Cognitive & affective wellbeing: Commonly cited events had little effect on wellbeing (promotion, being fired, friends passing), others had profound impacts (financial loss, death of partner, childbirth)

The differential impact of major life events on cognitive and affective wellbeing. Nathan Kettlewell et al. SSM - Population Health, Volume 10, April 2020, 100533. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100533

Highlights
• We study the effect of 18 major life events on wellbeing.
• We use a large population-based cohort and fixed-effect regression models.
• Effects on affective and cognitive wellbeing are compared.
• Effects generally smaller when conditioning on other events.
• Events sometimes have different impacts on affective versus cognitive wellbeing.

Abstract: Major life events affect our wellbeing. However the comparative impact of different events, which often co-occur, has not been systematically evaluated, or studies assumed that the impacts are equivalent in both amplitude and duration, that different wellbeing domains are equally affected, and that individuals exhibit hedonic adaptation. We evaluated the individual and conditional impact of eighteen major life-events, and compared their effects on affective and cognitive wellbeing in a large population-based cohort using fixed-effect regression models assessing within person change. Several commonly cited events had little, if any, independent effect on wellbeing (promotion, being fired, friends passing), whilst others had profound impacts regardless of co-occurring events (e.g., financial loss, death of partner, childbirth). No life events had overall positive effects on both types of wellbeing, but separation, injury/illnesses and monetary losses caused negative impacts on both, which did not display hedonic adaptation. Affective hedonic adaptation to all positive events occurred by two years but monetary gains and retirement had ongoing benefits on cognitive wellbeing. Marriage, retirement and childbirth had positive effects on cognitive wellbeing but no overall effect on affective wellbeing, whilst moving home was associated with a negative effect on cognitive wellbeing but no affective wellbeing response. Describing the independent impact of different life events, and, for some, the differential affective and life satisfaction responses, and lack of hedonic adaptation people display, may help clinicians, economists and policy-makers, but individual's hopes for happiness from positive events appears misplaced.

Keywords: Life eventsAffective wellbeingCognitive wellbeingHedonic adaptation

Discussion

The present study confirms what people know; that not all life events are equal and many are concurrent with other events. In some respect, this may seem to be a self-apparent conclusion to anyone who has ever lived but epidemiological research often ignores this by using summed checklists to assess impact, or just evaluates the impact of one event (Dohrenwend, 2006; Gray et al., 2004; Wethington et al., 1997). Our results also quantify the difference and allow us to infer the average effect in the population. Other studies have noted differences between events in the magnitude or duration of effect on wellbeing (Frijters et al., 2011; Luhmann et al., 2012), however we focus on the total impact (both magnitude and duration). Previous longitudinal studies following individuals across time also indicate health shocks (the duration of disability) (Lucas, 2007), and separation (divorce) (Lucas, 2005; Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, & Diener, 2003) have long-term negative effects but unlike Lucas (2005), we found that the impact of the death of a spouse seemed to diminish by 2 years. The evidence for long-term effects of marriage and unemployment is mixed, with some studies showing that they continue to influence wellbeing long after they have occurred (Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, & Diener, 2004), while others report adaption to these same events (Clark et al., 2008; Frijters et al., 2011) as we found. Fig. 5 provides a comparison of the total impact (magnitude and duration) of each event on wellbeing. For instance, on average the impact of a major financial loss on both types of wellbeing was the greatest whilst health shocks, losing a loved one (widowed), separation or divorce tended not to have as much negative impact on both. Conversely, getting married, a major financial gain, retirement and childbirth had positive effects on cognitive wellbeing with little overall positive effect on affective wellbeing. These data demonstrate that the practice of treating life events as comparable is untenable.

The impact of some events is negligible after accounting for the impact of concurrent events. In general, the conditional effects of life events were a little closer to zero than the unconditional effects, but in almost all cases this was minimal, reflecting how uncommon co-occurrence actually was. However the unconditional positive effect of pregnancy on cognitive wellbeing was all but reversed once concurrent events (childbirth) were accounted for.

These results also challenge the notion of many of the identified life events as being intrinsically “stressful”, the implication of which is that they should have some negative effect on wellbeing. Holmes and Rahe's Social Readjustment Scale (Holmes & Rahe, 1967) weights marriage as the sixth most stressful event yet we found no negative impact on affective wellbeing and a profound anticipatory and subsequent positive effect on life satisfaction. Conversely people's wellbeing in the lead up to some positive events was impaired, the most notable being reconciliation which most likely demonstrates the effect of relationship difficulties just prior to the event.

The differential impact of events on the components of affective and cognitive wellbeing supports their distinction as separate constructs, although both show hedonic adaptation. A novel aspect of the present study is the comparative differences of the affective and cognitive wellbeing response to certain events. For instance, some positive events had a substantial impact on cognitive wellbeing while eliciting relatively little impact on affective wellbeing or “happiness” (e.g., Married, Retired, Childbirth, Pregnant). In contrast, negative events tended to have comparable and untoward effects on both cognitive and affective wellbeing, with the exception of Separated which again elicited a greater (negative) impact on cognitive wellbeing, and Moving which had no affective response but reduced life satisfaction. The differential impact of events on the components of affective and cognitive wellbeing supports the distinction between wellbeing components and their treatment as separate constructs. It also implies that, on average, hoping for happiness from positive events appears misplaced.

Limitations

A few general issues are worth discussing in large, longitudinal models and studies of this kind. Such studies preclude the use of the experience sampling method of assessing affective wellbeing which many consider the best method for assessing short term intra-individual variation in affective wellbeing. The fixed effects models exclude anyone who did not experience the event in the time window of interest. This means that in any particular event, such as marriage, average differences in subjective wellbeing between married people and unmarried people may be present, however these between-group differences will not be revealed by the fixed effects model which estimates within-subject changes in the sample of interest. As a result, these population estimates can reveal what to expect once an event has occurred, but cannot be used to predict whether an event such as marriage will increase or decrease wellbeing in any particular case. That is, the effects of marriage may be specific to the kinds of people who get married and should not be offered as evidence or a reason to get married.

We used an unbalanced panel, which means a slightly different set of individuals may contribute to the pre- and post-event coefficients (although there is considerable overlap). A balanced approach (Clark et al., 2008) only includes people with measurements before and after the event, which ensures the same cohort is followed over time. However, balancing reduces efficiency and risks inducing potential selection effects, so other researchers have taken a more liberal approach and included anyone with more than one consecutive observation, regardless of when those observations occurred (Frijters et al., 2011), which we follow in this study. In a sensitivity analysis we restricted the sample to a balanced panel observed pre- and post-event (see Balanced Models in Supplementary Materials) which did not materially change the overall results or inferences.

We also note some causes of potentially non-random measurement error inherent in any dynamic model of this sort. First, due to censoring issues we do not know at time $t=1$ if a life event occurred before that first year (e.g., 2002). Similarly, at time $t=T$ we do not know whether an event occurred after the final year (e.g., 2016). We do not expect this to significantly bias our estimates since many events occur infrequently and this only affects years close to the endpoints of our data. A similar issue arises in the case of missing life event information‚ either because the respondent did not complete that part of the questionnaire or because they are missing from the sample in a particular year. In both cases, we assumed no life event occurred in the missing year when constructing pre- and post-indicators. Again, we expect any bias to be small given that most life events are infrequent and more than 65 percent of people are responding year-to-year (see Table S2 in Supplementary Material). In a follow-up analysis (Uncontaminated Models in Supplementary Materials), we excluded from the sample any observations within three years of missing life event data to estimate an uncontaminated (as well as balanced) model. This means we only estimated effects for the years 2005–2012, and so after balancing and de-contamination this was our most restricted sample. As a result, our estimates became less precise and, while generally qualitatively similar to the main results, some effects became statistically insignificant (particularly for the positive events).

Maliepaar's PhD Thesis... Bisexual Rhapsody: On the everyday sexual identity negotiations of bisexual people in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and the productions of bisexual spaces

Bisexual Rhapsody: On the everyday sexual identity negotiations of bisexual people in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and the productions of bisexual spaces. Emiel Maliepaard. PhD Thesis, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen 2018. https://www.academia.edu/37885148/

My doctoral thesis: a collection of six interlinked articles on bisexuality in geography, bisexual citizenship, and empirical work on bisexuality, coming out, disclosure, communities and space in the Netherlands.

9.3 Findings & conclusions

I believe that this study reveals four important findings (1) participants do contest the

coming out imperative, (2) they want to disclose their bisexuality when it is relevant to

them, (3) people find it difficult to express their bisexuality in doings and sayings, and

(4) research participants often passively pass as heterosexual or gay/lesbian because their

doings, sayings, actions, and possible material and visual clues are being read in binary

terms.

As Schatzki (2002, 2008) frequently stresses, practices are not just the manifold of doings

and sayings but organised activities that are governed by a practical understanding,

explicit rules, some general understandings, and a teleoaffective structure. To understand

the coming out practice, it is important to focus on both the practical understanding and

the teleoaffective structure of this practice. The coming out practice is, like every other

practice, a normative practice, however it seems to have, according to the participants, a

very clear-cut and heteronormative build-up. Coming out is mainly a linguistic practice in

which people position themselves, through specific speech-acts, on the sexuality spectrum

as non-heterosexual. In fact, this positioning is understood as the final stage of developing

and accepting one’s sexual identity. At the same time, it also means confessing one’s nonheterosexuality towards heterosexual people and, in the case of people who are bisexual, pansexual, or otherwise non-monosexual, also towards lesbians and gay men (also McLean,

2007, 2008). Confessing implies a hierarchy and the one who needs to confess is lower in

the hierarchy as compared to the ones people are confessing to. This means that bisexuality

is understood as a marginalised (and perhaps inferior) sexual identity as compared to

heterosexuality (and homosexuality). This confessing can be observed in phrases such as

“I need to tell you something”. Finally, the coming out practice means making a big deal

from one’s sexuality – a complete emphasis on one’s sexual identity – whereas there are

different ways to express one’s bisexuality without making it a big deal (see also Wandrey

et al., 2015).

As stated in the introduction of this manuscript, the most important question that framed this

study is “how do bisexuals negotiate their bisexuality in everyday (social) spaces, practices,

and activities?” This research shows that the majority of the research participants contest the

coming out practice or, at least, do not want to participate in this heteronormative practice.

They prefer to disclose their bisexuality instead of actually coming out towards others. In a

recently published article I define disclosing bisexuality as “more or less spontaneously or

reactively expressing one’s bisexuality without confessing it and/or making one’s sexuality

a big deal” (Maliepaard, 2018b, p. 19), and, “I do not conceptualize disclosing one’s sexual

identity as a practice (…) but as an action that takes place while participating in everyday

practices” (Maliepaard, 2018b, p. 19).

When focusing on when and where people actually disclose their bisexuality – in essence,

answering the question which factors and contexts are important in the sexual identity

negotiations of bisexual people – the research participants argue that it needs to be relevant

at that particular point in time. This relevance means that disclosing one’s bisexuality needs

to serve a purpose; it is a means to serve one or more ends. Theodore Schatzki’s notion of

teleoaffectivity and his conceptualisation of conditions of life are fruitful to understanding

bisexual people’s action intelligibility, including their ‘choice’ to disclose or not disclose

their bisexuality. Teleoaffectivity, or individuals’ orientations towards ends and how things

matter, puts participants’ sexual identity negotiations in a different perspective as compared

to most studies on sexual identity management strategies and stigma management. It is not

sufficient to focus on rational decision-making processes. Researchers need to focus on the

whole spectrum of conditions of life: people’s state of beings that include moods, emotions,

stances, principles, attitudes, and actions. As concluded elsewhere:

“Expressing bisexuality manifests a number of life conditions which need to be understood as

ends such as the desire to be valued as a human being, seen as an honest person, accepted as

a friend, family member, or lover, better connecting with others, and sharing one’s life with

other people. We should not read these manifestations as causing one’s expressions but as

actualisations of relating with others in practices. In fact, it is remarkable that most participants, 

when reflecting on situations in which they disclosed their bisexual desire and/or identity name

that this disclosure was part of building a stronger connection with people” (Maliepaard, 2018b,

p. 16).

Similarly, as detailed in the same article, not disclosing one’s bisexuality manifests a

number of life conditions besides the notion of ‘not being relevant’: “not in the mood for

drama, not wanting to explain oneself, fearing negativity, uncertainty, others are not ready,

aware of heterosexism and binegativity, not appropriate et cetera” (Maliepaard, 2018b, p.

16). While stereotyping is often mentioned as the primary reason for people to not disclose

one’s bisexuality (e.g. McLean, 2007), this dissertation concludes that only focusing on

binegativity, stereotypes, and harm reduction provides a rather partial picture of people’s

‘choice’ to not reveal their bisexuality. Stereotyping does play a role in people’s sexual

identity negotiations, however, there are more factors in play. For instance, people often

mention that they do not disclose their bisexuality because it is not appropriate to discuss

sexuality and relationships in particular (working) practices or because sexuality is never a

topic during conversations with people they do not have a strong bond with; it is undesirable

to, out of the blue, reveal one’s bisexual identity, desire, attraction, fantasies, et cetera.

Furthermore, research participants experience difficulties in expressing their bisexuality

in doings, sayings, and material and visual clues. They are not aware of specific bisexual

behaviour or doings outside the bedroom. It has been noted in a few studies that bisexual

people suffer from the binary organisation of sex, gender, and sexuality in our contemporary

Western society as bisexual people and their doings, sayings, actions and more are interpreted

in binary ways (e.g. Yoshino, 1999). I believe that heteronormativity, mononormativity, and

compulsory monogamy, as three core discourses (or general understandings), play important

roles in the misinterpretation of bisexual people and their doings, sayings, actions, and

more (chapter three). Because the research participants do not often explicitly disclose their

bisexuality towards others, they are interpreted in binary ways: heterosexual by default and

gay or lesbian the moment they express same-sex desire, behaviour, intimacies, and more.

As shown in chapter five, people, thus, often passively pass as heterosexual, gay, or lesbian

in important parts of their everyday lives. Contrary to most studies, I do not understand

bisexual passing as a predominantly conscious strategy to prevent harm. Of course, people

may be scared of encountering binegativity, monosexism, and stereotyping, but it would be

wrong, as discussed before, to argue that these types of negativity are the main reason why

people pass as heterosexual or as gay/lesbian.

While passing is not necessarily a problem for the research participants, it does impact

people’s participation in practices that together constitute the organised bisexual community

in the Netherlands which are built on the conviction that being visible as bisexual is an

important aspect of living your live as a bisexual person. The emphasis of the Dutch 

organised bisexual community on being visible as bisexual individuals and as group

does not match the position of bisexuality in the lives of the research participants and the

everyday practices they are involved with. In chapter five, I show how Schatzki’s theory

of practice helps to understand how people relate with each other by participating in the

same practice and that not being involved in the same practice also has consequences for

relating with others. Bisexual participants find it difficult to relate with the Dutch organised

bisexual community and its members because they do not participate in the practices, e.g.

the bivisibility practice, that constitute this community.

As can be concluded from the different chapters and the above summary, the bisexual

research participants do not often disclose their bisexuality or come out towards others.

Explicit bisexual sayings, wordings, or phrases, but also doings, are mostly absent in most

everyday practices and spaces. There are, however, occasions on which people do disclose

their bisexuality – or their bisexual desire, fantasies, attraction, and/or behaviour – in

sayings. These situations can be best described as moments in which people talk about their

sexuality and/or relationships and give spaces a bisexual appearance. In these moments

it is relevant for people to talk about their bisexuality and these moments can last a few

seconds (brief disclosures) but may also have longer durations when people have more

extensive conversations about sexuality and/or relationships or other conversations in

which disclosing their bisexuality is relevant.

One of the main conclusions is, not surprisingly, that there are no spaces that are always

bisexual. Even participants’ houses or bedrooms may have no bisexual appearances because

of a variety of reasons. I initially proposed the term “pockets” to describe these bisexual

spaces to stress that these spaces are highly temporal, local, and often unplanned. Pockets,

however, may provide the impression that such spaces are isolated and not embedded in

everyday practices. To avoid confusion, and to better connect with existing literature in

the geographies of sexualities, the term “spaces with a bisexual appearance” is introduced

to identify bisexual spaces. This term also points to the idea that spaces have no natural

sexual coding but are constantly subject to both practices and individuals’ doings, sayings,

and actions. As such, it also contributes to further understandings of the sexualisation of

space as a research topic in the geographies of sexualities that goes beyond focusing on

people possessing certain sexual identities or the presence of a heteronormative discourse

that advocates that space is naturally heterosexual.

Told to cut back on her wide-ranging veggie buffets because it was unfair that students at other schools didn't have access to the unusually tasty offerings

From 2012... Lunch lady slammed for food that is 'too good.' The Local, Oct 6 2012. https://www.thelocal.se/20121006/43656

A talented head cook at a school in central Sweden has been told to stop baking fresh bread and to cut back on her wide-ranging veggie buffets because it was unfair that students at other schools didn't have access to the unusually tasty offerings.

Annica Eriksson, a lunch lady at school in Falun, was told that her cooking is just too good.

Pupils at the school have become accustomed to feasting on newly baked bread and an assortment of 15 vegetables at lunchtime, but now the good times are over.

The municipality has ordered Eriksson to bring it down a notch since other schools do not receive the same calibre of food - and that is "unfair".

Moreover, the food on offer at the school doesn't comply with the directives of a local healthy diet scheme which was initiated in 2011, according to the municipality.

"A menu has been developed... It is about making a collective effort on quality, to improve school meals overall and to try and ensure everyone does the same," Katarina Lindberg, head of the unit responsible for the school diet scheme, told the local Falukuriren newspaper.

However, Lindberg was not aware of Eriksson's extraordinary culinary efforts and how the decision to force her to cut back had prompted outrage among students and parents.

"It has been claimed that we have been spoiled and that it's about time we do as everyone else," Eriksson said.

She insisted, however, that her creative cooking has not added to the municipality's expenses.

"I have not had any complaints," she told the paper.

Eriksson added that she sees it as her job to ensure that the pupils are offered several alternatives at meal times.

The food on offer does not always suit all pupils, she explained, and therefore she makes sure there are plenty of vegetables to choose from as well as proteins in the form of chicken, shrimp, or beef patties.

From now on, the school's vegetable buffet will be halved in size and Eriksson's handmade loafs will be replaced with store-bought bread.

Her traditional Easter and Christmas smörgåsbords may also be under threat.

Parents and pupils alike find the municipality's orders distasteful.

Fourth-graders at the school have even launched a petition in protest against the decision to put a lid on Eriksson's passion for cooking.

The Local/nr

Twin Studies: Work incapacity as the total proportion of potential workdays lost due to sickness absence, rehabilitation and disability benefits

A Life Course Study of Genetic and Environmental Influences on Work Incapacity. Karoline B. Seglem et al. Twin Research and Human Genetics, December 26 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/thg.2019.116

Abstract: Work incapacity is a major public health challenge and an economic burden to both society and individuals. Understanding the underlying causes is becoming ever more relevant as many countries face an aging workforce. We examined stability and change in genetic and environmental factors influencing work incapacity from age 18 until retirement, and sex differences in these effects. The large population-based sample comprised information from 28,759 twins followed for up to 23 years combined with high-quality national registry data. We measured work incapacity as the total proportion of potential workdays lost due to sickness absence, rehabilitation and disability benefits. Structural equation modeling with twin data indicated moderate genetic influences on work incapacity throughout life in both men and women, with a high degree of genetic stability from young to old adulthood. Environmental influences were mainly age-specific. Our results indicate that largely the same genetic factors influence individual differences in work incapacity throughout young, middle and older adulthood, despite major differences in degree of work incapacity and probable underlying medical causes.

Animals may sort among groups based on their personalities; group size can predict its personality composition in some species due to differential suitability of a personality for groups of certain sizes

Variation in neophobia among cliff swallows at different colonies. Stacey L. Hannebaum ,Gigi S. Wagnon,Charles R. Brown. PLOS One, December 23, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226886

Abstract: Animal groups often represent nonrandom subsets of individuals, and increasing evidence indicates that individuals may sort among groups based on their personalities. The size of a group can predict its personality composition in some species due to differential suitability of a personality for groups of certain sizes, and the group itself may function more effectively if particular personality types are present. We quantified cliff swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) behavioral measures using linear and generalized linear mixed models to identify whether they: (1) varied among individuals within colonies and among colonies, (2) were related to reproductive success, and (3) predicted levels of parental care. Significant among-individual and among-colony site variation in a cliff swallow’s latency to enter its nest when presented with a novel stimulus was revealed. We also found significant among-individual variation in the number of attacks directed toward a novel stimulus at the nest and in the response to broadcast of a cliff swallow alarm call recording, but among site variation in these measures was not significant. We did not find evidence for behavioral syndromes linking the personalities measured. Differences among individuals in latency to enter the nest and the number of attacks were not significantly related to reproductive success or to the extent to which birds fed their nestlings. However, extent of nestling feeding was significantly predicted by the number of mist net captures. The limited evidence in general of systematic variation in the behavior we measured among cliff swallow colonies may reflect the different and sometimes opposing selection pressures on behavior in different social environments. Future work should perhaps examine variation in other behavioral traits, such as foraging, in cliff swallow colonies of different sizes.

Discussion

Our study revealed significant among-individual and among-colony site variation in a cliff swallow’s latency to enter its nest when presented with a novel stimulus. We also found significant among-individual variation in the number of attacks directed toward a novel stimulus at the nest and in the response to broadcast of cliff swallow alarm call recordings, but among site variation in these measures was not significant. The behavioral measures were not correlated with one another or with the number of times an individual was captured by mist net. Differences among individuals in latency to enter the nest and the number of attacks were not significantly related to reproductive success or to the extent to which birds fed their nestlings. However, extent of nestling feeding was significantly predicted by the number of mist net captures, with pairs that were captured more on average also making more frequent food deliveries to the nest.

Measures and correlates of personality

Despite evidence for relatively high repeatability in both behavioral measures that involved a reaction to a novel stimulus, we did not find support for a behavioral syndrome [5]. This suggests that Latency to enter nest and Number of attacks are independent facets of personality [55, 65, 66]. There is no consensus on which commonly identified personality axes are thought to be measured by behavioral tests involving novel objects or novel environments: some studies use novelty tests to measure personality along the avoidance-exploration axis [22, 67, 68], whereas others use novelty tests to measure personality along the shy-bold axis [65, 69–71]. In the case of novel item tests, the context in which the novel item is introduced may cause further inconsistencies in measured behaviors. For example, coyotes (Canis latrans) showed little avoidance toward a novel stimulus in unfamiliar surroundings but showed avoidance and neophobic reactions toward the same stimuli in familiar surroundings [35]. In our study, the novel stimulus was added to the focal bird’s own nest, a very familiar environment for the bird, and thus strong behavioral responses were expected. In this context, Latency to enter nest may be a measure of personality along the exploration-avoidance axis as the bird determines whether the novel stimulus is a threat, whereas Number of attacks may be a measure of personality along the shy-bold axis as the bird risks injury while responding to the novel stimulus. Number of attacks might alternatively reflect defensive aggression, which describes motor patterns exhibited by a socially aggressive animal but typically directed at a predator or threatening situation rather than a conspecific individual [72]. Regardless of which personality axes are represented, we can conclude that our measured behaviors are independent.

We were surprised that neither Latency to enter nest or Number of attacks were correlated with Number of captures, because the mist net, although perhaps less conspicuous, seemingly also acts as a novel stimulus or possibly a threat, at least after first capture (see [73]). After several successive days of netting at a colony site, cliff swallows learn to avoid mist nets, possibly because of the trauma associated with capture [73]. Active North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) were trapped significantly more frequently than less active squirrels [74]. Thus, Number of captures may be a measure of personality known as activity [22], which tends to generally describe an animal’s propensity to move.

Personality can affect both reproductive success and survival in some species [74–76, 60]. A meta-analysis found that exploration had a positive effect on survival and that boldness had a positive effect on reproductive success but a negative effect on survival [77]. The lack of an association in our study between Reproductive success and Latency to enter nest (possibly a measure of exploration) and Number of attacks (possibly a measure of boldness) may have been influenced by our sample size which was relatively small for a demographic study and may have reduced our ability to find a relationship between neophobia measures and reproductive success. For example, slight differences in fitness components (such as annual reproductive success), while evolutionarily significant over the long term, may often be indistinguishable empirically from null models due to a lack of power [78].

In some animals, more explorative individuals find food sources faster than less explorative individuals [79], and fast-exploration has been linked to increased nestling feeding rates and increased reproductive success [80]. However, Latency to enter nest was not a predictor of the number of food deliveries to a nest in cliff swallows. This lack of a relationship, as well as that for Number of attacks, may have resulted from pooling food deliveries by both parents to a nest and/or by using combined personality scores of both parents. This may have masked sex-differences in parental provisioning related to personality. For example, Mutzel et al. [80] found that fast-exploring female Eurasian blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) fed their offspring at higher rates, whereas exploratory personality of males was unrelated to nestling feeding rate. We found evidence in cliff swallows for a relationship between mean Number of captures and the number of parental food deliveries to a nest. Number of captures may be a measure of an individual’s activity personality such that individuals captured more often in mist nets are those that are most active near the nest. This may explain why these birds are also the ones that visit their nest more frequently with food if they are not traveling as far from the nest during foraging.

Personality and coloniality

We did not find significant repeatability at the colony-site level for Number of attacks, Number of captures, or Alarm call response, suggesting that cliff swallows may not sort among colonies based on these behavioral measures. Both the rank order of neophobia trials and the rank order of alarm call trials were significant covariates, suggesting habituation to the novel stimulus and the alarm call play back [81]. Such habituation could reduce our ability to detect repeatable behavior at the colony-site level should habituation lead to reduced variability in the measured behavior across colonies.

The significant repeatability at the colony-site level for Latency to enter nest suggests that cliff swallows may sort into colonies based on this measure of personality. Individuals at the much larger CR-1 and Junkyard colonies were generally quicker to enter their nests when presented with a novel stimulus than individuals at the smaller McDougals colonies (Table 1, Fig 3). Our result contrasts with that of Dardenne et al. [12], who found higher levels of neophobia among barn swallows in larger colonies. They suggested that neophobic barn swallows may benefit from occupying a large colony where they can rely on other, more explorative individuals to lead them to food (c.f. [82]). If this scenario applies to cliff swallows, we would expect neophobic individuals to make fewer food deliveries, as they must wait to be led to food; however, we observed more frequent feeding visits at the small McDougals colonies compared to the larger colonies at CR-1 and Junkyard.

Increased predation odds at small versus large colonies may explain why more neophobic cliff swallows were found at the McDougals site. It is widely believed that predation risk of an individual is decreased when it occupies a large group [23–27, 83]. Without the safety in numbers afforded by large groups, animals in small groups may need to be more cautious to minimize predation risk, possibly explaining the increased neophobia in smaller cliff swallow colonies.

In great tits (Parus major), slow-exploring (neophobic) individuals were less aggressive toward conspecifics whereas fast-exploring individuals were more aggressive [84]. This relationship may also explain why cliff swallow individuals tended to be more neophobic at the smaller colony site. Not only were the CR-1 and Junkyard colonies much larger in size than at McDougals, but the nests at the larger colonies were also more densely packed (Fig 1), making avoidance of social interactions among neighboring individuals more difficult. A socially non-aggressive individual would be at a disadvantage in such a crowded colony where it would frequently need to fend off intruding neighbors [37]. Thus, there may be an advantage for neophobic individuals to choose small colonies where there is less opportunity for frequent social interaction.

Although cliff swallows might sort into different colony sites based on where they fall within the exploration-avoidance personality axis (as measured by Latency to enter nest), we cannot rule out that the observed behavioral variation among sites was instead shaped by the social environment after birds had already settled within a colony [85]. Behavioral plasticity shaped by changes in the social environment has been described in several birds [86–92], and most show a decrease in individual neophobia when in a group setting. King, Williams, and Mettke-Hofmann [93] found that individual Gouldian finches (Erythrura gouldiae) adjusted their boldness behavior to be more similar to that of their partner. We did not make comparisons of neophobia at the partner level over time, but on several occasions, a neophobia trial at the McDougals colony site elicited an almost colony-wide response, with several colony members from nearby nests hovering in front of the focal nest to inspect the novel stimulus. This collective response often occurred when the nest resident alarm-called in response to the piece of marking tape, and was not observed at the larger CR-1 or Junkyard colony sites. Bystanders at the McDougals site were possibly influenced by the alarm-calling (neophobic) nest resident, making bystanders more aware of the stimulus and potentially less likely to respond later when their own nests were tested. However, if this were the case, we should have seen overall shorter latencies to enter nest at the McDougals site compared to other sites.

In the only other study relating personality to colony size in cliff swallows, Roche and Brown [14] found some evidence for among-colony variation in vigilance behavior, but there was no clear relationship between vigilance level and colony size per se. While higher levels of neophobia in smaller colonies (this study) might lead to greater vigilance at those sites, vigilance can also reflect awareness of neighbors and the need to be alert to defend one’s nest from conspecifics, of which there are more in larger colonies. Possibly for this reason no systematic relationship between vigilance and colony size was detected [14].

We acknowledge some limitations to the present study. For example, the removal of ectoparasites, while necessary to increase the number of completed behavioral observations because of high nest failure rates due to swallow bug parasitism [37], might have altered the natural behavior of individuals in unknown ways. Perhaps the time necessary for parents to forage to provision offspring was reduced when nests were freed from parasitism [94, 95]. The laborious nature of these observations precluded conducting them at more colony sites, and thus we could not rigorously test the effect of colony size on individual behavior. However, we selected colony sites that were quite different in size while at the same time similar in other ways (e.g., all were in box-shaped concrete culverts; Fig 1), increasing the likelihood that observed differences among sites were related to colony size. Finally, given the highly social nature of cliff swallows, neophobia tests could not be conducted in isolation. As such, individuals may have seen the novel stimulus being presented at another nest nearby, and this may have happened more often than the protocol assumed. We know this occurred repeatedly at the McDougals site. Such unintended exposure (and resulting habituation) would have made us less likely to detect an effect of the novel stimulus, but we found the opposite result at McDougals, where neophobia was greater among residents.

Conclusions

We were surprised to find only limited evidence in general of systematic variation in behavioral measures of neophobia and risk-taking among cliff swallows in different colonies. This may reflect the divergent and sometimes opposing selection pressures on behavior in different social environments. For example, bold (less neophobic) individuals could benefit in a larger colony by not fleeing at every alarm call and thus not frequently leaving their nest unattended and susceptible to theft of nesting material, egg loss, or brood parasitism from their many conspecific neighbors [37]. However, large colonies are also attacked by predators more often, to a degree that per capita predation risk is greatest in the very largest colonies [37]. Thus, bold individuals in a large colony, while minimizing interference from neighbors by not consistently reacting to alarm calls, might thus have a higher overall risk of predation. The result would be no net advantage for bold versus shy individuals in colonies of different sizes, and thus potentially no selection for bold or shy personalities in the first place. Future work should perhaps examine variation in other behavioral traits, such as foraging, in cliff swallow colonies of different sizes.

We find that meta-analytic effect sizes are significantly different from replication effect sizes; the differences are systematic & m-a effect sizes are almost three times as large as replication effect sizes

Comparing meta-analyses and preregistered multiple-laboratory replication projects. Amanda Kvarven, Eirik Strømland & Magnus Johannesson. Nature Human Behaviour, December 23 2019. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0787-z

Abstract: Many researchers rely on meta-analysis to summarize research evidence. However, there is a concern that publication bias and selective reporting may lead to biased meta-analytic effect sizes. We compare the results of meta-analyses to large-scale preregistered replications in psychology carried out at multiple laboratories. The multiple-laboratory replications provide precisely estimated effect sizes that do not suffer from publication bias or selective reporting. We searched the literature and identified 15 meta-analyses on the same topics as multiple-laboratory replications. We find that meta-analytic effect sizes are significantly different from replication effect sizes for 12 out of the 15 meta-replication pairs. These differences are systematic and, on average, meta-analytic effect sizes are almost three times as large as replication effect sizes. We also implement three methods of correcting meta-analysis for bias, but these methods do not substantively improve the meta-analytic results.

From the open version, OSF.io (17 studies then, 15 studies in the final version):

Discussion

To summarize our findings, we find that there is a significant difference between the metaanalytic effect size and the replication effect size for 12 of the 17 studies (70.6%), and
suggestive evidence for a difference in two additional studies. These differences are systematic
– the meta-analytic effect size is larger than the replication effect for all these studies- and on
average for all the 17 studies the estimated effect sizes are about 3 times as large in the metaanalyses. Interestingly, the relative difference in estimated effect sizes is of at least the same
magnitude as that observed between replications and original studies in the RP:P and other
similar systematic replication projects5,6,10. Publication bias and selective reporting in original
studies has been suggested as possible reasons for the low reproducibility in RP:P and other
replication projects, and our results suggest that these biases are not eliminated by the use of
meta-analysis.
To test further whether meta-analyses reduce the influence of publication bias or
selective reporting, we compare the average unweighted effect size of the original studies to the
meta-analyses. We were able to obtain effect sizes of the original studies converted to Cohen’s
D for all original studies except one where the standard deviation was unavailable.41 We were
additionally able to compute a valid standard error for 14 out of 17 original studies. The average
unweighted effect size of these 14 original studies is 0.561, which is about 42% higher than the
average unweighted effect size of 0.395 of the same 14 studies in the meta-analyses. These
point estimates are consistent with meta-analyses reducing the effect sizes estimated in original
studies somewhat, and in formal meta-analytic models the estimated difference between the
original effect and the summary effect in the meta-analysis varies between 0.089 and 0.166.
These estimated differences are not statistically significant but suggestive of a difference in all
three cases using our criterion for statistical significance. (see Supplementary Table 3 for
details). Further work on larger samples are needed to more conclusively test if meta-analytic
effect sizes differ from original effect sizes.
In a previous related study in medicine, 12 large randomized, controlled trials published
in four leading medical journals were compared to 19 meta-analyses published previously on
the same topics.24 They compared several clinical outcomes between the studies and found a
significant difference between the meta-analyses and the large clinical trials for 12% of the
comparisons. They did not provide any results for the pooled overall difference between metaanalyses and large clinical trials, but from graphically inspecting the results there does not
appear to be a sizeable systematic difference. Those previous results for medicine are thus
different from our findings. This could reflect a genuine difference between psychology and
medicine, but it could also reflect that even large clinical trials in medicine are subject to
selective reporting or publication bias or that large clinical trials with null results are published
in less prestigious journals.
Although we believe the most plausible interpretation of our results is that metaanalyses overestimate effect sizes on average in our sample of studies, there are other possible
explanations. In testing a specific scientific hypothesis in an experiment there can be
heterogeneity in the true effect size due to several sources. The true effect size can vary between
different populations (sample heterogeneity) and the true effect size can vary between different
experimental designs to test the hypothesis (design heterogeneity). If the exact statistical test
used or the inclusion/exclusion criteria of observations included in the analysis differ, this will
yield a third source of heterogeneity in estimated effect sizes (test heterogeneity). In the
multiple lab replications included in our study the design and statistical tests used is held
constant across the labs, whereas the samples vary across labs. The effect sizes across labs will
therefore vary due to sample heterogeneity, but not due to design or test heterogeneity. In the
meta-analyses the effect sizes can vary across the included studies due to sample, design- and
test heterogeneity. Sample, design or test heterogeneity could potentially explain our results.
For sample heterogeneity to explain our results, the replications need to have been
conducted in samples with on average lower true effect sizes than the samples included in the
studies in the meta-analyses. We find this explanation for our results implausible. The Many
Labs studies estimate the sample heterogeneity and only find small or moderate heterogeneity
in effect sizes7-9
. In the recent Many Labs 2 study the average heterogeneity measured as the
standard deviation in the true effect size across labs (Tau) was 0.048
. This can be compared to
the measured difference in meta-analytic and replication effect sizes in our study of 0.232-0.28
for the three methods.
For design or test heterogeneity to explain our results it must be the case that replication
studies select experimental designs or tests producing lower true effect sizes than the average
design and test included to test the same hypotheses in meta-analyses. For this to explain our
results the design and test heterogeneity in meta-analyses would have to be substantial and the
“replicator selection” of weak designs needs to be strong. This potential explanation of our
results would imply a high correlation between design and test heterogeneity in the metaanalysis and the observed difference in the meta-analytic and replication effect sizes; as a larger
design and test heterogeneity increases the scope for “replicator selection”. To further shed
some light on this possibility we were able to obtain information about the standard deviation
in true effect sizes across studies (Tau) for ten of the meta-analyses in our sample; Tau was
reported directly for two of these meta-analyses and sufficient information was provided in the
other eight meta-analyses so that we could estimate Tau. The mean Tau was 0.30 in these ten
meta-analyses with a range from 0.00 to 0.735. This is likely to be an upper bound on the design
and test heterogeneity as the estimated Tau also includes sample heterogeneity. While this is
consistent with a sizeable average design and test heterogeneity in the meta-analyses, it also
needs to be coupled with strong “replicator selection” to explain our results. To test for this, we
estimated the correlation between the Tau of these ten meta-analyses and the difference in the
meta-analytic and replication effect sizes. The Spearman correlation was -0.1879 (p=0.6032)
and the Pearson correlation was -0.3920 (p=0.2626), showing no sign of the observed
differences in effect sizes to be related to the scope for “replicator selection”. In fact, the
estimated correlation is in the opposite direction than the direction predicted by the “replicator
selection” mechanism. This tentative finding departs from a recent meta-research paper that
attributes reproducibility failures in Psychology to heterogeneity in the underlying effect
sizes.25Further work with larger samples is needed on this to more rigorously test for “replicator
selection”. It should also be noted that the pooled replication rate across Many Labs 1-3 is
53%, which is in line with the replication rate observed in three large scale systematic
replication project that should not be prone to “replicator selection” (the Reproducibility
Project: Psychology10, the Experimental Economics Replication Project5 and the Social
Sciences Replication project6
). This suggests no substantial “replicator selection” in the Many
Labs studies that form the majority of our sample.
Another caveat about our results concerns the representativity of our sample. The
inclusion of studies was limited by the number of pre-registered multiple labs replications
carried out so far, and for which of these studies we could find a matching meta-analysis. Our
sample of 17 studies should thus not be viewed as being representative of meta-analysis in
psychology or in other fields. In particular, the relative effect between the original studies and
replication studies for the sample of studies included in our analysis is somewhat larger than
the one observed in previous replication projects5,6,10 – indicating that our sample could be a
select sample of psychological studies where selective reporting is particularly prominent. In
the future the number of studies using our methodology can be extended as more pre-registered
multiple labs replications become available and as the number of meta-analyses continue to
increase. We also encourage others to test out our methodology for evaluating meta-analyses
on an independent sample of studies.
We conclude that meta-analyses produce substantially larger effect sizes than
replication studies in our sample. This difference is largest for replication studies that fail to
reject the null hypothesis, which is in line with recent arguments about a high false positive rate
of meta-analyses in the behavioral sciences20. Our findings suggest that meta-analyses is
ineffective in fully adjusting inflated effect sizes for publication bias and selective reporting. A
potentially effective policy for reducing publication bias and selective reporting is preregistering analysis plans prior to data collection. There is currently a strong trend towards
increased pre-registration in psychology22. This has the potential to increase both the credibility
of original studies, but also of meta-analyses, making meta-analysis a more valuable tool for
aggregating research results. Future meta-analyses may thus produce effect sizes that are closer
to the effect sizes in replication studies.

Religion quantified as affiliation, but not religiosity, was related to negative migrant attitudes; Muslims have more negative attitudes toward migrants than Christians

Religion and Prejudice Toward Immigrants and Refugees: A Meta-Analytic Review. Christine Deslandes & Joel R. Anderson. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, Volume 29, 2019 - Issue 2, Feb 15 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2019.1570814

ABSTRACT: Religion is often a driving force in negative attitudes; however, in the specific case of migrant-based attitudes, research has produced conflicting findings. That is, religion can paradoxically facilitate either tolerance or intolerance toward this group. In light of these inconsistent findings, we conducted a meta-analytic review to estimate the effect size of this relationship with two major aims—first, to explore differences as a function of how religion was operationalised, and second, to explore differences in the target migrant-type (e.g., differences in religion-based attitudes toward immigrants and refugees/asylum seekers). Our search strategy was applied to PsycINFO, EBSCO Psychology and Behavioural Sciences Collection, Web of Science, PsycEXTRA, and ProQuest Central for peer-reviewed English language studies and made calls for unpublished data through relevant professional bodies. This search strategy yielded 37 records (including 43 studies; N = 472,688). Religion was quantified in two ways: either as categorical religious affiliations (k = 60) or as individual differences in self-reported religiosity (k = 30). The meta-analyses revealed that religion quantified as affiliation, but not religiosity, was related to negative migrant attitudes. Specifically, religiously affiliated samples report more negative attitudes than nonreligious affiliated samples, and this effect was often stronger when the target groups were refugees rather than immigrants. In addition, analyses revealed that Muslims have more negative attitudes toward migrants than Christians. Religiosity was unrelated to negative attitudes. These findings are discussed in light of rising antimigrant attitudes.

Check also Cowling, Misha M., Joel Anderson, and Rose Ferguson. 2019. “Prejudice-relevant Correlates of Attitudes Towards Refugees: A Meta-analysis.” OSF Preprints. January 16. doi:10.1093/jrs/fey062

Abstract: This paper meta-analyses the available data on attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers, with the aim of estimating effect sizes for the relationships between these attitudes and prejudice-relevant correlates. Seventy studies (Ntotal = 13,720) were located using systematic database searches and calls for unpublished data. In the case of demographic factors, being male, religious, nationally identified, politically conservative, and less educated were associated with negative attitudes (Fisher’s zs = 0.11, 0.17, 0.18, 0.21, & -0.16, respectively). For ideological factors, increases in right-wing authoritarianism and socialdominance orientations correlated with negative attitudes, while the endorsement of macro (but not micro) justice principles were associated with positive attitudes (Fisher’s zs = 0.50, 0.50, -0.29, & 0.00 respectively). Perceptions of refugees as symbolic and realistic threats were the strongest correlates of negative attitudes (Fisher’s zs = 0.98, & 1.11, respectively). These findings have contributed to the growing body of knowledge that endeavors to understand the antecedents of refugee-specific prejudice, and are discussed in light of the global refugee crisis. 

In large part, the wish to change personality did not predict actual change in the desired direction; & desired increases in Extraversion, Agreeableness & Conscientiousness corresponded with decreases

From Desire to Development? A Multi-Sample, Idiographic Examination of Volitional Personality Change. Erica Baransk et al. Journal of Research in Personality, December 26 2019, 103910. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.103910

Highlights
• In large part, individuals’ volitional personality change desires did not predict actual change in the desired direction.
• Desired increases in Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness corresponded with decreases in corresponding traits.
• Participants perceived more change than actually occurred.
• Decreases in Emotional Stability predicted perceptions of personality change.

Abstract: Using an idiographic-nomothetic methodology, we assessed individuals’ ability to change their personality traits without therapeutic or experimental involvement. Participants from internet and college populations completed trait measures and reported current personality change desires. Self-reported traits as well as perceptions of trait change were collected after 1-year (Internet) and 6-months (College). In large part, volitional personality change desires did not predict actual change. When desires did predict change, (a) desired increases in Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness corresponded with decreases in corresponding traits, (b) participants perceived more change than actually occurred, and (c) decreases in Emotional Stability predicted perceptions of personality change. Results illustrate the difficulty in purposefully changing one’s traits when left to one’s own devices.

Keywords: Volitional personality changeIdiographic-nomotheticPersonality development


From Baranski's 2018 PhD Thesis https://escholarship.org/content/qt6pk2h81f/qt6pk2h81f.pdf?t=pexwxu:

Volitional personality change across 58 countries

First, on average across 58 countries, 61.38% participants report that they are
currently trying to change an aspect of their personalities. The sheer number of people
around the world that are trying to accomplish personality change goals is in and of itself
notable. Indeed only eight countries had percentages lower than 50%. Nevertheless, there
was substantial variation across countries in the percentage of individuals who were
attempting this change. Specifically, country proportion of volitional personality change
attempts ranged from 84.75% (Indonesia) to 28.07% (Israel).
In an attempt to explain this variation, I first related country-level variables to
countries’ proportion of volitional personality change. In countries with high employment
rates, a higher proportion of individuals report trying to change their personalities. It may
be the case that workplace demands inspire individuals to attempt to improve their
personalities in ways that would be beneficial to workplace success. In support of this
possibility, previous research in lifespan development indicates success in the workforce
(e.g., being detailed oriented and dependable) is related to high levels of
conscientiousness (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Tett & Burnett, 2003). It may be the case,
therefore, that individuals beginning a new job or adding new responsibilities to an
existing position may be intentionally increasing levels of conscientiousness to meet their
new workplace demands. Also, low levels of country-level subjective health was related
to high proportions of volitional personality change. One possible explanation for this
relationship is that individuals residing in countries with low averages of self-reported
health might be inspired to work towards feeling better in all areas of their lives. In other
words, in an attempt to improve low wellbeing evidenced by their subjective health
ratings, individuals may seek to be more emotionally stable (to improve psychological
well-being) or conscientious (to improve self-care).
I next investigated what predicted volitional personality change on the individual
level. Across the majority of countries, individuals with high levels of negative
emotionality and its facets (i.e., anxiety, depression and emotionality) and low levels of
both subjective and interdependent happiness tended to report currently trying to change
an aspect of their personalities. There was also a trend for individuals high in openness
(driven by intellect) to also report volitional personality change, albeit less consistently
across countries. These results imply that individuals who have negative emotions yet are
highly intellectual tend to want to change an aspect of their personalities. In other words,
individuals who are thinking deeply about their own negative personality traits or general
wellbeing, tend to be report changing something about their personalities.
 The aforementioned findings cue us in to who is trying to change their
personalities around the world. The next question to examine, then, is what exactly it is
people want to change. Similar to individuals across US states, the majority of
participants from our international sample indicated that they were trying to be more
emotionally stable, conscientious, extraverted and agreeable. Again replicating analyses
from our US sample, facet level analyses revealed that a proportion of responses that fell
in to each category, some categories varied more than others. For instance, the degree of
variation for increased emotional stability was nearly a fourth of that for increased
extraversion. Indeed, the lowest proportion of individuals with an volitional personality
attempt to increase emotional stability is 14.55% (Hong Kong), whereas the lowest
proportion for attempts to increase extraversion across countries was 3.37% (Croatia).
The latter finding may be explained by already high levels of extraversion for Croatian
participants – who had among the highest levels of this trait relative to the other countries
included in the analyses.
 Finally, I assessed the relationship between current personality traits and specific
volitional personality change attempts. For extraversion, agreeableness,
conscientiousness and negative emotionality, there were strong relationships between
current trait levels and corresponding volitional personality change traits. For instance,
individuals with low levels of extraversion tended to report that they were currently
trying to increase levels of extraversion (driven by attempts to increase levels of
sociability). Like analyses across US states, these patterns did not vary across countries.
The one exception, however, was negative emotionality which did vary in its relationship
to attempts to increase emotional stability across countries. Indeed, looking at these
relationships by country reveals that in some countries there is a positive relationship
between current levels of negative emotionality and the attempt to increase emotional
stability, and in others there is a strong positive relationship. For example, in Slovakia,
those who reported a current attempt to increase emotional stability tended to have low
levels of negative emotionality, whereas in New Zealand, individuals who report trying to
increase levels of emotional stability tend to be high in negative emotionality. It seems to
be the case that in some countries, negative emotionality prompts volitional personality
change in the same way it does with other traits (e.g., high negative emotionality
prompting attempts to be more emotionally stable), yet in others, low levels of negative
emotionality prompts individuals to be even more emotionally stable.

Sports: Tendency to attribute personal success to internal factors & personal failure to external ones, & a tendency to attribute team success to factors within the team & failure to factors outside the team

Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Self-Serving Attribution Biases in the Competitive Context of Organized Sport, Mark S. Allen et al. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, December 25, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219893995

Abstract: This meta-analysis explored the magnitude of self-serving attribution biases for real-world athletic outcomes. A comprehensive literature search identified 69 studies (160 effect sizes; 10,515 athletes) that were eligible for inclusion. Inverse-variance weighted random-effects meta-analysis showed that sport performers have a tendency to attribute personal success to internal factors and personal failure to external factors (k = 40, standardized mean difference [SMD] = 0.62), a tendency to attribute team success to factors within the team and team failure to factors outside the team (k = 23, SMD = 0.63), and a tendency to claim more personal responsibility for team success and less personal responsibility for team failure (k = 4, SMD = 0.28). There was some publication bias and heterogeneity in computed averages. Random effects meta-regression identified sample sex, performance level, and world-region as important moderators of pooled mean effects. These findings provide a foundation for theoretical development of self-serving tendencies in real-world settings.

Keywords: group processes, judgment, meta-regression, self-serving bias, sport psychology

What makes a good liar? The relationship between cognitive and personality assessments’ and lying ability using traditional and strategic interview approaches

Atkinson, Dominick Joseph, "What makes a good liar? The relationship between cognitive and personality assessments’ and lying ability using traditional and strategic interview approaches" (2019). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 17392. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/17392

ABSTRACT: Over the past several decades, scholars have sought to better understand and refine the process of detecting deception (see Vrij, 2015). However, considerably less research has focused on identifying the characteristics and abilities of effective liars. The purpose of the present project was to begin to examine individual differences in lying ability and identify skills and traits of more successful liars. Participants in this study lied or told the truth under various conditions and then naïve observers judged the veracity of those statements. Overall, participants did not demonstrate good calibration between confidence in their ability and performance on the task. Additionally, some individual difference measures (e.g., working memory capacity, task switching ability, and Machiavellianism) were found to be related to the ability to lie well while others (e.g., inhibitory control, narcissism, and psychopathy) were not. Additionally, good liars were not affected by new strategic interview approaches (e.g., reverse order recall) as performance during control phases of interviews was related to performance during strategic phases. The relationships between confidence, ability, personality traits, cognitive abilities, and strategic interviewing approaches was examined.

Keywords: interview, lying, deception, individual differences



APPENDIX B: MACHIAVELLIANISM PERSONALITY SCALE
Responses are on a 5 point Likert scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree).

1. I believe that lying is necessary to maintain a competitive advantage over others (A)
2. The only good reason to talk to others is to get information that I can use to my own benefit (A)
3. I am willing to be unethical if I believe it will help me succeed (A)
4. I am willing to sabotage the efforts of other people if they threaten my own goals (A)
5. I would cheat if there was a low chance of getting caught (A)
6. I like to give the orders in interpersonal situations (DC)
7. I enjoy having control over other people (DC)
8. I enjoy being able to control the situation (DC)
9. Status is a good sign of success in life (DS)
10. Accumulating wealth is an important goal for me (DS)
11. I want to be rich and powerful someday (DS)
12. People are only motivated by personal gain (DO)
13. I dislike committing to groups because I don’t trust others (DO)
14. Team members backstab each other all the time to get ahead (DO)
15. If I show any weakness at work, other people will take advantage of it (DO)
16. Other people are always planning ways to take advantage of the situation at my expense (D)

Subscales: A: Amorality, DC: Desire for Control, DS: Desire for Status, DO: Distrust of Others.


APPENDIX C: NARCISSISTIC GRANDIOSITY SCALE Narcissistic Grandiosity Scale (Crowe et al. 2016) Rate yourself on the following adjectives on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 9 (extremely)

1. Perfect
2. Extraordinary
3. Superior
4. Heroic
5. Omnipotent
6. Unrivalled
7. Authoritative
8. Glorious
9. Prestigious
10. Acclaimed
11. Prominent
12. High-Status
13. Brilliant
14. Dominant
15. Envied
16. Powerful


APPENDIX D: TRIARCHIC PSYCHOPATHY MEASURE (Patrick, Fowles, & Krueger, 2009)
This questionnaire contains statements that different people might use to describe themselves. For each statement, select the choice that describes you best. There are no right or wrong answers; just choose the answer that best describes you (Items are responded to on a 4-point Likert scale).

1. I’m optimistic more often than not.
2. How other people feel is important to me.
3. I often act on immediate needs.
4. I have no strong desire to parachute out of an airplane.
5. I’ve often missed things I promised to attend.
6. I would enjoy being in a high-speed chase.
7. I am well equipped to deal with stress.
8. I don’t mind if someone I dislike gets hurt.
9. My impulsive decisions have caused problems with loved ones.
10. I get scared easily.
11. I sympathize with others’ problems.
12. I have missed work without bothering to call in.
13. I’m a born leader.
14. I enjoy of good physical fight.
15. I jump into things without thinking.
16. I have a hard time making things turn out the way that I want.
17. I return insults.
18. I’ve gotten in trouble because I missed too much school.
19. I have a knack for influencing people.
20. It doesn’t bother me to see someone else in pain.
21. I have good control over myself.
22. I function well in new situations, even when unprepared.
23. I enjoy pushing people around sometimes.
24. I have taken money from someone’s purse or wallet without asking.
25. I don’t’ think of myself as talented.
26. I taunt people just to stir things up.
27. People often abuse my trust.
28. I’m afraid of far fewer things than most people.
29. I don’t any point in worrying if what I do hurts someone else.
30. I keep appointments that I make.
31. I often get bored quickly and lose interest.
32. I can get over things that would traumatize others.
33. I am sensitive to the feelings of others.
34. I have conned people to get money from them.
35. It worries me to go into an unfamiliar situation without knowing all the details.
36. I don’t have much sympathy for people.
37. I get in trouble for not considering the consequences of my actions.
38. I can convince people to do what I want.
39. For me, honesty really is the best policy.
40. I’ve injured people to see them in pain.
41. I don’t like to take the lead in groups.
42. I sometimes insult people on purpose to get a reaction from them.
43. I have taken items from a store without paying for them.
44. It’s easy to embarrass me.
45. Things are more fun if a little danger is involved.
46. I have a hard time waiting patiently for things I want.
47. I stay away from physical danger as much as I can.
48. I don’t care much if what I do hurts others.
49. I have lost a friend because of irresponsible things I’ve done.
50. I don’t stack up well against most others.
51. Others have told me they are concerned about my lack of self-control.
52. It’s easy for me to relate to other people’s emotions.
53. I have robbed someone.
54. I never worry about making a fool of myself with others.
55. It doesn’t bother me when people around me are hurting.
56. I have had problems at work because I was irresponsible.
57. I’m not very good at influencing people.
58. I have stolen something out of a vehicle.


APPENDIX G: LIST OF OPINIONS FOR OPINION TASK (from Deeb et al. 2018)

In this next task you will be asked to argue both for an against an opinion that you hold. First, please take a moment to rate how much you agree with the following statements:

1. Women should have the right to have an abortion.
2. Capital punishment (i.e., the death penalty) should be a legal option in judicial systems for serious crimes.
3. CCTV cameras in streets and public areas is a good thing.
4. The US immigration laws should be much tougher for anyone wanting to live in the US.
5. I am firmly atheist (don’t believe in God).
6. Banning smoking in public places is a good thing.
7. Euthanasia should be a lawful option in the terminally ill.
8. Obese people should pay for their own healthcare.
9. It is right that animals are used for experimentation in medical research.
10. Governments should allow polygamy (marriage to more than one spouse).
11. Sex before marriage is morally wrong.
12. Couple should not live together before being married.
13. I support the Democratic Party.
14. Arranged marriages should not be allowed.
15. Telling your children that Santa Claus exists is wrong.
16. I generally agree with Donald Trump’s remarks.
17. I would not mind if the President of my country was female.
18. If is okay for the minimum age for purchasing alcohol to be 18 years.
19. The inclusion policy at schools, wherein children with behavioral problems are kept in mainstream school classrooms, is a good thing.
20. I support the Republican Party.
21. Governments should allow the use of marijuana for personal use.
22. The refugees’ crisis will have an increased negative influence on the United States.

Note: Ratings will be on a 1-7 Likert Scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

Cold-blooded women can detect lies with greater accuracy than other women; less empathic women are less affected by emotional contagion and thus may be more able to focus on non-emotional cues

Cold-blooded women can detect lies with greater accuracy than other women. Geoffrey Duran, François-Xavier Cécillon, Thibaut Sansorgné & George A. Michael. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, Volume 30, 2019 - Issue 3, Dec 26 2018. https://doi.org/10.1080/14789949.2018.1560488

ABSTRACT: Lies are notoriously difficult to detect. But it appears that some people are better at accomplishing this task than others even though the factors contributing to deception detection accuracy are not well understood. This study explored the influence of empathy on the detection of deception as a function of the detectors’ gender while dark personality traits were statistically controlled. Eighty men and 80 women were requested to judge whether individuals viewed in videos were giving their true opinion or not on current debatable issues (50% truthful and 50% deceptive narratives). Judges were divided into four groups according to their gender and their degree of empathy, as assessed using the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy. It was found that women with lower levels of empathy distinguished false from true opinions better than women with higher empathy, whereas no such difference was found in men. These results suggest that the degree of empathy in women influences their ability to detect deception and supports recent studies showing that emotional skills negatively affect deception detection ability. We suggest that less empathic women are less affected by emotional contagion and thus may be more able to focus on non-emotional cues that might reveal deception.

KEYWORDS: Empathy, gender, deception detection

Check also Atkinson, Dominick Joseph, "What makes a good liar? The relationship between cognitive and personality assessments’ and lying ability using traditional and strategic interview approaches" (2019). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 17392. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/12/what-makes-good-liar-relationship.html

And Our experiments support the widely documented poor ability of humans to detect lies holds for both self-selected and instructed liars:

Human Lie-Detection Performance: Does Random Assignment versus Self-Selection of Liars and Truth-Tellers Matter? Karl Ask, Sofia Calderon, Erik Mac Giolla. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, December 25 2019. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/12/our-experiments-support-widely.html

And Personality traits of a good liar: A systematic review of the literature. Monica Semrad, Bridie Scott-Parker, Michael Nagel. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 147, 1 September 2019, Pages 306-316. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/05/we-still-have-no-tests-to-determine.html

Our experiments support the widely documented poor ability of humans to detect lies holds for both self-selected and instructed liars

Human Lie-Detection Performance: Does Random Assignment versus Self-Selection of Liars and Truth-Tellers Matter? Karl Ask, Sofia Calderon, Erik Mac Giolla. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, December 25 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2019.10.002

Deception research has been criticized for its common practice of randomly allocating senders to truth-telling and lying conditions. In this study, we directly compared receivers’ lie-detection accuracy when judging randomly assigned versus self-selected truth-tellers and liars. In a trust-game setting, senders were instructed to lie or tell the truth (random assignment; n = 16) or were allowed to choose to lie or tell the truth of their own accord (self-selection; n = 16). In a sample of receivers (N = 200), we tested two alternative hypotheses, predicting opposite effects of random assignment (vs. self-selection) on receivers’ lie-detection accuracy. Accuracy rates did not differ significantly as a function of veracity assignment, failing to support the claim that random assignment of liars and truth-tellers alters the detectability of deception. Equivalence tests indicated that, while a small effect of random assignment cannot be ruled out, moderate (or larger) effect sizes are unlikely.

Keywords: DeceptionLie detectionRandom assignmentSelf-selectionDetection strategy

General Audience Summary: In everyday communication, people typically decide whether to lie or to tell the truth of their own accord. In most studies on lie detection, however, researchers instruct individuals to lie or tell the truth on a random basis. This approach has received critique from experts in the field, because it does not reflect what happens in real life. Since self-selected and instructed liars and truth-tellers differ in several ways (e.g., motivation, proficiency of lying), the two modes of veracity assignment may give rise to different cues to truth and deception. In the current study, we tested whether random assignment, as compared with self-selection, improves or impairs people's ability to detect deception. Liars and truth-tellers (senders) tried to convince participants (receivers) to trust them with their money, promising cooperation and financial gain in return. Half of the senders had been randomly assigned to lie or tell the truth, whereas the other half had chosen to lie or tell the truth of their own accord. We tested two competing hypotheses: First, on the assumption that it prevents good liars from choosing to lie (and poor liars from choosing not to lie), random assignment would improve receivers’ ability to detect lies. Second, on the assumption that there are detectable differences between senders who are likely to lie when given the opportunity and those unlikely to lie, random assignment would make such differences uninformative and impair receivers’ ability to detect lies. Our results did not support any of the hypotheses (lie-detection accuracy was near chance level in all experimental conditions), thus failing to support the claim that random assignment of liars and truth-tellers alters the detectability of deception. Instead, they indicate that the widely documented poor ability of humans to detect lies holds for both self-selected and instructed liars.

Mandatory conscription for French men: Service increases voter turnout by approximately 7 pct points; we observe no support for a change in preferences of former conscripts

Military Service and Political Behavior: Evidence from France. Etienne Fize, Charles Louis-Sidois. European Economic Review, December 24 2019, 103364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2019.103364

Abstract: We investigate the impact of compulsory military service on turnout and political preferences. Exploiting the suspension of mandatory conscription for French men, we observe a significant and positive impact of military service on turnout. We estimate that the service increases turnout by approximately 7 percentage points. We also investigate the impact of conscription on political preferences. When we control for selection into the military service, we observe no support for a change in preferences of former conscripts.

Keywords: VotingTurnoutPolitical BehaviorMilitary Service

Those with political attitudes similar to Trump’s showed increased liking of him with exposure to his tweets; opposite for those with dissimilar attitudes; all were unaware that the tweets affected their views

Paravati, E., Naidu, E., Gabriel, S., & Wiedemann, C. (2019). More than just a tweet: The unconscious impact of forming parasocial relationships through social media. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, Dec 2019. https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000214

Abstract: Although past work suggests that having a parasocial relationship with a celebrity can affect attitudes toward that celebrity, no work has yet examined if people are consciously aware that this is occurring and if this can explain the effects of Twitter on attitudes about Donald Trump. The current research examined the psychological mechanisms and attitudinal consequences of engaging with Donald Trump on Twitter and the degree to which people were consciously aware of the effects of their parasocial bond on their attitudes. Across an experiment (N = 243) and two correlational studies (N = 373; N = 384), we found that participants with preexisting political attitudes similar to Trump’s showed increased liking of Trump with exposure to his Twitter feed. Those effects were mediated by a parasocial bond. In other words, when people with a political ideology similar to Trump’s read his Twitter feed, they felt like they knew him personally (i.e., formed a parasocial relationship with him), which predicted them liking him even more. Conversely, people with political ideologies not similar to Trump’s liked him less when exposed to his tweets. Importantly, individuals were unaware that engaging with Trump on Twitter was affecting their views of him. Implications for how the unconscious formation of parasocial relationships may affect attitude polarization and political processes in the modern world are discussed.