetic studies approach scientific questions with potentially divergent goals. Some studies may be interested in identifying a complete model of how individual differences come to be (e.g., identifying causal pathways among genotypes, environments, and phenotypes across development). Other studies place primary importance on developing models with predictive utility, in which case understanding of underlying causal processes is not necessarily required. Although certainly not mutually exclusive, these two goals often represent tradeoffs in terms of costs and benefits associated with various methodological approaches. In particular, given that most empirical behavior genetic research assumes that variance can be neatly decomposed into independent genetic and environmental components, violations of model assumptions have different consequences for interpretation, depending on the particular goals. Developmental behavior genetic theories postulate complex transactions between genetic variation and environmental experiences over time, meaning assumptions are routinely violated. Here, we consider two primary questions: (1) How might the simultaneous operation of several mechanisms of gene–environment (GE)-interplay affect behavioral genetic model estimates? (2) At what level of GE-interplay does the ‘gloomy prospect’ of unsystematic and non-replicable genetic associations with a phenotype become an unavoidable certainty?
Keywords: Gene–environment interplay Human agency Personality Cognitive ability Developmental genetics
Complexity, compression, and the gloomy prospect
As a field, behavior genetics has produced substantial knowledge concerning replicable patterns of genetic and environmental influences across the lifespan (Plomin et al. 2016). Heritability is substantial (Turkheimer 2000), but each SNP explains a tiny portion of variance (Chabris et al. 2015). There is some evidence of GE-interplay, even if the empirical data to this point have not identified many replicable examples for G × E. Genetic and environmental effects shift across the lifespan as phenotypes become more stable. Although the statistical and interpretational implications of GE-interplay processes are well-known, the magnitude of each process is not well-known. Worse still, the factors that affect behavior genetic estimates all occur potentially simultaneously and continuously across development, and they may even interact with one another in a nonlinear and highly complex fashion. Researchers can increase the reasonableness of their inferences from behavior genetic models by gaining clarity on what is known and unknown concerning processes that influence parameter estimates. Ruling out potential processes can substantially shrink the number of possible interpretations.
Some basic questions remain difficult to address: what processes led to an estimate of 40% heritability? Was it additive and independent genetic effects, rGE reinforcing initial differences associated with genotype, or some form of G × E? Would heritability have been 40% if the sample was 10 years younger? Would heritability actually be 50% if assortative mating was correctly handled? Numerous papers have been written on the interpretive problems of heritability (e.g., Johnson et al. 2011; Keller et al. 2010; Turkheimer 1998). Our point here is not to retread this ground, but instead to point out the number of considerations required. Each of these considerations can be deconstructed in isolation to infer what the impact would be on behavior genetic models. The real world combines them all simultaneously in different quantities for each phenotype.
In the face of such taxing complexity, a framework with which to visualize the impact of different combinations of structural inputs would be useful. A successful model could generate phenotype levels from the ground up, starting with partners producing offspring with synthetic genomes and environments. One goal could be to identify what sets of model parameters can fill in the gaps identified in this review. As noted, there are likely several plausible sets of developmental parameters that could lead to the empirical results found in the literature. It might be the case that several potential models could produce similar observed trends, such as increasing heritability with age. We view this as a useful demonstration of the potential for equifinality in behavior genetic models, a limitation of the models that could be overlooked due to implicit assumptions about the data-generating mechanisms. A simulation approach would force these assumptions to be explicit and would allow them to be contrasted with other plausible assumptions.
In this context, we may think of phenotype development or the task of individual-level prediction as falling along a continuum of complexity. At one end is perfect simplicity: a change in an input leads to a change in the output every time, and researchers are able to make accurate predictions with easily obtainable and cognizable information. At the other end, it may be the case that there is such complexity that a description of development requires the full history of all variables at all points in time; the data stream is incapable of any compression. Under this scenario, the best anyone can do is record what happens. There is no more efficient way to express the observations, and the observations do not support any interesting predictions. Although behavior geneticists widely acknowledge that the phenotypes under study are complex (i.e., not having a single cause or simple set of causes), less consideration has been given to the potential compressibility of the phenotypes across individuals relative to the set of available variables (e.g., Li and Vitányi 1997; Wallace and Freeman 1987). By "compression," we mean the ability to represent some large set of information in a more compact manner (Braddon-Mitchell 2001; Sayood 2005; Wheeler 2016). To what extent can behavior genetics move from thousands of genetic associations toward a cognizable and useful model of development (see Kendler 2008)? This type of question has emerged most clearly in the literature surrounding the "gloomy prospect."
The need to empirically evaluate the gloomy prospect
Under the limitations of empirical data collection, little behavior genetic research exists that explicitly considers the possibility of the gloomy prospect. Plomin and Daniels (1987, p. 8) described the gloomy prospect as a situation in which "the salient environment might be unsystematic, idiosyncratic, or serendipitous events," ultimately minimizing the possibility that much scientific progress can be made. Turkheimer and Gottesman (1996) used a simulation approach to illustrate the gloomy prospect; small shifts in environmental context completely removed all specific phenotype.environment associations. Turkheimer (2000, p. 163) applied the same gloomy outlook to molecular genetic associations in the real world due to the inherent complexity of development and noted that "the underlying complex causal processes would cause the apparent results [of molecular genetic studies] to be small, and to change unpredictably from one experiment to the next."
The gloomy prospect is discouraging from an empirical standpoint as it implies that the upper limit for scientific progress in predicting and explaining future behavior at the individual-level may already have been reached or be reached without substantially more meaningful progress. If phenotype development is driven by genetic effects that manifest differently across environments that are peculiar to a given individual, then identifying the effect that a genetic variant has on development will necessarily also be idiosyncratic. If true, the clinical utility of genetic or environmental information about individuals will be largely worthless, since a plethora of interdependent factors (many of which are inaccessible due to a failure of measurement over development) must be known before reasonable predictions can be made.
Gloominess falls on a continuum, and how gloomy the prospect of giving an informative behavior genetic account depends on the phenotype. For example, it may be that things are a bit gloomier for personality compared to cognitive ability or anthropometric traits (e.g., Cheesman et al. 2017). If there is no GE-interplay and no other potentially biasing factors, then molecular genetic associations will replicate and the prospects for giving an informative account is not gloomy at all. But if, on the other hand, GE-interplay is extremely large and the effects of any genetic variant are entirely dependent on the (potentially random) environmental context, then it is unlikely that any genetic effect will replicate. This situation would be maximally gloomy. However, most phenotypes likely fall somewhere between these extremes.
We suggest that a plausible starting point for identifying the "gloominess" of a phenotype is to investigate the seven developmental processes highlighted in this manuscript. Put differently, a greater understanding of phenotype processes (i.e., how the phenotype influences engagement with the environment), structure (i.e., how phenotypes covary), and development (i.e., how phenotypes respond to engagement with the environment in the context of other relevant phenotypes across the lifespan; see Baumert et al. 2017). Each of these questions can be addressed with behavior genetic methodology. For example, the field has established the genetic and environmental structure of many related phenotypes. We suggest that gains can be made in overcoming the gloomy prospect by better understanding our phenotypes, that is to say, gaining knowledge not only of genetic and environmental structure, but also of the processes that led to such a structure across developmental time. This work toward explanation is directly relevant to researchers interested primarily in prediction as the gloomy prospect may imply some upper limit on prediction. Evaluating simultaneous GE-interplay will be challenging, but such work could provide important insight into the mechanisms of phenotype growth.
Additionally, progress toward identifying the boundaries of the gloomy prospect could be made by drawing more heavily on animal models. Although the strength of animal models is typically seen as exerting control over environmental experiences, an increasing number of studies use designs in which GE-interplay is possible (Bell and Saltz 2017; Freund et al. 2013). For example, social niche construction refers to the tendency of certain organisms to form social groups partially based on genetic differences (i.e., rGE; Saltz and Foley 2011; Saltz and Nuzhdin 2014). This behavioral tendency has also been found to be context dependent (Saltz 2011) and influence development (Saltz 2013, 2014). More generally, animals exhibit repeatable behavioral syndromes (Bell et al. 2009; Sih et al. 2004), similar to human personality, and a host of tools are available to better explain and predict these patterns (Bengston et al. 2018). This work may be better situated to address major unanswered questions in human behavior genetics, such as potential sources of Gene × Environment interaction. Lee et al. (2018) found relatively few leads on why genetic associations with educational attainment might vary across contexts (although, see Tropf et al. 2017 for an analysis with individual-level data), but the animal literature may offer further clues (see Saltz et al. 2018). Of course, evidence from animal models may be difficult to extrapolate to a phenotype like educational attainment, but the ability to track the effect of GE-interplay on development dynamically and consistently across the lifespan is a major advantage of animal models.
Abstract: Behavior genetic findings figure in debates ranging from urgent public policy matters to perennial questions about the nature of human agency. Despite a common set of methodological tools, behavior genetic studies approach scientific questions with potentially divergent goals. Some studies may be interested in identifying a complete model of how individual differences come to be (e.g., identifying causal pathways among genotypes, environments, and phenotypes across development). Other studies place primary importance on developing models with predictive utility, in which case understanding of underlying causal processes is not necessarily required. Although certainly not mutually exclusive, these two goals often represent tradeoffs in terms of costs and benefits associated with various methodological approaches. In particular, given that most empirical behavior genetic research assumes that variance can be neatly decomposed into independent genetic and environmental components, violations of model assumptions have different consequences for interpretation, depending on the particular goals. Developmental behavior genetic theories postulate complex transactions between genetic variation and environmental experiences over time, meaning assumptions are routinely violated. Here, we consider two primary questions: (1) How might the simultaneous operation of several mechanisms of gene–environment (GE)-interplay affect behavioral genetic model estimates? (2) At what level of GE-interplay does the ‘gloomy prospect’ of unsystematic and non-replicable genetic associations with a phenotype become an unavoidable certainty?
Keywords: Gene–environment interplay Human agency Personality Cognitive ability Developmental genetics
Complexity, compression, and the gloomy prospect
As a field, behavior genetics has produced substantial knowledge concerning replicable patterns of genetic and environmental influences across the lifespan (Plomin et al. 2016). Heritability is substantial (Turkheimer 2000), but each SNP explains a tiny portion of variance (Chabris et al. 2015). There is some evidence of GE-interplay, even if the empirical data to this point have not identified many replicable examples for G × E. Genetic and environmental effects shift across the lifespan as phenotypes become more stable. Although the statistical and interpretational implications of GE-interplay processes are well-known, the magnitude of each process is not well-known. Worse still, the factors that affect behavior genetic estimates all occur potentially simultaneously and continuously across development, and they may even interact with one another in a nonlinear and highly complex fashion. Researchers can increase the reasonableness of their inferences from behavior genetic models by gaining clarity on what is known and unknown concerning processes that influence parameter estimates. Ruling out potential processes can substantially shrink the number of possible interpretations.
Some basic questions remain difficult to address: what processes led to an estimate of 40% heritability? Was it additive and independent genetic effects, rGE reinforcing initial differences associated with genotype, or some form of G × E? Would heritability have been 40% if the sample was 10 years younger? Would heritability actually be 50% if assortative mating was correctly handled? Numerous papers have been written on the interpretive problems of heritability (e.g., Johnson et al. 2011; Keller et al. 2010; Turkheimer 1998). Our point here is not to retread this ground, but instead to point out the number of considerations required. Each of these considerations can be deconstructed in isolation to infer what the impact would be on behavior genetic models. The real world combines them all simultaneously in different quantities for each phenotype.
In the face of such taxing complexity, a framework with which to visualize the impact of different combinations of structural inputs would be useful. A successful model could generate phenotype levels from the ground up, starting with partners producing offspring with synthetic genomes and environments. One goal could be to identify what sets of model parameters can fill in the gaps identified in this review. As noted, there are likely several plausible sets of developmental parameters that could lead to the empirical results found in the literature. It might be the case that several potential models could produce similar observed trends, such as increasing heritability with age. We view this as a useful demonstration of the potential for equifinality in behavior genetic models, a limitation of the models that could be overlooked due to implicit assumptions about the data-generating mechanisms. A simulation approach would force these assumptions to be explicit and would allow them to be contrasted with other plausible assumptions.
In this context, we may think of phenotype development or the task of individual-level prediction as falling along a continuum of complexity. At one end is perfect simplicity: a change in an input leads to a change in the output every time, and researchers are able to make accurate predictions with easily obtainable and cognizable information. At the other end, it may be the case that there is such complexity that a description of development requires the full history of all variables at all points in time; the data stream is incapable of any compression. Under this scenario, the best anyone can do is record what happens. There is no more efficient way to express the observations, and the observations do not support any interesting predictions. Although behavior geneticists widely acknowledge that the phenotypes under study are complex (i.e., not having a single cause or simple set of causes), less consideration has been given to the potential compressibility of the phenotypes across individuals relative to the set of available variables (e.g., Li and Vitányi 1997; Wallace and Freeman 1987). By "compression," we mean the ability to represent some large set of information in a more compact manner (Braddon-Mitchell 2001; Sayood 2005; Wheeler 2016). To what extent can behavior genetics move from thousands of genetic associations toward a cognizable and useful model of development (see Kendler 2008)? This type of question has emerged most clearly in the literature surrounding the "gloomy prospect."
The need to empirically evaluate the gloomy prospect
Under the limitations of empirical data collection, little behavior genetic research exists that explicitly considers the possibility of the gloomy prospect. Plomin and Daniels (1987, p. 8) described the gloomy prospect as a situation in which "the salient environment might be unsystematic, idiosyncratic, or serendipitous events," ultimately minimizing the possibility that much scientific progress can be made. Turkheimer and Gottesman (1996) used a simulation approach to illustrate the gloomy prospect; small shifts in environmental context completely removed all specific phenotype.environment associations. Turkheimer (2000, p. 163) applied the same gloomy outlook to molecular genetic associations in the real world due to the inherent complexity of development and noted that "the underlying complex causal processes would cause the apparent results [of molecular genetic studies] to be small, and to change unpredictably from one experiment to the next."
The gloomy prospect is discouraging from an empirical standpoint as it implies that the upper limit for scientific progress in predicting and explaining future behavior at the individual-level may already have been reached or be reached without substantially more meaningful progress. If phenotype development is driven by genetic effects that manifest differently across environments that are peculiar to a given individual, then identifying the effect that a genetic variant has on development will necessarily also be idiosyncratic. If true, the clinical utility of genetic or environmental information about individuals will be largely worthless, since a plethora of interdependent factors (many of which are inaccessible due to a failure of measurement over development) must be known before reasonable predictions can be made.
Gloominess falls on a continuum, and how gloomy the prospect of giving an informative behavior genetic account depends on the phenotype. For example, it may be that things are a bit gloomier for personality compared to cognitive ability or anthropometric traits (e.g., Cheesman et al. 2017). If there is no GE-interplay and no other potentially biasing factors, then molecular genetic associations will replicate and the prospects for giving an informative account is not gloomy at all. But if, on the other hand, GE-interplay is extremely large and the effects of any genetic variant are entirely dependent on the (potentially random) environmental context, then it is unlikely that any genetic effect will replicate. This situation would be maximally gloomy. However, most phenotypes likely fall somewhere between these extremes.
We suggest that a plausible starting point for identifying the "gloominess" of a phenotype is to investigate the seven developmental processes highlighted in this manuscript. Put differently, a greater understanding of phenotype processes (i.e., how the phenotype influences engagement with the environment), structure (i.e., how phenotypes covary), and development (i.e., how phenotypes respond to engagement with the environment in the context of other relevant phenotypes across the lifespan; see Baumert et al. 2017). Each of these questions can be addressed with behavior genetic methodology. For example, the field has established the genetic and environmental structure of many related phenotypes. We suggest that gains can be made in overcoming the gloomy prospect by better understanding our phenotypes, that is to say, gaining knowledge not only of genetic and environmental structure, but also of the processes that led to such a structure across developmental time. This work toward explanation is directly relevant to researchers interested primarily in prediction as the gloomy prospect may imply some upper limit on prediction. Evaluating simultaneous GE-interplay will be challenging, but such work could provide important insight into the mechanisms of phenotype growth.
Additionally, progress toward identifying the boundaries of the gloomy prospect could be made by drawing more heavily on animal models. Although the strength of animal models is typically seen as exerting control over environmental experiences, an increasing number of studies use designs in which GE-interplay is possible (Bell and Saltz 2017; Freund et al. 2013). For example, social niche construction refers to the tendency of certain organisms to form social groups partially based on genetic differences (i.e., rGE; Saltz and Foley 2011; Saltz and Nuzhdin 2014). This behavioral tendency has also been found to be context dependent (Saltz 2011) and influence development (Saltz 2013, 2014). More generally, animals exhibit repeatable behavioral syndromes (Bell et al. 2009; Sih et al. 2004), similar to human personality, and a host of tools are available to better explain and predict these patterns (Bengston et al. 2018). This work may be better situated to address major unanswered questions in human behavior genetics, such as potential sources of Gene × Environment interaction. Lee et al. (2018) found relatively few leads on why genetic associations with educational attainment might vary across contexts (although, see Tropf et al. 2017 for an analysis with individual-level data), but the animal literature may offer further clues (see Saltz et al. 2018). Of course, evidence from animal models may be difficult to extrapolate to a phenotype like educational attainment, but the ability to track the effect of GE-interplay on development dynamically and consistently across the lifespan is a major advantage of animal models.
From 2014... The ultra‐social animal
The ultra‐social animal. Michael Tomasello. European Journal of Social Psychology, April 10 2014. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2015
Abstract: In evolutionary perspective, what is most remarkable about human sociality is its many and diverse forms of cooperation. Here, I provide an overview of some recent research, mostly from our laboratory, comparing human children with their nearest living relatives, the great apes, in various tests of collaboration, prosocial behavior, conformity, and group‐mindedness (e.g., following and enforcing social norms). This is done in the context of a hypothetical evolutionary scenario comprising two ordered steps: a first step in which early humans began collaborating with others in unique ways in their everyday foraging and a second step in which modern humans began forming cultural groups. Humans' unique forms of sociality help to explain their unique forms of cognition and morality.
Abstract: In evolutionary perspective, what is most remarkable about human sociality is its many and diverse forms of cooperation. Here, I provide an overview of some recent research, mostly from our laboratory, comparing human children with their nearest living relatives, the great apes, in various tests of collaboration, prosocial behavior, conformity, and group‐mindedness (e.g., following and enforcing social norms). This is done in the context of a hypothetical evolutionary scenario comprising two ordered steps: a first step in which early humans began collaborating with others in unique ways in their everyday foraging and a second step in which modern humans began forming cultural groups. Humans' unique forms of sociality help to explain their unique forms of cognition and morality.
Religious individuals had higher reproductive success (this association was especially pronounced in males); religiousness did not show associations with parental investment
Examining the link between religiousness and fitness in a behavioural ecological framework. Janko Međedović. Journal of Biosocial Science, November 26 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021932019000774
Abstract: In recent years there have been attempts to explain religiousness from an evolutionary viewpoint. However, empirical data on this topic are still lacking. In the present study, the behavioural ecological theoretical framework was used to explore the relations between religiousness, harsh environment, fitness (reproductive success and parental investment) and fitness-related outcomes (age at first birth, desired number of children and the romantic relationship duration). The data were collected from 461 individuals from a community sample who were near the end of their reproductive phase (54% females, Mage = 51.75; SD = 6.56). Positive links between religiousness, harsh environment, fitness and fitness-related outcomes were expected, with the exception of age at first birth, for which a negative association was hypothesized. Hence, the main assumption of the study was that religiousness has some attributes of fast life-history phenotypes – that it emerges from a harsh environment and enables earlier reproduction. The study findings partially confirmed these hypotheses. Religiousness was positively related to environmental harshness but only on a zero-order level. Religious individuals had higher reproductive success (this association was especially pronounced in males) but religiousness did not show associations with parental investment. Religiousness was positively associated with desired number of children and negatively associated with age at first birth, although the latter association was only marginally significant in the multivariate analyses. Finally, path analysis showed that desired number of children and age at first birth completely mediated the relation between religiousness and reproductive success. The data confirmed the biologically adaptive function of religiousness in contemporary populations and found the mediating processes that facilitate fitness in religious individuals. Furthermore, the findings initiate a more complex view of religiousness in a life-history context which could be fruitful for future research: a proposal labelled as ‘ontogeny-dependent life-history theory of religiousness’.
Discussion
The behavioural ecological framework enables the analysis of the evolution of any behavioural trait ifthe trait in question is genetically transmitted across generations. This can even be applied to com-plex, socially and culturally influenced traits such as religiousness. However, the trait can be targetedby natural selection only if it is related to evolutionary fitness. Furthermore, one of the fundamentalassumptions of behavioural ecology is that individuals adapt to their local environments. The presentresearch sought to explore the relations between religiousness and fitness, the potential mediators ofthis relation and the environmental conditions that could be involved in it. The study hypothesis wasthat religiousness is biologically adaptive (i.e. it is positively associated with fitness and other fitness-related outcomes, all except age of first reproduction where negative association was assumed) andthat it emerges from harsh environmental conditions. These hypotheses were only partially confirmed. However, the study data provide a broader and more comprehensive view of religiousnessin a behavioural ecological context, confirming its adaptiveness in a biological sense. Furthermore, it reveals some of the mechanisms that religious individuals use to achieve higher reproductive success.Finally, the results are implicative for the future life-history theory of religiousness.
The associations between fitness and fitness-related measures
From the viewpoint of behavioural ecology, it is very important to analyse the relations betweenmeasures connected with fitness. First of all, reproductive success and parental investment werefound to be uncorrelated in the present research. This is not unusual–in fact, a negative correla-tion could be expected since number of children should be negatively related to parental invest-ment in each of them; this is a major evolutionary trade-off called the‘quantity–quality trade-off’(Lawson & Mace,2009). The absence of a negative correlation probably stems from the fact thatthe research was conducted in a low-fertility population, while the magnitude of this trade-off ishigher in populations with elevated mean reproductive success (Rosset al.,2016).
Age at first birth was found to be negatively related to both fitness indicators. This findingconfirms earlier findings of a negative directional selection on the timing of first reproduction:individuals who have their first child earlier in their lifetime have higher overall fitness (Tropfet al.,2015; Sanjaket al.,2018). The desired number of children was positively related to bothfitness measures as well. At first glance, this may sound like a trivial finding, but actually it is veryimportant since it shows unique features of contemporary human evolution: fertility in humans isbased on, but far from completely determined by, intentional motivation and planning (Johnson-Hanks,2008). Furthermore, it is at least partially subject to conscious control via contraceptionand other birth control measures. Finally, the duration of the partner relationship is positively relatedto reproductive success and negatively related to age at first birth: the longer individuals are in aromantic relationship, the earlier they become parents and they have more children. It is importantto note that these links were unchanged when participants’age was controlled in the analysis. Thus,long-term mating is apparently evolutionarily adaptive. This is in line with the theories that assumethat long-term mating is a dominant mating pattern in humans since human offspring need elevatedcare and investment from both parents (Stewart-Williams & Thomas,2013). In sum, the obtaineddata regarding the relations between fitness-related outcomes are quite congruent with previous find-ings and life-histories of contemporary humans.
Behavioural ecology of religiousness
Religious individuals have been shown to desire a higher number of children at the beginning oftheir reproductive phase, and they have their offspring earlier in their lifetime (although this linkwas rather weak in the present research) and have higher total fertility in general (this association was pronounced particularly in males, but it did not reach statistical significance in a subsample of females). However, they did not show elevated parental investment. A positive relation betweenr eligiousness and parental investment was assumed since religiousness is related to a closenesstowards family members and family values in general (Jensen & Jensen,1993). The absence ofthis link may suggest that religious individuals are oriented towards offspring quantity but notnecessarily offspring quality as a way of optimizing fitness.A positive link between religiousness and reproductive success has been empirically obtained inprevious research (Sanderson,2008; Blume,2009; Fieder & Huber,2016). The present study alsofound a positive link between religiousness and the desired number of children. These data are inline with a previous finding that shows positive attitudes of religious individuals towards child-bearing (Hayford & Morgan,2008). Furthermore, major religions often advocate a higher family size (Sanderson,2008). Previous research has also obtained evidence that religious individuals tend to have their first child earlier in their lifetime (Pearce & Davis,2016). This was confirmedin the present study, although the link was relatively weak (i.e. only marginally significant in mul-tivariate analyses). Finally, religiousness may enable high fitness in a somewhat indirect way: byfacilitating longer romantic relationships via commitment to marriage, marital satisfaction and lower risk of divorce (Mahoneyet al., 2002). However, this link was not detected in the present data and this was the only fitness-related outcome that was not associated with religiousness. It isimportant to note that desired number of children and age of first birth completely mediated the link between religiousness and reproductive success. This was not expected due to a fact thatthere could be other mediators of this link; however, this result only highlights the role these twovariables have in elevating the fitness of religious individuals.In sum, the data obtained in the present research are in line with previous results suggesting that religiousness is probably under positive directional selection on fertility. Thus, selection actspositively on the genetic basis of religious attitudes. Note that this does not necessarily mean that higher phenotypic levels of religiousness in the upcoming generations should be necessarilyexpected. Many complex cultural and environmental factors act on the phenotypic developmentof religious attitudes and some of them may be opposed to selection. This is why the frequency of religious commitment has in fact been found to fall in Western populations (Zuckerman,2015).The complexity of the biological and environmental factors that shape religiousness prevents theprediction of its phenotypic levels in future populations.Towards a future life-history theory of religiousnessPrevious findings of negative associations between religiousness, sexual permissiveness andrestricted sexuality together with positive associations with serial monogamy suggest that religiousness is part of a slow life-history trajectory (Gladdenet al.,2009; Baumard &Chevallier,2015; Schmitt & Fuller,2015). However, this view may be oversimplified. If religiousness emerges from a harsh environment and enables earlier reproduction this would mean that ithas the characteristics of the fast life-history trait as well. These associations were obtained in thepresent research although they were fragile. The positive link between harsh environment andreligiousness was heavily dependent on the participants’ sex and age. The negative link between religiousness and age at first birth was low in magnitude and marginally significant. However, these associations have been found in previous studies as well, and with more convincing effect sizes (Delamontagne, 2010; Pearce,2010; Soltet al.,2011; Pearce & Davis, 2016). It should be noted that elevated offspring quantity, which is clearly associated with religiousness, is the most important indicator of a fast life-history pathway in the first place. All these data suggest that religiousness indeed has some attributes of a fast life-history trajectory.
The present study was cross-sectional by design, which prevented making conclusions aboutthe causal relations between the measures. However, perhapsa hypothesi sof religiousness’s involvement in life-history trajectories can be made. The existing data suggest that the life-history characteristics of religiousness are contingent on the stages of ontogeny. In earlier stages of development religiousness delays mating activity (expressed, for example, in negative associations between religiousness and the onset of sexual behaviour: Jones et al.,2005), which means that it has slow life-history attributes. However, in the reproductive stage itself, it is associated with earlier marriage and reproduction, thus acting as a fast life-history phenotype. When family is constituted, religiousness again turns to the slow life-history trait by decreasing sexual permissiveness and pro-moting monogamy. Hence, the life-history characteristics of religiousness are different during theontogeny. This proposition may be labelled as an‘ontogeny-dependent life-history theory of religiousness’. This hypothesis may be tested in future studies using a longitudinal approach.
Abstract: In recent years there have been attempts to explain religiousness from an evolutionary viewpoint. However, empirical data on this topic are still lacking. In the present study, the behavioural ecological theoretical framework was used to explore the relations between religiousness, harsh environment, fitness (reproductive success and parental investment) and fitness-related outcomes (age at first birth, desired number of children and the romantic relationship duration). The data were collected from 461 individuals from a community sample who were near the end of their reproductive phase (54% females, Mage = 51.75; SD = 6.56). Positive links between religiousness, harsh environment, fitness and fitness-related outcomes were expected, with the exception of age at first birth, for which a negative association was hypothesized. Hence, the main assumption of the study was that religiousness has some attributes of fast life-history phenotypes – that it emerges from a harsh environment and enables earlier reproduction. The study findings partially confirmed these hypotheses. Religiousness was positively related to environmental harshness but only on a zero-order level. Religious individuals had higher reproductive success (this association was especially pronounced in males) but religiousness did not show associations with parental investment. Religiousness was positively associated with desired number of children and negatively associated with age at first birth, although the latter association was only marginally significant in the multivariate analyses. Finally, path analysis showed that desired number of children and age at first birth completely mediated the relation between religiousness and reproductive success. The data confirmed the biologically adaptive function of religiousness in contemporary populations and found the mediating processes that facilitate fitness in religious individuals. Furthermore, the findings initiate a more complex view of religiousness in a life-history context which could be fruitful for future research: a proposal labelled as ‘ontogeny-dependent life-history theory of religiousness’.
Discussion
The behavioural ecological framework enables the analysis of the evolution of any behavioural trait ifthe trait in question is genetically transmitted across generations. This can even be applied to com-plex, socially and culturally influenced traits such as religiousness. However, the trait can be targetedby natural selection only if it is related to evolutionary fitness. Furthermore, one of the fundamentalassumptions of behavioural ecology is that individuals adapt to their local environments. The presentresearch sought to explore the relations between religiousness and fitness, the potential mediators ofthis relation and the environmental conditions that could be involved in it. The study hypothesis wasthat religiousness is biologically adaptive (i.e. it is positively associated with fitness and other fitness-related outcomes, all except age of first reproduction where negative association was assumed) andthat it emerges from harsh environmental conditions. These hypotheses were only partially confirmed. However, the study data provide a broader and more comprehensive view of religiousnessin a behavioural ecological context, confirming its adaptiveness in a biological sense. Furthermore, it reveals some of the mechanisms that religious individuals use to achieve higher reproductive success.Finally, the results are implicative for the future life-history theory of religiousness.
The associations between fitness and fitness-related measures
From the viewpoint of behavioural ecology, it is very important to analyse the relations betweenmeasures connected with fitness. First of all, reproductive success and parental investment werefound to be uncorrelated in the present research. This is not unusual–in fact, a negative correla-tion could be expected since number of children should be negatively related to parental invest-ment in each of them; this is a major evolutionary trade-off called the‘quantity–quality trade-off’(Lawson & Mace,2009). The absence of a negative correlation probably stems from the fact thatthe research was conducted in a low-fertility population, while the magnitude of this trade-off ishigher in populations with elevated mean reproductive success (Rosset al.,2016).
Age at first birth was found to be negatively related to both fitness indicators. This findingconfirms earlier findings of a negative directional selection on the timing of first reproduction:individuals who have their first child earlier in their lifetime have higher overall fitness (Tropfet al.,2015; Sanjaket al.,2018). The desired number of children was positively related to bothfitness measures as well. At first glance, this may sound like a trivial finding, but actually it is veryimportant since it shows unique features of contemporary human evolution: fertility in humans isbased on, but far from completely determined by, intentional motivation and planning (Johnson-Hanks,2008). Furthermore, it is at least partially subject to conscious control via contraceptionand other birth control measures. Finally, the duration of the partner relationship is positively relatedto reproductive success and negatively related to age at first birth: the longer individuals are in aromantic relationship, the earlier they become parents and they have more children. It is importantto note that these links were unchanged when participants’age was controlled in the analysis. Thus,long-term mating is apparently evolutionarily adaptive. This is in line with the theories that assumethat long-term mating is a dominant mating pattern in humans since human offspring need elevatedcare and investment from both parents (Stewart-Williams & Thomas,2013). In sum, the obtaineddata regarding the relations between fitness-related outcomes are quite congruent with previous find-ings and life-histories of contemporary humans.
Behavioural ecology of religiousness
Religious individuals have been shown to desire a higher number of children at the beginning oftheir reproductive phase, and they have their offspring earlier in their lifetime (although this linkwas rather weak in the present research) and have higher total fertility in general (this association was pronounced particularly in males, but it did not reach statistical significance in a subsample of females). However, they did not show elevated parental investment. A positive relation betweenr eligiousness and parental investment was assumed since religiousness is related to a closenesstowards family members and family values in general (Jensen & Jensen,1993). The absence ofthis link may suggest that religious individuals are oriented towards offspring quantity but notnecessarily offspring quality as a way of optimizing fitness.A positive link between religiousness and reproductive success has been empirically obtained inprevious research (Sanderson,2008; Blume,2009; Fieder & Huber,2016). The present study alsofound a positive link between religiousness and the desired number of children. These data are inline with a previous finding that shows positive attitudes of religious individuals towards child-bearing (Hayford & Morgan,2008). Furthermore, major religions often advocate a higher family size (Sanderson,2008). Previous research has also obtained evidence that religious individuals tend to have their first child earlier in their lifetime (Pearce & Davis,2016). This was confirmedin the present study, although the link was relatively weak (i.e. only marginally significant in mul-tivariate analyses). Finally, religiousness may enable high fitness in a somewhat indirect way: byfacilitating longer romantic relationships via commitment to marriage, marital satisfaction and lower risk of divorce (Mahoneyet al., 2002). However, this link was not detected in the present data and this was the only fitness-related outcome that was not associated with religiousness. It isimportant to note that desired number of children and age of first birth completely mediated the link between religiousness and reproductive success. This was not expected due to a fact thatthere could be other mediators of this link; however, this result only highlights the role these twovariables have in elevating the fitness of religious individuals.In sum, the data obtained in the present research are in line with previous results suggesting that religiousness is probably under positive directional selection on fertility. Thus, selection actspositively on the genetic basis of religious attitudes. Note that this does not necessarily mean that higher phenotypic levels of religiousness in the upcoming generations should be necessarilyexpected. Many complex cultural and environmental factors act on the phenotypic developmentof religious attitudes and some of them may be opposed to selection. This is why the frequency of religious commitment has in fact been found to fall in Western populations (Zuckerman,2015).The complexity of the biological and environmental factors that shape religiousness prevents theprediction of its phenotypic levels in future populations.Towards a future life-history theory of religiousnessPrevious findings of negative associations between religiousness, sexual permissiveness andrestricted sexuality together with positive associations with serial monogamy suggest that religiousness is part of a slow life-history trajectory (Gladdenet al.,2009; Baumard &Chevallier,2015; Schmitt & Fuller,2015). However, this view may be oversimplified. If religiousness emerges from a harsh environment and enables earlier reproduction this would mean that ithas the characteristics of the fast life-history trait as well. These associations were obtained in thepresent research although they were fragile. The positive link between harsh environment andreligiousness was heavily dependent on the participants’ sex and age. The negative link between religiousness and age at first birth was low in magnitude and marginally significant. However, these associations have been found in previous studies as well, and with more convincing effect sizes (Delamontagne, 2010; Pearce,2010; Soltet al.,2011; Pearce & Davis, 2016). It should be noted that elevated offspring quantity, which is clearly associated with religiousness, is the most important indicator of a fast life-history pathway in the first place. All these data suggest that religiousness indeed has some attributes of a fast life-history trajectory.
The present study was cross-sectional by design, which prevented making conclusions aboutthe causal relations between the measures. However, perhapsa hypothesi sof religiousness’s involvement in life-history trajectories can be made. The existing data suggest that the life-history characteristics of religiousness are contingent on the stages of ontogeny. In earlier stages of development religiousness delays mating activity (expressed, for example, in negative associations between religiousness and the onset of sexual behaviour: Jones et al.,2005), which means that it has slow life-history attributes. However, in the reproductive stage itself, it is associated with earlier marriage and reproduction, thus acting as a fast life-history phenotype. When family is constituted, religiousness again turns to the slow life-history trait by decreasing sexual permissiveness and pro-moting monogamy. Hence, the life-history characteristics of religiousness are different during theontogeny. This proposition may be labelled as an‘ontogeny-dependent life-history theory of religiousness’. This hypothesis may be tested in future studies using a longitudinal approach.
Although many animals display bodily & behavioural changes consistent with the occurrence of affective states similar to those seen in humans, there is controversy about whether these are accompanied by conscious experiences
Towards a comparative science of emotion: Affect and consciousness in humans and animals. Elizabeth S. Paul et al. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, November 26 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.11.014
Highlights
• Emotions comprise conscious, behavioural, physiological and cognitive elements.
• Neural correlates of conscious emotion can be investigated in humans and animals.
• Contemporary theories of consciousness have differing implications for animals.
Abstract: The componential view of human emotion recognises that affective states comprise conscious, behavioural, physiological, neural and cognitive elements. Although many animals display bodily and behavioural changes consistent with the occurrence of affective states similar to those seen in humans, the question of whether and in which species these are accompanied by conscious experiences remains controversial. Finding scientifically valid methods for investigating markers for the subjective component of affect in both humans and animals is central to developing a comparative understanding of the processes and mechanisms of affect and its evolution and distribution across taxonomic groups, to our understanding of animal welfare, and to the development of animal models of affective disorders. Here, contemporary evidence indicating potential markers of conscious processing in animals is reviewed, with a view to extending this search to include markers of conscious affective processing. We do this by combining animal-focused approaches with investigations of the components of conscious and non-conscious emotional processing in humans, and neuropsychological research into the structure and functions of conscious emotions.
[Full text, charts, references, at the link above]
8. Conclusions
The study of affective consciousness in animals falls squarely at the intersection of two longstanding controversies in psychological science – the relationship between consciousness and emotion and the measurement of nonhuman, and nonverbal, consciousness. Accordingly, the strands of empirical evidence and theoretical argument reviewed here are both richly diverse and hotly contested. But though it is beset by the twin enigmas of conceptualizing emotion and measuring consciousness, the study of animal affective consciousness is nonetheless of major potential importance, both for practical problems in animal welfare and for our efforts to get a clear view of our evolutionary kin, near and distant. We have adopted a componential view of emotions (reviewed in Section 3), in which conscious feelings constitute one component in a complex syndrome of related cognitive, motivational, expressive, and behavioural processes. And we have especially highlighted the implications of NCAC theories for a scientific understanding of how conscious feelings can, and cannot, empirically dissociate from other components of emotion, both within and across species.
In posing questions about conscious affect in animals, much (though not all1) work starts with the human case, where understanding is facilitated by subjects’ emotional reports (as well as the informal introspection the researcher employs in interpreting such reports). The human models are then used to identify candidate criteria for conscious emotion, which can be applied to observations of brain, behaviour, and physiology in different animal species. Research in this program can, in turn, be roughly divided into two classes – a wide-focus approach, which begins with general models of human consciousness (Section 4), and a narrow-focus approach, which sets out from specific models of human emotion (Section 5). The two approaches inform one another, because emotional consciousness is one form of consciousness, and together they can suggest principles for the identification of conscious affect in the absence of subjective report (Sections 6 and 7).
As our review illustrates, wide- and narrow-focus studies alike present a mixed picture of promising developments and enduring controversy. In our view, an especially promising strategy is to explicitly link proposed neurofunctional analyses of consciousness in general with a componential view of emotion in particular. This strategy is generative, suggesting novel potential resolutions to questions about conscious animal affect. Nonetheless, the stubborn persistence of core controversies (what kinds of cognition does consciousness require, and what kinds of emotional response require consciousness?) bars anything like a consensus choice among the candidate resolutions at present.
As an example of this dynamic, consider Fig. 1 and its depiction of the componential view of emotion. Here, five components of emotion (Scherer, 2005a,b) are conceptually distinguished, and the task for emotion researchers is to explain their empirical coordination in emotional responses. Such explanations may refer to hypothesized “coordinating mechanisms” that coherently control the component mechanisms (the solid lines in Fig. 1) and/or to direct links between the component mechanisms themselves (dashed lines). It is important to emphasize, however, that Fig. 1 does not, on its own, constitute a model of emotion. Rather, it supplies a conceptual framework within which empirical questions about emotion can be posed – questions which an adequate model, drawing on both wide- and narrow-focus empirical approaches, must answer. Most importantly: (1) how is the coordination of the different components of an emotional response achieved? And (2) do the various components – including emotional consciousness – play comparable or unequal roles in the process of cross-component coordination?
[Fig. 1. Componential framework for conceptualizing emotion. The five outer boxes depict component processes in emotion, similar to those identified in Scherer (2005a,b). The central box stands for possible central mechanisms (at cortical and/or subcortical levels) which may help to coordinate some or all of the components. Actions of the hypothetical central mechanisms are represented by solid lines, direct interactions between the five component processes by dashed lines.]
Different models of emotion, drawing on different views of the functional role(s) of consciousness, suggest different answers to these two critical questions. As an illustration, Fig. 2 shows how one model of conscious emotion, derived from a subset of the research reviewed here, would resolve these questions. In this model, a GW perspective on affective consciousness is assumed. That is, consciousness – affective and otherwise – is assumed to be linked to thalamocortical broadcasting of selected information for the flexible coordination of cognition and action. If consciousness is inherently linked to this coordination function, it will presumably be essential for some aspects of the coordination of component processes in human emotion. Returning to Fig. 1, this GW-inspired viewpoint would then suggest that the “coordinating mechanisms” are not neatly separable from the “consciousness” component. Rather, the consciousness component constitutes part of the coordinating mechanisms (though further unconscious mechanisms, specific to emotion, may also play a role in coordinating an emotional response). Fig. 2 shows how this neurofunctional model of conscious emotion unpacks and relates the “flat” uninterpreted relations in Fig. 1. In this way, the model offers one possible answer to the critical questions of how the emotion components relate to the coordinating process and to one another (consciousness, unlike the other components, is part of a posited central coordinating mechanism). It suggests, in turn, criteria for affective consciousness in the absence of subjective report (i.e. does the affective response reflect a level of integration and flexibility that requires the operation of the GW?).2
[Fig. 2. A possible neurofunctional interpretation of the componential framework. A GW model of conscious emotion is assumed for illustrative purposes. In this model, consciousness functions to globally integrate modular processors for the flexible control of cognition and action. On this view, consciousness is expected to play a central role in coordinating component processes, at least for those emotions which exhibit high levels of integration (i.e., responsiveness to a wide range of information inputs) and flexibility (i.e., adaptive sensitivity to a wide range of contexts). The model also allows for distinct unconscious coordinating mechanisms that may generate more stereotyped (aspects of) emotional responses.]
The model in Fig. 2 illustrates how a neurofunctional analysis of consciousness can flesh out the componential framework for emotion, implying conditions under which consciousness can(not) dissociate from the other emotion components, and hence providing principled criteria whereby consciousness can be inferred from observation of the other components. To be sure, the neurofunctional analysis of conscious emotion (a GW view) assumed in Fig. 2 is not the only available one, and it is not definitively established by the evidence reviewed here. Alternative (e.g., HOT) neurofunctional analyses may assign the consciousness component in Fig. 1 a more peripheral functional role, implying readier dissociability from other components, and hence requiring more stringent criteria for the identification of conscious feelings. At the other end of the spectrum, some views associate basic forms of consciousness (or sentience) with more elementary nervous system functions, implying that consciousness accompanies even component-responses with minimal complexity or coordination.
Nonetheless, the example illustrates the logic of leading approaches to the study of conscious emotion, highlighting both their promise and their limitations. On the one hand, developing theories of the NCAC suggest substantive interpretations of the componential framework, from which principled criteria for affective consciousness in nonverbal creatures can be derived. On the other hand, the search for NCACs itself remains closely bound up with longstanding controversies in the conceptualization of both consciousness and emotion. It is inseparable from fundamental questions, still not adequately resolved, about when, how, and why conscious experiences can be inferred from behavioural responses when subjective report is unavailable. The merging of a componential view of emotion with a neurofunctional analysis of consciousness thus opens up promising new paths toward a scientific understanding of animal affective consciousness, but also shines a sobering light on the obstacles that lie in their way.
The better-than-average effect in comparative self-evaluation: a comprehensive review and meta-analysis
Zell, E, J E, strickhourser, Sedikides, Constantine and Alicke, Mark D. (2019) The better-than-average effect in comparative self-evaluation: a comprehensive review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin (In Press), Nov 18 2019. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/435685
Abstract: The better-than-average-effect (BTAE) is the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and personality traits as superior compared to their average peer. This article offers a comprehensive review of the BTAE and the first quantitative synthesis of the BTAE literature. We define the effect, differentiate it from related phenomena, and describe relevant methodological approaches, theories, and psychological mechanisms. Next, we present a comprehensive meta-analysis of BTAE studies, including data from 124 published articles, 291 independent samples, and over 950,000 participants. Results indicated that the BTAE is robust across studies (dz = 0.78, CI [0.71, 0.84]), with little evidence of publication bias. Further, moderation tests suggested that the BTAE is larger in the case of personality traits than abilities, positive as opposed to negative dimensions, and in studies that (1) use the direct rather than the indirect method, (2) involve many rather than few dimensions, (3) sample European-Americans rather than East-Asians (especially for individualistic traits), and (4) counterbalance self and average peer judgments. Finally, the BTAE is moderately associated with self-esteem (r = .34) and life satisfaction (r = .33). Discussion highlights theoretical and empirical implications.
Abstract: The better-than-average-effect (BTAE) is the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and personality traits as superior compared to their average peer. This article offers a comprehensive review of the BTAE and the first quantitative synthesis of the BTAE literature. We define the effect, differentiate it from related phenomena, and describe relevant methodological approaches, theories, and psychological mechanisms. Next, we present a comprehensive meta-analysis of BTAE studies, including data from 124 published articles, 291 independent samples, and over 950,000 participants. Results indicated that the BTAE is robust across studies (dz = 0.78, CI [0.71, 0.84]), with little evidence of publication bias. Further, moderation tests suggested that the BTAE is larger in the case of personality traits than abilities, positive as opposed to negative dimensions, and in studies that (1) use the direct rather than the indirect method, (2) involve many rather than few dimensions, (3) sample European-Americans rather than East-Asians (especially for individualistic traits), and (4) counterbalance self and average peer judgments. Finally, the BTAE is moderately associated with self-esteem (r = .34) and life satisfaction (r = .33). Discussion highlights theoretical and empirical implications.
The tax-financing of Medicare creates mounting economic costs & increasingly untenable policy constraints, which motivate reforms that shift towards a more basic public benefit that individuals can “top-up” with private spending
Does One Medicare Fit All? The Economics of Uniform Health Insurance Benefits. Mark Shepard, Katherine Baicker, Jonathan S. Skinner. Nov 2019. Forthcoming in Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 34, Moffitt. 2019. https://www.nber.org/papers/w26472
There is increasing interest in expanding Medicare health insurance coverage in the U.S., but it is not clear whether the current program is the right foundation on which to build. Traditional Medicare covers a uniform set of benefits for all income groups and provides more generous access to providers and new treatments than public programs in other developed countries. We develop an economic framework to assess the efficiency and equity tradeoffs involved with reforming this generous, uniform structure. We argue that three major shifts make a uniform design less efficient today than when Medicare began in 1965. First, rising income inequality makes it more difficult to design a single plan that serves the needs of both higher- and lower-income people. Second, the dramatic expansion of expensive medical technology means that a generous program increasingly crowds out other public programs valued by the poor and middle class. Finally, as medical spending rises, the tax-financing of the system creates mounting economic costs and increasingly untenable policy constraints. These forces motivate reforms that shift towards a more basic public benefit that individuals can “top-up” with private spending. If combined with an increase in other progressive transfers, such a reform could improve efficiency and reduce public spending while benefiting low income populations.
There is increasing interest in expanding Medicare health insurance coverage in the U.S., but it is not clear whether the current program is the right foundation on which to build. Traditional Medicare covers a uniform set of benefits for all income groups and provides more generous access to providers and new treatments than public programs in other developed countries. We develop an economic framework to assess the efficiency and equity tradeoffs involved with reforming this generous, uniform structure. We argue that three major shifts make a uniform design less efficient today than when Medicare began in 1965. First, rising income inequality makes it more difficult to design a single plan that serves the needs of both higher- and lower-income people. Second, the dramatic expansion of expensive medical technology means that a generous program increasingly crowds out other public programs valued by the poor and middle class. Finally, as medical spending rises, the tax-financing of the system creates mounting economic costs and increasingly untenable policy constraints. These forces motivate reforms that shift towards a more basic public benefit that individuals can “top-up” with private spending. If combined with an increase in other progressive transfers, such a reform could improve efficiency and reduce public spending while benefiting low income populations.
Monday, November 25, 2019
Participants remembered their emotional responses more accurately than they predicted them. But, strikingly, they perceived their predictions to be more accurate than their memories.
Predicted and remembered emotion: tomorrow’s vividness trumps yesterday’s accuracy. Linda J. Levine et al. Memory, Nov 23 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2019.1693598
ABSTRACT: People rely on predicted and remembered emotion to guide important decisions. But how much can they trust their mental representations of emotion to be accurate, and how much do they trust them? In this investigation, participants (N = 957) reported their predicted, experienced, and remembered emotional response to the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. They also reported how accurate and vivid they perceived their predictions and memories to be, and the importance of the election. Participants remembered their emotional responses more accurately than they predicted them. But, strikingly, they perceived their predictions to be more accurate than their memories. This perception was explained by the greater importance and vividness of anticipated versus remembered experience. We also assessed whether individuals with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory for personal and public events (N = 33) showed superior ability to predict or remember their emotional responses to events. They did not and, even for this group, predicting emotion was a more intense experience than remembering emotion. These findings reveal asymmetries in the phenomenological experience of predicting and remembering emotion. The vividness of predicted emotion serves as a powerful subjective signal of accuracy even when predictions turn out to be wrong.
KEYWORDS: Emotion, prediction, memory, phenomenology, Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory
Excerpts:
Similarities found between predicted and remembered emotion
Emotion predictions and memories were similar in two
notable ways. First, participants both predicted and
remembered the intensity of their feelings about Trump’s
election fairly accurately. Past research has also shown
high accuracy when people predict or remember the intensity
of their feelings about events (e.g., Doré et al., 2016;
Kaplan et al., 2016; Lench et al., 2019; Levine et al., 2012).
Far less accuracy is found when people predict or remember
their general emotional experience, a judgment that
encompasses multiple features of emotion including intensity,
duration, and mood (e.g., Wilson et al., 2000). Second,
participants’ perceptions of the accuracy of their predictions
and memories were strongly related to their vividness
but weakly related to their actual accuracy. The phenomenological
cues of vividness and fluency can render people
poor judges of how much they have learned and will
later remember (Benjamin et al., 1998; Kruger & Dunning,
1999). We found that vividness was not a particularly
reliable guide to the actual accuracy of predicted and
remembered emotion.
Remembered emotion is more trustworthy, predicted emotion is more trusted
Predicted and remembered emotion also differed in important
ways. Participants remembered their emotional
response to Trump’s victory more accurately than they predicted
it. They also perceived their memories to be more
detailed than their predictions. Bringing to mind past
experiences and imagining future ones both involve
drawing from a complex body of knowledge (Conway &
Loveday, 2015). However, imagining future experiences
requires more cognitive acrobatics, including extracting
details from past experiences and flexibly recombining
them into a novel experience (Schacter et al., 2012; Schacter
& Addis, 2007). To simulate how they would feel in the
future if Trump won the election, participants had to piece
together episodic memories of related past experiences
and draw on semantic knowledge and appraisals. In contrast,
episodic detail about their actual emotional response
to Trump’s victory was available to participants after the
election. This likely explains why participants remembered
their emotional experience more accurately than they predicted
it. Despite the greater accuracy of memory than prediction,
the main group of participants perceived their
predictions to be more accurate. They also perceived
their predictions to be more vivid than their memories,
even adjusting for the extremity of emotion predicted
and remembered. Specifically, compared to remembering
their feelings, participants perceived the experience of predicting
their feelings to be more intense, accompanied by a
greater sense of experiencing the event, and easier to bring
to mind.
Why did participants perceive predicted emotion to be
more accurate than remembered emotion when the
reverse was the case? Emotions likely evolved to motivate
action (Miloyan & Suddendorf, 2015). Future events can be
acted on and changed but past events cannot, so people
accommodate to them (Frederick & Loewenstein, 1999;
Wilson & Gilbert, 2008). This inherent asymmetry endows
the future with greater importance than the past (Van
Boven & Caruso, 2015). Extending this view, we proposed
that the greater importance of future emotional experiences
makes predictions particularly vivid, rendering
people vulnerable to misjudging their accuracy. Consistent
with this proposal, participants viewed the outcome of the
2016 presidential election as more important when it was a
future possibility than a past certainty. Greater importance
was associated with perceiving representations of emotion
to be more accurate. Analyses of indirect effects further
showed that the association between greater importance
and perceived accuracy was fully explained by participants’
more vivid phenomenological experience when predicting
than remembering emotion. These findings suggest that
viewing an event as more important before it occurs
than afterwards imbues predicted emotion with greater
vividness than remembered emotion, which in turn is
linked to perceiving emotion predictions to be more accurate
than memories.
Researchers often use the term “vividness” to refer to
the clarity and detail of visual imagery when people
remember past experiences or imagine future ones (e.g.,
D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2004; Rubin & Kozin,
1984). Retrospection is typically associated with greater
visual clarity and detail than prospection (e.g., Cole & Berntsen,
2016). However, phenomenological properties other
than detailed imagery contribute to the vividness of
mental representations (Habermas & Diel, 2013; Kensinger,
Addis, & Atapattu, 2011; Van Boven & Ashworth, 2007). For
example, a person’s memory of their recent drive to the
grocery store might be clear and detailed but lackluster.
A person’s memory of their recent near miss on the
freeway might lack clarity and detail but be vivid. Core features
of an experience can come to mind with ease, as if
they were happening in the moment, and accompanied
by intense emotion, even if a representation is not
especially detailed (Kensinger et al., 2011). In the current
investigation, these properties of ease, experiencing, and
intensity, rather than detail, characterised anticipated
emotion more than remembered emotion.
Factors associated with the accuracy of emotion predictions and memories
We also examined two factors that we expected to be
associated with greater accuracy in representations of
emotion. Past research shows that, as episodic memory
for emotion fades, people rely on their current semantic
appraisals of the emotion-eliciting event (e.g., “How good
or bad is this event for my goals?”) to reconstruct how
they must have felt. The more people’s appraisals change
over time, the less accurately they remember how they
felt (e.g., Kaplan et al., 2016; Levine, 1997; Robinson &
Clore, 2002). In the current investigation, greater stability
in participants’ appraisals of whether Trump’s election
was good for the country was associated with greater
accuracy in their memory for how they had felt. Extending
past research, greater stability in appraisals was also associated
with greater accuracy in predicting emotion. These
findings suggest that people draw on their semantic
appraisals of events both to remember how they felt in
the past and to simulate how they will feel in the future.
We also examined whether people with detailed and
accurate episodic memories of autobiographical experiences
were better than others at remembering or predicting
emotional responses to experiences. Individuals with
Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory perform similarly
to controls on many standard cognitive tests (e.g.,
mental imagery, attention; LePort et al., 2017). They also
show similar susceptibility to memory bias when presented
with misleading post-event information (Patihis et al.,
2013). Thus, these individuals do not appear to encode personal
or public events in a unique way but they retain representations
of the events they experienced in greater
detail and for far longer than controls, suggesting unusually
efficient memory consolidation and retrieval
(LePort et al., 2012, 2016, 2017). Emotion is an important
part of autobiographical experience but memory for
emotion had never been tested in this group.
We found that participants with HSAM did not differ
from other participants in the accuracy with which they
predicted or remembered emotion. They also did not
differ from others in the perceived accuracy of emotion
predictions or memories, though they did perceive their
memories to be more detailed. Like the main group, participants
with HSAM found predicting emotion to be a more
intense experience than remembering emotion. Taken
together, these findings highlight differences between
remembering the “what”, “where”, and “when” of events
(Tulving, 2002), which individuals with HSAM do with extraordinary
accuracy and detail, and predicting or remembering
feelings about events. These findings again highlight
the important contribution of semantic appraisals to representation
of emotion. The consistency of semantic
appraisals (e.g., how good or bad is this outcome for my
goals) was associated with greater accuracy in representations
of emotion; having superior episodic memory for
events that may evoke emotion was not. The exceptional
abilities of individuals with HSAM do not appear to
extend to this type of semantic knowledge about the self.
Researchers have speculated that experiencing events
with heightened emotional intensity may be one mechanism
underlying the ability of individuals with HSAM to
retain details of autobiographical and public events
(McGaugh, 2017). However, HSAM participants did not
experience more intense emotion in response to the election
compared to the main group of participants at any
time point. These individuals also remember neutral information
more accurately than controls, such as conversations
about their day during a lab session the previous
week (LePort et al., 2017). Thus, heightened emotional
arousal is not likely to be a primary mechanism underlying
this group’s superior memory for autobiographical events.
In summary, superior memory for personal and public
events did not confer superior ability to predict or remember
emotion. These findings refine our understanding of
the abilities and limitations of a unique group, and
suggest that emotional intensity is not the mechanism
underlying their abilities. The findings also point to important
differences between remembering episodic details of
autobiographical events versus emotions, and underscore
the compelling nature of anticipated emotion.
ABSTRACT: People rely on predicted and remembered emotion to guide important decisions. But how much can they trust their mental representations of emotion to be accurate, and how much do they trust them? In this investigation, participants (N = 957) reported their predicted, experienced, and remembered emotional response to the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. They also reported how accurate and vivid they perceived their predictions and memories to be, and the importance of the election. Participants remembered their emotional responses more accurately than they predicted them. But, strikingly, they perceived their predictions to be more accurate than their memories. This perception was explained by the greater importance and vividness of anticipated versus remembered experience. We also assessed whether individuals with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory for personal and public events (N = 33) showed superior ability to predict or remember their emotional responses to events. They did not and, even for this group, predicting emotion was a more intense experience than remembering emotion. These findings reveal asymmetries in the phenomenological experience of predicting and remembering emotion. The vividness of predicted emotion serves as a powerful subjective signal of accuracy even when predictions turn out to be wrong.
KEYWORDS: Emotion, prediction, memory, phenomenology, Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory
Excerpts:
Similarities found between predicted and remembered emotion
Emotion predictions and memories were similar in two
notable ways. First, participants both predicted and
remembered the intensity of their feelings about Trump’s
election fairly accurately. Past research has also shown
high accuracy when people predict or remember the intensity
of their feelings about events (e.g., Doré et al., 2016;
Kaplan et al., 2016; Lench et al., 2019; Levine et al., 2012).
Far less accuracy is found when people predict or remember
their general emotional experience, a judgment that
encompasses multiple features of emotion including intensity,
duration, and mood (e.g., Wilson et al., 2000). Second,
participants’ perceptions of the accuracy of their predictions
and memories were strongly related to their vividness
but weakly related to their actual accuracy. The phenomenological
cues of vividness and fluency can render people
poor judges of how much they have learned and will
later remember (Benjamin et al., 1998; Kruger & Dunning,
1999). We found that vividness was not a particularly
reliable guide to the actual accuracy of predicted and
remembered emotion.
Remembered emotion is more trustworthy, predicted emotion is more trusted
Predicted and remembered emotion also differed in important
ways. Participants remembered their emotional
response to Trump’s victory more accurately than they predicted
it. They also perceived their memories to be more
detailed than their predictions. Bringing to mind past
experiences and imagining future ones both involve
drawing from a complex body of knowledge (Conway &
Loveday, 2015). However, imagining future experiences
requires more cognitive acrobatics, including extracting
details from past experiences and flexibly recombining
them into a novel experience (Schacter et al., 2012; Schacter
& Addis, 2007). To simulate how they would feel in the
future if Trump won the election, participants had to piece
together episodic memories of related past experiences
and draw on semantic knowledge and appraisals. In contrast,
episodic detail about their actual emotional response
to Trump’s victory was available to participants after the
election. This likely explains why participants remembered
their emotional experience more accurately than they predicted
it. Despite the greater accuracy of memory than prediction,
the main group of participants perceived their
predictions to be more accurate. They also perceived
their predictions to be more vivid than their memories,
even adjusting for the extremity of emotion predicted
and remembered. Specifically, compared to remembering
their feelings, participants perceived the experience of predicting
their feelings to be more intense, accompanied by a
greater sense of experiencing the event, and easier to bring
to mind.
Why did participants perceive predicted emotion to be
more accurate than remembered emotion when the
reverse was the case? Emotions likely evolved to motivate
action (Miloyan & Suddendorf, 2015). Future events can be
acted on and changed but past events cannot, so people
accommodate to them (Frederick & Loewenstein, 1999;
Wilson & Gilbert, 2008). This inherent asymmetry endows
the future with greater importance than the past (Van
Boven & Caruso, 2015). Extending this view, we proposed
that the greater importance of future emotional experiences
makes predictions particularly vivid, rendering
people vulnerable to misjudging their accuracy. Consistent
with this proposal, participants viewed the outcome of the
2016 presidential election as more important when it was a
future possibility than a past certainty. Greater importance
was associated with perceiving representations of emotion
to be more accurate. Analyses of indirect effects further
showed that the association between greater importance
and perceived accuracy was fully explained by participants’
more vivid phenomenological experience when predicting
than remembering emotion. These findings suggest that
viewing an event as more important before it occurs
than afterwards imbues predicted emotion with greater
vividness than remembered emotion, which in turn is
linked to perceiving emotion predictions to be more accurate
than memories.
Researchers often use the term “vividness” to refer to
the clarity and detail of visual imagery when people
remember past experiences or imagine future ones (e.g.,
D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2004; Rubin & Kozin,
1984). Retrospection is typically associated with greater
visual clarity and detail than prospection (e.g., Cole & Berntsen,
2016). However, phenomenological properties other
than detailed imagery contribute to the vividness of
mental representations (Habermas & Diel, 2013; Kensinger,
Addis, & Atapattu, 2011; Van Boven & Ashworth, 2007). For
example, a person’s memory of their recent drive to the
grocery store might be clear and detailed but lackluster.
A person’s memory of their recent near miss on the
freeway might lack clarity and detail but be vivid. Core features
of an experience can come to mind with ease, as if
they were happening in the moment, and accompanied
by intense emotion, even if a representation is not
especially detailed (Kensinger et al., 2011). In the current
investigation, these properties of ease, experiencing, and
intensity, rather than detail, characterised anticipated
emotion more than remembered emotion.
Factors associated with the accuracy of emotion predictions and memories
We also examined two factors that we expected to be
associated with greater accuracy in representations of
emotion. Past research shows that, as episodic memory
for emotion fades, people rely on their current semantic
appraisals of the emotion-eliciting event (e.g., “How good
or bad is this event for my goals?”) to reconstruct how
they must have felt. The more people’s appraisals change
over time, the less accurately they remember how they
felt (e.g., Kaplan et al., 2016; Levine, 1997; Robinson &
Clore, 2002). In the current investigation, greater stability
in participants’ appraisals of whether Trump’s election
was good for the country was associated with greater
accuracy in their memory for how they had felt. Extending
past research, greater stability in appraisals was also associated
with greater accuracy in predicting emotion. These
findings suggest that people draw on their semantic
appraisals of events both to remember how they felt in
the past and to simulate how they will feel in the future.
We also examined whether people with detailed and
accurate episodic memories of autobiographical experiences
were better than others at remembering or predicting
emotional responses to experiences. Individuals with
Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory perform similarly
to controls on many standard cognitive tests (e.g.,
mental imagery, attention; LePort et al., 2017). They also
show similar susceptibility to memory bias when presented
with misleading post-event information (Patihis et al.,
2013). Thus, these individuals do not appear to encode personal
or public events in a unique way but they retain representations
of the events they experienced in greater
detail and for far longer than controls, suggesting unusually
efficient memory consolidation and retrieval
(LePort et al., 2012, 2016, 2017). Emotion is an important
part of autobiographical experience but memory for
emotion had never been tested in this group.
We found that participants with HSAM did not differ
from other participants in the accuracy with which they
predicted or remembered emotion. They also did not
differ from others in the perceived accuracy of emotion
predictions or memories, though they did perceive their
memories to be more detailed. Like the main group, participants
with HSAM found predicting emotion to be a more
intense experience than remembering emotion. Taken
together, these findings highlight differences between
remembering the “what”, “where”, and “when” of events
(Tulving, 2002), which individuals with HSAM do with extraordinary
accuracy and detail, and predicting or remembering
feelings about events. These findings again highlight
the important contribution of semantic appraisals to representation
of emotion. The consistency of semantic
appraisals (e.g., how good or bad is this outcome for my
goals) was associated with greater accuracy in representations
of emotion; having superior episodic memory for
events that may evoke emotion was not. The exceptional
abilities of individuals with HSAM do not appear to
extend to this type of semantic knowledge about the self.
Researchers have speculated that experiencing events
with heightened emotional intensity may be one mechanism
underlying the ability of individuals with HSAM to
retain details of autobiographical and public events
(McGaugh, 2017). However, HSAM participants did not
experience more intense emotion in response to the election
compared to the main group of participants at any
time point. These individuals also remember neutral information
more accurately than controls, such as conversations
about their day during a lab session the previous
week (LePort et al., 2017). Thus, heightened emotional
arousal is not likely to be a primary mechanism underlying
this group’s superior memory for autobiographical events.
In summary, superior memory for personal and public
events did not confer superior ability to predict or remember
emotion. These findings refine our understanding of
the abilities and limitations of a unique group, and
suggest that emotional intensity is not the mechanism
underlying their abilities. The findings also point to important
differences between remembering episodic details of
autobiographical events versus emotions, and underscore
the compelling nature of anticipated emotion.
Later Life Sex Differences in Factors in Choosing a Long-Term Partner, Sexual Behaviors and Attitudes, and Sexual Fantasies
Later Life Sex Differences in Sexual Psychology and Behavior. Gavin Vance, Todd K. Shackelford, Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford. [in press, Personality and Individual Differences, November 2019]. http://toddkshackelford.com/downloads/Vance-et-al-PAID.pdf
Abstract: Several sex differences in sexual psychology and behavior have been documented across cultures and across historical periods. These differences have been investigated almost exclusively inyoung adult samples, however. Using data secured from an older adult sample of retirement center residents in Southeast Florida, USA(n= 186, M= 67.00years), we assessed the replicability of several sex differences in sexual psychology and behavior in later life. Results replicate the sex differences identified in younger adult samples, including: (1) older men more than older women report interest in a greater number of sexual partners;(2) older men require less time before consenting to sex than do older women;(3)older men more than older women prioritize attractiveness in a prospective romantic partner, whereas older women more than older men prioritize good financial prospects; and (4) older men report a higher frequency of sexual arousal and sexual fantasies than do older women. Discussion addresses limitations of the current research and directions for future research addressing later life sex differences in sexual psychology and behavior.
Keywords: older adults; later life; sexual psychology; sexual behavior; sex differences; sexual fantasies
Discussion
The results of the current study provide a compelling argument for the persistence of several sex
differences in sexual psychology and behavior among older adults, replicating the results of parallel research
on young adults. Older men desire a greater number of sexual partners than do older women, require less
time before consenting to sex, and fantasize about more sexual partners, indicating that sex differences in
sexual psychology and behavior identified in young adulthood persist into later life.
Factors in Choosing a Long-Term Partner
Older men report a preference for attractive long-term partners, as well as good housekeepers,
whereas older women report a preference for prospective partners with access to resources. Younger men
also prefer attractive long-term partners more than do younger women, indicating that attractiveness in a
long-term partner remains important for men into later life. Older women more than older men, in contrast,
report preferences for financial prospects, emotional stability, and ambition in a prospective long-term
partner. These findings are consistent with sex differences documented in younger adults; however, unlike
younger women, older women placed greater importance than did older men on emotional stability in a long term
partner (Buss et al., 2001). These results suggest that emotional stability in a long-term partner becomes
more important to women as they age, or less important to men as they age. This could be because older
women, relative to younger women, associate emotional stability more closely with earning potential or
because older women perceive emotional stability as indicative of a partner’s ability to provide adequate care
for them in their old age.
Sexual Behaviors and Attitudes
Older men are more likely than older women to report sex with someone other than their committed
romantic partner at some point in their lives, but were just as likely as older women to report that they had
been unfaithful to their current romantic partner. Because participants were asked about behaviors in the past,
it is perhaps not surprising that older men’s reported frequencies of infidelity and lifetime sexual partners are
similar to reports by younger men (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983; Buss, 1989; Wiederman, 1997).
Consistent with sex differences identified in younger adults, older men desired more sexual partners
than did older women for every future time interval from 6 months to the remainder of their lives (Buss,
1989). Although nearly all (95.5%) of the older men reported that they were currently in a romantic
relationship, they also reported a desire for more sexual partners than did older women, only 63.7% of whom
reported that they were currently in a romantic relationship. Regardless of age or relationship status, men
desire a greater number of sexual partners than do women.
Relative to older women, older men report a greater likelihood of consenting to sex with a desirable
person after knowing that person for time periods ranging from one second to three months. Replicating sex
differences documented in younger adults, older men appear to be less interested in spending time getting to
know a prospective sexual partner than are older women (Buss, 1989). Given that older men desire more
sexual partners than do older women, it follows that they are more eager than older women to have sex with
a person they have known for a relatively short period of time.
Sexual Fantasies
Asking participants about their sexual fantasies provided further insight into the sexual desires of
older people, in addition to affording an opportunity to investigate whether these desires differ between older
men and older women in ways paralleling sex differences identified in younger adults. Older men, relative to
older women, report a greater frequency of sexual arousal and sexual fantasy, more imagined sexual partners
during their fantasies, and place greater importance on the facial and genital features of their imagined
partners. From these survey items, we documented not only that older men engage in certain sexual
behaviors more frequently than do older women, but also that the sexes differ markedly in reported sexual
arousal and desire. These results are notable because they indicate that, even if older adults are inaccurate in
their estimates of lifetime sexual partners, older men currently desire more sexual partners than do older
women. These sex differences in sexual fantasy replicate those documented in younger adults (Ellis &
Symons, 1990).
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