From 2015... Increasingly rational choice theory is viewed as a normative theory of rationality: what economic agents ought to do in order to be rational

Hands, D. Wade, Normative Rational Choice Theory: Past, Present, and Future (March 2015). SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1738671

Abstract: The economics profession has traditionally viewed rational choice theory as a positive scientific theory. Normative economics was associated exclusively with ethics and should be kept strictly separate from positive scientific economics. This paper argues that the profession is changing in this regard. Increasingly rational choice theory is viewed as a normative theory of rationality: what economic agents ought to do in order to be rational. It is argued that the change initiated from within a community of critics – experimental psychologists – but it has now become widely accepted within many areas of economics. The paper explains this change and examines some of the possible causes and consequences of this development.

Keywords: rational choice theory, expected utility theory, demand theory, methodology, normative economics
JEL Classification: B2, B4


… psychological theories of intuitive thinking cannot match the elegance
and precision of formal normative models of belief and choice, but this is
just another way of saying that rational models are psychologically
unrealistic. (Daniel Kahneman, 2003, p. 1449)

0. Introduction
A specter is haunting microeconomics: the specter of normativity. Rational choice is the core theory of modern microeconomics and as such economists have traditionally considered it – in both its risky (expected utility) and risk-free (ordinal utility) instantiations – to be a positive scientific theory. In fact, for the majority of mainstream economists since the 1940s, rational choice was not only a positive-scientific theory, it was also a very powerful and successful scientific theory (at least when compared to the available alternatives from nonmainstream economics and/or the other social sciences). Although it was common to admit that real agents might not possess stable well-ordered preferences and/or to be able to complete the necessary computations in the way the theory asserts, such methodological foibles were considered relatively minor and did not undermine the economics profession's general support of rational choice theory. The consensus was that rational choice was a powerful theory that provided empirically supported and practically reliable predictions of, and explanations for, the behavior of economic agents: both individuals and more aggregate agents such as households, firms, and nations.

Of course while the majority of economists supported rational choice theory, there were also critics who strongly denied that it "provided empirically supported and practically reliable predictions of, and explanations for, the behavior of economic agents." Although such critics came in many different varieties and political-economic positions – from those inspired by Institutionalism or Marxism, to various Austrian positions – for the most part they also viewed rational choice theory as a positive scientific theory; they just thought it was not a very good scientific theory and that better alternatives were available. They argued either that rational choice theory did not accurately characterize (even approximately) the decision-making processes of real economic agents, or that it failed to accurately predict the observable behavior of such agents, or both; but for both the critics as well as the defenders within economics, rational choice theory was an attempt to provide a positive scientific theory of economic behavior.

This paper will argue that the economics profession has changed in this regard. Although the transformation is far from complete, the tendency during the last few years has been for economists to increasingly view rational choice theory (hereafter RCT) as a normative rather than a positive theory about the behavior of economic agents. The relevant normativity involves rationality, not morality – what one ought to do in order to be rational, not what one ought to do in order to be moral, good, etc. – but it is a normative interpretation and thus constitutes a radical departure from the way that RCT has traditionally been perceived among economists. It will be argued that this change initiated from within a community of critics – contemporary behavioral economics and associated work in experimental psychology – but it has increasingly spread to the wider community of economists. Although this interpretation of RCT is relatively new among economists, it has a long history in experimental psychology, decision theory, and various branches of philosophy. The paper discusses the history of the normative interpretation, the recent change within economics, and examines some of the possible causes and consequences of this development.


5. Conclusion
The purpose of this paper has been to explain the normative turn in recent experimental and behavioral economics, to suggest that it is beginning to be accepted more widely among economists, and to raise some questions about the causes and consequences of this change. Section two discussed the various arguments that philosophers have offered for the normativity of RCT – a theory of what one ought to do in order to be rational – and used the Friedman-Savage work on EUT during the 1950s as an example of the differences between the way that economists and philosophers have viewed RCT. Section two also made the case that economists have traditionally equated the normative exclusively with the ethically normative. Section three examined the results of the experimental and behavioral economics literature of the last few decades with a particular emphasis on the influence of experimental psychology. The many empirical anomalies of RCT were discussed and it was argued that the recently emerging heuristics-and-biases tradition in economics – like many philosophers, but unlike most economists (at least traditionally) – tend to view RCT as a normative theory of rationality. The case was also made in section three that economists seem to be changing their view of RCT in the direction of philosophers and those in the psychological tradition; this may be the case for economists more generally, but it is clearly the case for experimental and behavioral economists, even those who are not necessarily sympathetic to ideas from experimental psychology. The tendency for economists to view RCT as a normative theory of rationality and to separate the normative from the ethical was called the normative turn. The last section examined four of the many possible questions/concerns raised by the normative turn. The introduction of these four topics was intended to raise questions and further discussion on these various issues, not to defend a particular position regarding either the causes or the consequences of the normative turn. There seems to be little doubt about the presence of the normative interpretation of RCT within experimentally-based areas of economics and if the change is becoming more widespread, as it was suggested here, the impact will be quite significant. It is too early to tell what all this might eventually mean, but this paper has been an attempt to make the reader aware of the change and to draw attention to some of the possible consequences.

The effect of U.S. aid on growth is positive, but military and food iad have no effect; the effect is smaller for countries that are well endowed with natural resources, less ethnically polarized, and more aligned with the U.S.

Help or hindrance? U.S. aid on growth. Myongjin Kim & Leilei Shen. Applied Economics Letters, Jan 27 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2020.1720902

ABSTRACT: We distinguish between U.S. aid and non-U.S. aid and study the effects on growth in recipient countries. Our analysis exploits time variation in aid due to changes in the supply of U.S. aid and cross-sectional variation in a country’s tendency to receive any U.S. aid. We find that U.S. aid has a positive effect on growth. In particular, U.S. economic aid has a positive effect on growth while U.S. military and food aid have no effect on growth. There is also no evidence of U.S. aid crowding out aid from other countries. The effect of U.S. aid on growth is smaller for countries that are well endowed with natural resources, less ethnically polarized, and more aligned with the U.S.

KEYWORDS: U.S. aid, growth
JEL CLASSIFICATION: F35, O10, O40

From the 2017 version:
4 Results

We begin our analysis by rst reporting the OLS estimates of equation (2), which are presented
in columns 1 to 4 in Table 2. Columns 1 to 4 report estimates of correlation between U.S. aid
and annual real GDP per capita growth. The correlation between total U.S. aid and growth is
close to zero and statistically insigni cant. U.S. economic aid is pro-cyclical and only marginally
signi cant at 10%. U.S. food aid is counter-cyclical and signi cant at 1%. Column (5) reports the
correlation between non-U.S. aid and growth and it is close to zero and insigni cant.
Columns 6 to 9 report 2SLS estimates of equation (2). According to the estimates using the full
set of controls reported in column 6, a one percentage point increase in U.S. aid increases GDP
per capita growth by 0.19 standard deviation, or 1.7 percentage points on average. This e ect is
statistically signi cant at ve percent level. Column 7-9 suggest that the e ect of U.S. economic
aid is also positive on growth, however, U.S. military aid and food aid have no signi cant impact
on growth. Column 10 suggests that the e ect of non-U.S. aid is negative but it is statistically
insigni cant.
To assess the plausibility of the positive e ect U.S. aid on growth, it is useful to compare the
magnitude to estimates from other studies. The recent study by Arndt and Jones (2015) suggests
that one percentage point increase in all aid received is expected to boost real GDP per capita
growth rate by 0.30 percentage points in the long run. The comparison shows that the e ect of
U.S. aid on growth in our context is bigger than the e ect of total aid received on growth. Thus,
it is important to distinguish sources of aid by donor countries and types of aid when studying the
e ffects of aid on growth.
We interpret our estimates as showing that U.S. aid increases growth in recipient countries, an
alternative explanation is that U.S. aid crowds out other types of aid. For example, donor countries
may respond to an increase in U.S. aid by reducing their own aid provisions. If these other forms
of aid reduce growth, then U.S. aid crowd-out can explain why U.S. aid increases growth. It is
also possible that an increase in U.S. aid could actually cause total aid received by a country to
decline. We examine the e ect of U.S. aid on non-U.S. aid received by a country and report the
estimates in Table 3. The estimates show that U.S. aid does not crowd out aid from other donor
countries. U.S. military and food aid have no e ect on the provision of aid from non-U.S. donor
countries, and U.S. economic aid has a positive e ffect.
We also consider the influences of other factors that may contribute to growth. We nd the
e ects of U.S. aid on growth are not heterogeneous across the following factors: income, political
institutions, ethnic diversity, alignment with the U.S., and natural resource dependence.

Skin colour, prostitution, Mexico: A one standard deviation increase in darkness reduces an escort’s price by approximately 10 pct

The higher price of whiter skin: an analysis of escort services. Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez. Applied Economics Letters, Feb 4 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2020.1725229

Abstract: How much are people willing to pay extra for sexual services with a white woman instead of one with darker skin? Skin colour assessed from photographs of women on escort websites in Mexico was compared with price information to answer this question. Women with darker skin were found to be underrepresented, consistent with self-selection into other occupations with an expectation of higher wages. Lighter-skinned escorts also charge more than darker women. Controlling for estimated age and physical measures like weight, hair colour, and body type, a one standard deviation increase in darkness reduces an escort’s price by approximately 10 percent.

Keywords: Wage differentials, skin colour, prostitution, Mexico
JEL Classification: C80, J16, J30, J70, O54

---

Conclusions

The demand for sexual services affects the relative returns for specific traits and the self-selection patterns into that labor market. Using a sample of women from internet escort services, this paper finds two key results. First, white and dark brown skin colors are underrepresented in this market as compared with the national population and the escort sample is whiter than the population of Mexican women. Second, there is a penalty for darker skin color in the hourly price women charge: approximately 10 percent for an increase in skin color of one standard deviation. Weight, skin color, and bust size have the largest effect on the price charged. In order to measure attractiveness, future studies focusing on the sexual services market need to account for at least these three variables.

American elections & perceptions of electoral integrity: Citizens’ electoral mistrust is due to conspiratorial beliefs & populist values, irrespective of partisan identification, partisan strength, or affiliation with the losing side

The paranoid style of American elections: explaining perceptions of electoral integrity in an age of populism. Pippa Norris, Holly Ann Garnett & Max Grömping. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, Volume 30, 2020 - Issue 1, Pages 105-125. Jan 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2019.1593181

ABSTRACT: Polls report that, contrary to the evidence, one quarter of Americans believe that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 elections. What explains these types of beliefs? This article tests the predictors of public evaluations of electoral integrity in the 2016 American Presidential election, as measured by judgements about the fairness of the voting processes in the 2016 American National Election Study. We demonstrate that conspiratorial beliefs and populist values contribute towards citizens’ electoral mistrust. The results suggest that the paranoid style of American politics is alive and well in contemporary US elections.

Political polarization in climate change views increases with higher education & income; higher education particularly strengthens the conservative white male (CWM) effect; individualism mediates the ideological divide

Does socioeconomic status moderate the political divide on climate change? The roles of education, income, and individualism. Matthew T. Ballew et al. Global Environmental Change, Volume 60, January 2020, 102024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.102024

Highlights
•    Political polarization in climate change views increases with higher education and income.
•    Higher education particularly strengthens the conservative white male (CWM) effect.
•    Individualism mediates the ideological divide in climate change views.
•    Individualism mediates the CWM effect only for those with higher education.

Abstract: Previous research documents that U.S. conservatives, and conservative white males in particular, tend to dismiss the threat of climate change more than others in the U.S. public. Other research indicates that higher education and income can each exacerbate the dismissive tendencies of the political Right. Bridging these lines of research, the present study examines the extent to which higher education and/or income moderate the ideological divide and the “conservative white male effect” on several climate change opinions, and whether these effects are mediated by an individualistic worldview (e.g., valuing individual liberty and limited government). Using nationally representative survey data of U.S. adults from 2008 to 2017 (N = 20,024), we find that across all beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy preferences examined, the ideological divide strengthens with both higher education and higher income. However, educational attainment plays a stronger role than income in polarizing the views of conservative white males. Further analyses support the hypothesis that differences in individualism partially explain the increased political polarization among more educated and higher-income adults, as well as greater dismissiveness among conservative white males relative to other demographic groups. These results highlight key moderators of opinion polarization, as well as ideological differences among conservatives, that are often overlooked in public discourse about climate change. Implications for climate change education and communication across demographic groups are considered.

---
4. Discussion
In a large, nationally representative dataset of the U.S. public (2008–2017; N = =20,024), we find that the ideological divide in climate change opinion in the U.S. is exacerbated by higher educational attainment and higher income, thus supporting previous research (e.g., Bohr, 2014; Drummond and Fischhoff, 2017; Ehret et al., 2017; Hamilton, 2011). Further, expanding on research on the “conservative white male effect” (e.g., McCright and Dunlap, 2011b), we find that education plays a stronger and more consistent role than income in bolstering the views of conservative white males—a subgroup of the U.S. population that has been found to be particularly dismissive of climate change and resistant to mitigation policy. Although education seems to positively predict global warming views (e.g., belief that it is happening, is human-caused, etc.) among the U.S. public generally, moderation tests reveal that educational attainment may, conversely, strengthen conservative white males’ dismissive tendencies and opposition to climate policy. Higher education is consistently associated with increased polarization between conservative white males and other Americans across several global warming beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy preferences (e.g., support for CO2 regulation). Although higher income is associated with increased polarization between conservative white males and other Americans on some measures (e.g., policy support), the patterns for income were not as consistent as those for education.

Among conservatives and the conservative white male subgroup, our analyses suggest that those with more education (some college or more) are significantly less likely than those with less education (high school or less) to view global warming as human-caused, to worry about global warming, to perceive it as a risk (in some cases), and to support some climate change mitigation policies. For example, compared to those who are less educated, more educated conservative white males are less worried about global warming (23%% vs. 30% of those with less education), less likely to perceive it as a personal risk (12% vs. 21%), and less supportive of regulating greenhouse gas (CO2) emissions (46% vs. 55%). Further, among conservative white males, compared to differences in views by income, differences by educational attainment are found across a wider range of opinion metrics: education is negatively associated with expressed beliefs and risk perceptions (and to a stronger degree, as indicated by comparisons of effect sizes) for conservative white males than for conservatives in general. While income was significantly negatively associated with some pro-climate views for conservatives in general, these relationships were generally non-significant for conservative white males. Together, these results suggest that, compared to income, educational attainment may play a stronger and more robust role in widening the ideological divide, particularly between conservative white males and other adults in the U.S.

In addition, as hypothesized, education and income significantly moderate ideological differences in individualism. For conservatives and conservative white males, there is a positive relationship between both education and income and endorsing an individualistic worldview; yet, the relationship is negative for other U.S. adults. Further, the results of the moderated mediation analyses suggest that differences in individualism explain, in part, how higher educational attainment and income exacerbate the ideological divide in climate change opinion. For conservative white males in particular, however, education again seems to be a stronger predictor of individualism than income, which, in turn, partially explains how higher educational attainment enhances opinion polarization between conservative white males and other demographic groups. In fact, conditional indirect effect analyses show that individualism significantly mediates differences between conservative white males and other Americans only for those with average or higher education. These results suggest that educational attainment may bolster tendencies of conservative white males to value individualism, and thus strengthen ideologically based opinions about climate change.

Together, the results of this study align with several theoretical accounts, including identity protective cognition (Kahan et al., 2007), ideological consistency and elite cues (e.g., Ehret et al., 2017), and models of the self across socioeconomic status contexts (e.g., Stephens et al., 2014). Because exposure to climate science typically increases alongside higher education (Bohr, 2014), and higher education also leads to increased exposure to the norms of one's political ingroup (Ehret et al., 2016), conservatives and conservative white males, in particular, may be more aware of and motivated to defend ideological positions associated with their worldviews (e.g., individualism) when confronted with information about climate change and climate-related policies (e.g., regulating CO2 emissions). Our findings also support current theoretical accounts of the conservative white male effect which posit a process of reinforcing one's worldview to protect against opposing knowledge and information (McCright and Dunlap, 2011b,2013). Our data suggest a strengthened individualistic worldview may be one way in which higher educational attainment may influence conservative white males’ climate change opinions in ways that diverge from other U.S. adults. Alternatively, lower socioeconomic status (particularly education) may limit ideological polarization by attenuating individualistic resistance to government intervention.

Importantly, individualism, as conceptualized and operationalized here, as well as in previous research (e.g., Peters and Slovic, 1996; Smith and Leiserowitz, 2014), has clear connections to libertarian values reflecting a focus on individual liberty and limited government involvement (Iyer et al., 2012). As discussed by Iyer and colleagues, the visibility of, and interest in, libertarian values increased in 2008 with the presidential campaign of Texas Congressman Ron Paul and the rise of the Tea Party in 2009. Resistance to government intervention also appears to be common oppositional rhetoric among the political Right (at least among politicians and interest groups) when it comes to U.S. policymaking (e.g., Campbell and Kay, 2014). These values are distinct from other elements of conservatism, such as traditionalism (respect for traditions, institutions, and authority; see Iyer et al., 2012). Because we find that increased individualism partially explains the increased ideological divide associated with higher education and income, it is plausible that conservatives who are higher in socioeconomic status—particularly educated conservative white males—also more strongly identify with libertarianism or hold stronger libertarian values compared to other members of the U.S. public. Future work might further examine ideological differences among conservatives to better understand both pro- and anti-climate positions within the political Right, and the extent to which social and political libertarianism might explain these differences.

5. Limitations and future directions
Future research might further investigate additional processes and disentangle theoretical accounts that explain how social class influences political polarization in climate change opinion. Other mechanisms may well play a role in driving opinion polarization. For instance, Ehret and colleagues (2017) found that as liberals and conservatives become more educated, they also show more interest in government and public affairs, and media and political messengers (i.e., elite cues) communicating these interests, which partially explains divergence in environmental support. Similarly, elite cues may also play a role in reinforcing ideologies and worldviews (for instance, libertarian views that the government should not get involved in people's lives). Another possibility is that greater interdependence observed among lower-SES individuals (e.g., Eom et al., 2018; Stephens et al., 2014) may dampen effects of ideological polarization by reducing libertarian-driven resistance to climate policies. Future research might examine this possibility. Because mitigating climate change is paramount to the future of humanity and other species (IPCC, 2018), it is important to understand the processes by which certain groups become dismissive of climate change and resistant to climate policy, and what factors might limit dismissiveness and opposition.

In addition, income and education are only two of many potential socioeconomic indicators and, thus, further research is needed to understand whether the current results generalize to other dimensions of social class, such as occupational status or subjective assessments (i.e., perceived ranking relative to others; Kraus et al., 2009). Future research might extend our understanding of the relationship between social class and the ideological divide in climate change opinion, for instance, by incorporating subjective aspects of social class (e.g., perceived class rank; Kraus et al., 2009) and the extent to which they influence polarization relative to objective indicators.

Importantly, this study aggregates cross-sectional surveys and, thus, provides only correlational evidence of the role of socioeconomic status and individualism in shaping climate change opinion polarization. Although experimental manipulation of such variables may be difficult or impractical, longitudinal research may provide some additional insights. For example, future studies might track individuals across the political spectrum over the course of their education, or changes in socioeconomic status (e.g., changes in income, employment status), to better understand what factors predict change in climate attitudes, beliefs, and policy preferences over time. Moreover, future work in this area might also help uncover ways to counteract the effect that higher educational attainment may have among the political Right.

6. Implications
The current study has implications for how to foster pro-climate opinion and action, and for identifying subgroups in the U.S. who may be more receptive to climate change education and communication campaigns than others. For example, communicating the scientific consensus is an effective gateway to fostering pro-climate views among the political Right (van der Linden et al., 2015) and people can learn about the scientific consensus through discussion with friends and family (Goldberg et al., 2019). Education initiatives might highlight the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change to combat dismissive tendencies. Also, because misinformation (e.g., the notion that there is scientific uncertainty about climate change) is disseminated through certain media outlets, an “inoculation” strategy may further help to counteract dismissiveness (van der Linden et al., 2017; see also Cook et al., 2017). That is, when individuals are preemptively told that some groups intentionally work to promote doubt on the scientific facts of climate change, it helps build resistance against misinformation. Education initiatives might consider inoculation techniques to help neutralize the negative effects of misinformation on public understanding of climate change.

Further, public discourse focusing on the politicization of climate change and the general ideological divide (e.g., the Right vs. Left) may be exaggerating partisan differences and overlooking distinct sources of opposition (see Van Boven et al., 2018). As we show here, there is clear heterogeneity among conservatives. Conservative white males higher in socioeconomic status (particularly in education) seem to be among the primary oppositional demographic groups, and our findings suggest that this may be due, in part, to heightened individualism among this group. Conversely, conservatives lower in socioeconomic status (including conservative white males) express less opposition and individualism, suggesting they represent an overlooked demographic group that could help bridge political divides on climate change, particularly when it comes to mitigation policy (Pearson et al., 2017). Communications with the public might be sensitive to this distinction. For instance, conservatives higher in socioeconomic status might be more receptive to individual- or libertarian-framed messages (e.g., emphasizing free-market solutions that reinforce notions of individual autonomy; Campbell and Kay, 2014), whereas those lower in socioeconomic status might be more open to government intervention and community-driven action plans.

Although public understanding of climate change has increased over the last five years in the U.S. (Leiserowitz et al., 2018) and there is evidence that understanding is on the rise among the political Right (Leiserowitz et al., 2019), political polarization on the issue remains stark. Tailoring climate change education and communication for different audiences within the U.S. public may help narrow the partisan divide on climate change and foster greater consensus in pro-climate views.

Funding: This project was supported by the 11th Hour Project, the Energy Foundation, the Grantham Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.

Why did the countries which first benefitted from access to the New World - Castile and Portugal - decline relative to their followers, especially England and the Netherlands?

Comparative European Institutions and the Little Divergence, 1385-1800. António Henriques, Nuno Palma. EHES Working Paper, No. 171, November 2019. http://ehes.org/EHES_171.pdf

Abstract: Why did the countries which first benefitted from access to the New World - Castile and Portugal - decline relative to their followers, especially England and the Netherlands? The dominant narrative is that worse initial institutions at the time of the opening of Atlantic trade explain Iberian divergence. In this paper, we build a new dataset which allows for a comparison of institutional quality over time. We consider the frequency and nature of parliamentary meetings, the frequency and intensity of extraordinary taxation and coin debasement, and real interest spreads for public debt. We find no evidence that the political institutions of Iberia were worse until at least the English Civil War.

JEL Codes: N13, N23, O10, P14, P16
Keywords: Atlantic Traders, New Institutional Economics, The Little Divergence



4. Conclusion

Iberia's economic divergence was not a consequence of inferior initial institutions. At
least prior to the civil wars of the mid seventeenth century, England did not have more
constraints on executive power or an environment more protective of property rights than
Spain or Portugal. Unlike what is argued by authors such as Tilly (1994), Acemoglu et al.
(2005) and Hough and Grier (2015), Iberian political institutions were not structurally
worse than England. At some point England did have better institutions, but that point
occured considerably later than 1500. Accordingly, explanations for the little divergence
among Atlantic traders which rely on variation in the quality of \initial institutions" (in
particular, constraints on executive power by 1500 or earlier), such as that by Acemoglu
et al. (2005), cannot be correct.42
While 1500 is too early for any significant di erence in institutional quality to be
noticeable, 1688 is too late. With regards to England, the measures that we present in this
paper confirm the views of scholars who argue that the emphasis of North and Weingast
(1989) and others on the Glorious Revolution is overdone and instead emphasize earlier
progress (e.g. O'Brien, 1988, 2002, 2012; Jha, 2015; Murrell, 2017). By 1688 England
was already driving ahead both in terms of checks on executive power and state capacity.
At the same time, Iberian institutions experienced a considerable deterioration over the
late seventeenth century: the Cortes eventually stopped meeting, the monarchs resorted
to monetary manipulations and public debt was issued less frequently and became less
liquid.
Our findings also discredit the modern incarnation of the "Black Legend" (La Leyenda
Negra), the notion that the divergent economic trajectories within Europe and the two
Americas can be explained by an institutional path-dependence going back as far as
the sixteenth century or earlier. As argued, when Atlantic trade developed, Portugal
and Spain could not be dismissed as "highly absolutist" or extractive empires, let alone
regarded as endowed with inferior institutions. The right of non-European municipalities
to take part in the Cortes is a reminder of how these empires were built under an executive
power that had to negotiate instead of simply imposing.
In this paper we have shown that the little divergence in European institutions and
incomes does not lie with the deus ex machina of initial institutions going back to the
medieval period. An implication is that they must instead be found in events taking place
during the early modern period. Another implication is that the lackluster economic performance
of the Iberian empires and their successor independent states in Latin America
was not the result of an institutional path-dependence defined circa 1500.

Fifty years ago, Zajonc, Heingartner, and Herman (1969) conducted a famous experiment on social enhancement and inhibition of performance in cockroaches; no evidence of a social-facilitation effect

Replicating Roaches: A Preregistered Direct Replication of Zajonc, Heingartner, and Herman’s (1969) Social-Facilitation Study. Emma Halfmann, Janne Bredehöft, Jan Alexander Häusser. Psychological Science, February 4, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620902101

Abstract: Fifty years ago, Zajonc, Heingartner, and Herman (1969) conducted a famous experiment on social enhancement and inhibition of performance in cockroaches. A moderating effect of task difficulty on the effect of the presence of an audience, as revealed by impaired performance in complex tasks and enhanced performance in simple tasks, was presented as the major conclusion of this research. However, the researchers did not test this interaction statistically. We conducted a preregistered direct replication using a 2 (audience: present vs. absent) × 2 (task difficulty: runway vs. maze) between-subjects design. Results revealed main effects for task difficulty, with faster running times in the runway than the maze, and for audience, with slower running times when the audience was present than when it was absent. There was no interaction between the presence of an audience and task difficulty. Although we replicated the social-inhibition effect, there was no evidence for a social-facilitation effect.

Keywords: social facilitation, social inhibition, Zajonc, replication, cockroach, open data, open materials, preregistered

Christians’ self‐ratings are consistently lower than what they perceive to be the moral values of other Christians, due to comparison to Christian exemplars (religious leaders), not from a sense of humility

Diverging Perceptions of Personal Moral Values and the Values of One's Religious Group. Travis Daryl Clark  Richard C. Grove  Heather K. Terrell  Casey Swanson. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, February 3 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12644

Abstract: A popular notion in many religions is that less pious individuals are also less moral. We sought to test the self‐described moral values of religious and nonreligious individuals under the framework of Moral Foundations Theory. In Study 1, we found that atheists differ from Christians in some moral domains. We also found evidence that Christians’ self‐ratings are consistently lower than what they perceive to be the moral values of other Christians. This finding contradicts previous findings that suggest that Christians may inflate their positive characteristics relative to their peers in other domains. In Studies 2 and 3, we tested several alternative explanations for this finding. Preliminary evidence suggests that Christians rate their moral values lower in comparison to Christian exemplars such as religious leaders, and not from a sense of humility. In contrast, atheists may not have exemplars for such a comparison.

Why liberal white women pay a lot of money to learn over dinner how they're racist: A growing number of women are paying to confront their privilege – and racism – at dinners that cost $2,500

Why liberal white women pay a lot of money to learn over dinner how they're racist.  Poppy Noor. The Guardian, Feb 3 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/03/race-to-dinner-party-racism-women

A growing number of women are paying to confront their privilege – and racism – at dinners that cost $2,500

Freshly made pasta is drying on the wooden bannisters lining the hall of a beautiful home in Denver, Colorado. Fox-hunting photos decorate the walls in a room full of books. A fire is burning. And downstairs, a group of liberal white women have gathered around a long wooden table to admit how racist they are.

“Recently, I have been driving around, seeing a black person, and having an assumption that they are up to no good,” says Alison Gubser. “Immediately after I am like, that’s no good! This is a human, just doing their thing. Why do I think that?”

This is Race to Dinner. A white woman volunteers to host a dinner in her home for seven other white women – often strangers, perhaps acquaintances. (Each dinner costs $2,500, which can be covered by a generous host or divided among guests.) A frank discussion is led by co-founders Regina Jackson, who is black, and Saira Rao, who identifies as Indian American. They started Race to Dinner to challenge liberal white women to accept their racism, however subconscious. “If you did this in a conference room, they’d leave,” Rao says. “But wealthy white women have been taught never to leave the dinner table.”

Rao and Jackson believe white, liberal women are the most receptive audience because they are open to changing their behavior. They don’t bother with the 53% of white women who voted for Trump. White men, they feel, are similarly a lost cause. “White men are never going to change anything. If they were, they would have done it by now,” Jackson says.

White women, on the other hand, are uniquely placed to challenge racism because of their proximity to power and wealth, Jackson says. “If they don’t hold these positions themselves, the white men in power are often their family, friends and partners.”

It seems unlikely anyone would voluntarily go to a dinner party in which they’d be asked, one by one, “What was a racist thing you did recently?” by two women of color, before appetizers are served. But Jackson and Rao have hardly been able to take a break since they started these dinners in the spring of 2019. So far, 15 dinners have been held in big cities across the US.

The women who sign up for these dinners are not who most would see as racist. They are well-read and well-meaning. They are mostly Democrats. Some have adopted black children, many have partners who are people of color, some have been doing work towards inclusivity and diversity for decades. But they acknowledge they also have unchecked biases. They are there because they “know [they] are part of the problem, and want to be part of the solution,” as host Jess Campbell-Swanson says before dinner starts.

Campbell-Swanson comes across as an overly keen college student applying for a prestigious internship. She can go on for days about her work as a political consultant, but when it comes to talking about racism, she chokes.

“I want to hire people of color. Not because I want to be … a white savior. I have explored my need for validation … I’m working through that … Yeah. Um … I’m struggling,” she stutters, before finally giving up.

Across from Campbell-Swanson, Morgan Richards admits she recently did nothing when someone patronizingly commended her for adopting her two black children, as though she had saved them. “What I went through to be a mother, I didn’t care if they were black,” she says, opening a window for Rao to challenge her: “So, you admit it is stooping low to adopt a black child?” And Richards accepts that the undertone of her statement is racist.

As more confessions like this are revealed, Rao and Jackson seem to press those they think can take it, while empathizing with those who can’t. “Well done for recognizing that,” Jackson says, to soothe one woman. “We are all part of the problem. We have to get comfortable with that to become part of the solution.”

Carbonara is heaped on to plates, and a sense of self-righteousness seems to wash over the eight white women. They’ve shown up, admitted their wrongdoing and are willing to change. Don’t they deserve a little pat on the back?

Erika Righter raises her tattooed forearm to her face, in despair of all of the racism she’s witnessed as a social worker, then laments how a white friend always ends phone calls with “Love you long time”.

“And what is your racism, Erika?” Rao interrupts, refusing to let her off the hook. The mood becomes tense. Another woman adds: “I don’t know you, Erika. But you strike me as being really in your head. Everything I’m hearing is from the neck up.”

Righter, a single mother, retreats before defending herself: “I haven’t read all the books. I’m new to this.”

A lot of people hate Saira Rao.

“The American flag makes me sick,” read a recent tweet of hers. Another: “White folks – before telling me that your Indian husband or wife or friend or colleague doesn’t agree with anything I say about racism or thinks I’m crazy, please Google ‘token,’ ‘internalized oppression’ and ‘gaslighting’.”

She wasn’t always this confrontational, she says. Her “awakening” began recently.

After Rao’s mother died unexpectedly a few years ago, she moved to Denver from New York to be around her best friends – a group of mostly white women from college. She wasn’t new to being the only person of color, but she was surprised to notice how they would distance themselves whenever she’d talk frankly about race.

Then, fuelled by anger at Trump’s election after she’d campaigned tirelessly for Hillary Clinton, Rao ran for Congress in 2018 against a Democratic incumbent on an anti-racist manifesto, and criticized the “pink-pussy-hat-wearing” women of the Democratic party. It was during this campaign Rao met Jackson, who works in real estate. Jackson recalls her initial impressions of Rao as “honest, and willing to call a thing a thing”.

It’s that brashness that led to Race for Dinner. Rao is done with affability. “I’d spent years trying to get through to white women with coffees and teas – massaging them, dealing with their tears, and I got nowhere. I thought, if nothing is going to work, let’s try to shake them awake.”

The genesis of Race to Dinner wasn’t straightforward. Months after a dinner discussion about race with a white friend of Jackson’s went south, Rao bumped into that friend, who had started reading Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race.

“She told me that the dinner had changed everything for her, and asked if we could do another,” says Rao. The friend invited other guests, Rao reluctantly agreed, then hated that second dinner, too. But then white women began flooding her inbox asking her to do it again.

In the beginning, Rao’s dinner-party tone was much more argumentative. But it left her looking less like a human and more like some kind of real-life trolling bot. Women at the dinners were always crying. Some of those dinners got out of hand – attendees have tried to place their hands on Jackson and Rao, and racial slurs have been thrown around.

“My blood pressure went up. I’d work myself up into a frenzy at every dinner. I realized [that] if I walk away feeling I am going to have a stroke, we should try a different tactic,” Rao says.

Susan Brown attended one of those earlier dinners. She says she felt like Rao and Jackson were angry at her the whole time, without ever learning why. She found Rao needlessly provocative and mean-spirited, unaware of her own class privilege, and divisive. She felt the dinner set her up to fail.

Another previous attendee, who did not want to be named, says she found Rao to be dogmatic, and presented a distorted depiction of history, leaving out facts that do not fit her narrative. At one point, she referred to Rao as “the Trump of the alt-left”.

But even for those who complained, something has changed. Brown read White Fragility – a book released last year that posits every person partakes to some degree in racism and needs to confront that – and realized many of the things she was commending herself for needed to be re-evaluated. The book is now assigned reading for women before they can attend a dinner.

The woman who compared Rao to Trump went to a city council meeting to speak up about the death of a young black man in her area. She attributes that specifically to Jackson’s call for solidarity.

In recent months, Jackson and Rao changed the model. They didn’t want to just have women rely on them to shout at them for being racist and then go home.

“We began to expect more of them,” says Rao. That meant asking the women to speak up. To own their racism. It meant getting them to do the required reading, as well as follow-up discussions, where they decide how to do better anti-racist work.

In the conversation that followed the dinner, Campbell-Swanson, who couldn’t get her racist thoughts out, committed to writing a journal, jotting down daily decisions or thoughts that could be considered racist, and think about how to approach them differently.
Advertisement

Lisa Bond, who was hired because Rao and Jackson thought there would be instances when participants would feel more comfortable expressing their feelings to another white woman, says this will help her see how unmonitored thoughts can lead to systemic racism. “If our ability to spot these things increases, our ability to challenge it will increase,” says Bond.

Bond says about 65% of participants engage meaningfully in post-dinner conversations with her. But weren’t these women already doing the work? Don’t they want to speak to those women who have no intention of challenging themselves?

“There are so many people worse than us,” says Bond. “I have gotten to the point where I no longer try to pay attention to what someone else is doing. I don’t talk about the 53% [who voted for Trump] because I’m not one of them.”

What is in her power, she says, is forcing herself to talk to her sister, who did vote for Trump, even when it gets difficult. She emphasizes this work has to continue, no matter who is president.

“If Trump were impeached tomorrow and we got a new president, a lot of white liberal people will go back to living their lives just as before, and that’s what we have to prevent,” she says. “All that’s happened is we can see racism now, while before we could cover it up. That’s why we need these dinners. So when we get a new person in and racism is not as obvious, we won’t just crawl back to being comfortable.”

Japan now plans to build as many as 22 new coal-burning power plants at 17 different sites in the next five years

Japan Races to Build New Coal-Burning Power Plants, Despite the Climate Risks. Hiroko Tabuchi. The New York Times, Feb. 3, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukushima.html

Just beyond the windows of Satsuki Kanno’s apartment overlooking Tokyo Bay, a behemoth from a bygone era will soon rise: a coal-burning power plant, part of a buildup of coal power that is unheard-of for an advanced economy.

It is one unintended consequence of the Fukushima nuclear disaster almost a decade ago, which forced Japan to all but close its nuclear power program. Japan now plans to build as many as 22 new coal-burning power plants — one of the dirtiest sources of electricity — at 17 different sites in the next five years, just at a time when the world needs to slash carbon dioxide emissions to fight global warming.

“Why coal, why now?” said Ms. Kanno, a homemaker in Yokosuka, the site for two of the coal-burning units that will be built just several hundred feet from her home. “It’s the worst possible thing they could build.”

Together the 22 power plants would emit almost as much carbon dioxide annually as all the passenger cars sold each year in the United States. The construction stands in contrast with Japan’s effort to portray this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo as one of the greenest ever.

The Yokosuka project has prompted unusual pushback in Japan, where environmental groups more typically focus their objections on nuclear power. But some local residents are suing the government over its approval of the new coal-burning plant in what supporters hope will jump-start opposition to coal in Japan.

The Japanese government, the plaintiffs say, rubber-stamped the project without a proper environmental assessment. The complaint is noteworthy because it argues that the plant will not only degrade local air quality, but will also endanger communities by contributing to climate change.

Carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is the major driver of global warming, because it traps the sun’s heat. Coal burning is one of the biggest single sources of carbon dioxide emissions.

Japan is already experiencing severe effects from climate change. Scientists have said that a heat wave in 2018 that killed more than 1,000 people could not have happened without climate change.  Because of heat concerns, the International Olympic Committee was compelled to move the Tokyo Olympics’ marathon events to a cooler city almost 700 miles north.

Japan has used the Olympics to underscore its transition to a more climate-resilient economy, showing off innovations like roads that reflect heat. Organizers have said electricity for the Games will come from renewable sources.

Coal investments threaten to undermine that message.

Under the Paris accord, Japan committed to rein in its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent by 2030 compared to 2013 levels, a target that has been criticized for being “highly insufficient” by climate groups.

“Japan touts a low-emissions Olympics, but in the very same year, it will start operating five new coal-fired power plants that will emit many times more carbon dioxide than anything the Olympics can offset,” said Kimiko Hirata, international director at the Kiko Network, a group that advocates climate action.

Japan’s policy sets it apart from other developed economies. Britain, the birthplace of the industrial revolution, is set to phase out coal power by 2025, and France has said it will shut down its coal power plants even earlier, by 2022. In the United States, utilities are rapidly retiring coal power and no new plants are actively under development.

But Japan relies on coal for more than a third of its power generation needs. And while older coal plants will start retiring, eventually reducing overall coal dependency, the country still expects to meet more than a quarter of its electricity needs from coal in 2030.

“Japan is an anomaly among developed economies,” said Yukari Takamura, an expert in climate policy at the Institute for Future Initiatives at the University of Tokyo. “The era of coal is ending, but for Japan, it’s proving very difficult to give up an energy source that it has relied on for so long.”

Japan’s appetite for coal doesn’t solely come down to Fukushima. Coal consumption has been rising for decades, as the energy-poor country, which is reliant on imports for the bulk of its energy needs, raced to wean itself from foreign oil following the oil shocks of the 1970s.

Fukushima, though, presented another type of energy crisis, and more reason to keep investing in coal. And even as the economics of coal have started to crumble — research has shown that as soon as 2025 it could become more cost-effective for Japanese operators to invest in renewable energy, such as wind or solar, than to run coal plants — the government has stood by the belief that the country’s utilities must keep investing in fossil fuels to maintain a diversified mix of energy sources.

Together with natural gas and oil, fossil fuels account for about four-fifths of Japan’s electricity needs, while renewable sources of energy, led by hydropower, make up about 16 percent. Reliance on nuclear energy, which once provided up to a third of Japan’s power generation, plummeted to 3 percent in 2017.

The Japanese government’s policy of financing coal power in developing nations, alongside China and South Korea, has also come under scrutiny. The country is second only to China in the financing of coal plants overseas.

At the United Nations climate talks late last year in Madrid, attended by a sizable Japanese contingent, activists in yellow “Pikachu” outfits unfurled “No Coal” signs and chanted “Sayonara coal!”

A target of the activists’ wrath has been Japan’s new environment minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, a charismatic son of a former prime minister who is seen as a possible future candidate for prime minister himself. But Mr. Koizumi has fallen short of his predecessor, Yoshiaki Harada, who had declared that the Environment Ministry would not approve the construction of any more new large coal-fired power plants, but lasted less than a year as minister.

Mr. Koizumi has shied away from such explicit promises in favor of more general assurances that Japan will eventually roll back coal use. “While we can’t declare an exit from coal straight away,” Mr. Koizumi said at a briefing in Tokyo last month, the nation “had made it clear that it will move steadily toward making renewables its main source of energy.”

The Yokosuka project has special significance for Mr. Koizumi, who hails from the port city, an industrial hub and the site of an American naval base. The coal units are planned at the site of an oil-powered power station, operated by Tokyo Electric Power, that shuttered in 2009, to the relief of local residents.

But that shutdown proved to be short-lived.

Just two years later, the Fukushima disaster struck, when an earthquake and tsunami badly damaged a seaside nuclear facility also owned by Tokyo Electric. The resulting meltdown sent the utility racing to start up two of the eight Yokosuka oil-powered units as an emergency measure. They were finally shut down only in 2017.

What Tokyo Electric proposed next — the two new coal-powered units — has left many in the community bewildered. To make matters worse, Tokyo Electric declared that the units did not need a full environmental review, because they were being built on the same site as the oil-burning facilities.

The central government agreed. The residents’ lawsuit challenges that decision.

Some new coal projects have faced hiccups. Last year, a consortium of energy companies canceled plans for two coal-burning plants, saying they were no longer economical. Meanwhile, Japan has said it will invest in carbon capture and storage technology to clean up emissions from coal generation, but that technology is not yet commercially available.

Coal’s fate in Japan may reside with the country’s Ministry of Trade, which pulls considerable weight in Tokyo’s halls of power. In a response to questions about the coal-plant construction, the ministry said it had issued guidance to the nation’s operators to wind down their least-efficient coal plants and to aim for carbon-emissions reductions overall. But the decision on whether to go ahead with plans rested with the operators, it said.

“The most responsible policy,” the ministry said, “is to forge a concrete path that allows for both energy security, and a battle against climate change.”

Local residents say the ministry’s position falls short. Tetsuya Komatsubara, 77, has operated a pair of small fishing boats out of Yokosuka for six decades, diving for giant clams, once abundant in waters off Tokyo.

Scientists have registered a rise in the temperature of waters off Tokyo of more than 1 degree Celsius over the past decade, which is wreaking havoc with fish stocks there.

Mr. Komatsubara can feel the rise in water temperatures on his skin, he said, and was worried the new plants would be another blow to a fishing business already on the decline. “They say temperatures are rising. We’ve known that for a long time,” Mr. Komatsubara said. “It’s time to do something about that.”

Written erotica 2000-2016: As in video, found no meaningful increase in either the amount of content with violence, family (incest), or BDSM themes or popularity of any of the three transgressive themes within the erotic narratives

Change in the Popularity of Transgressive Content in Written Erotica between 2000 and 2016. Martin Seehuus, Ariel B. Handy & Amelia M. Stanton. The Journal of Sex Research, Feb 3 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2020.1716206

ABSTRACT: There is a widely held belief that the amount and intensity of transgressive content in pornography have been rising. Reliably assessing for such an increase, however, is complicated by methodological factors including hand-coding content using conflicting a priori definitions of what constitutes transgressive content. In response to those limitations, the present study used the results of a published empirical content analysis of ~250,000 erotic stories written over 16 years to determine if the amount or popularity of transgressive content (stories high in the themes of violence, family (incest), or BDSM) has changed in that timeframe. Results from the present study indicated no meaningful increase in either the amount of content with those themes or popularity (as measured by story views per day) of any of the three transgressive themes within the erotic narratives over the 16-year period of analysis. These results, in addition to recent research presenting similar findings within pornographic video, do not support popular perceptions that erotic material is becoming increasingly transgressive. Rather, such content within internet-based erotic material, and particularly erotic narratives, appears to be relatively consistent.

---
A primary concern some hold about violent or transgressive
content within erotic material is that consuming such
content may increase the perpetration of sexual violence (for
a comprehensive discussion, see Shor & Seida, 2019). This is
a valid concern. If this were the case, our data and the work of
others would suggest that the rate of sexual violence should be
relatively stable over time. However, a review of US governmental
statistics on violence against women (both reported
and unreported to law enforcement) shows a decline from
a peak rate of 5.0 acts of sexual violence per 1,000 women in
1994 to 1.8 acts of sexual violence per 1,000 women in 2010
(Planty, Langton, Krebs, Berzofsky, & Smiley-McDonald,
2013). This decline, combined with data indicating an increase
in overall viewership of pornography over approximately the
same time period (Gorman et al., 2010; Klaassen & Peter,
2015; Price et al., 2016; Wright et al., 2016), suggests that,
on the macro level, pornography viewership may have no
effect (or even a protective effect, as per Fisher et al., 2013)
on violence. Alternatively, any effect of violent pornography
on sexual violence may have been countered by other societal
forces.

Most interestingly, vegetarian eaters’ approach bias towards non-vegetarian food pictures also did not differ from that of the omnivorous group, despite vegetarians rating those pictures as much less pleasant

Fearing the wurst: Robust approach bias towards non-vegetarian food images in a sample of young female vegetarian eaters. Helen C. Knight, Sarah Mowat, Constanze Hesse. Appetite, February 4 2020, 104617. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2020.104617

Abstract: Previous studies have shown that humans show an implicit approach bias toward food related items which is moderated by hunger and properties of the food items displayed (such as their palatability and calorie content). However, little is known about if and how this approach bias is moderated by food preferences and/or diet choices. In this study, we compared approach-avoidance biases in a group of young female omnivore and vegetarian eaters towards images of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food items using a manikin stimulus-response compatibility task. While vegetarian eaters showed a slightly larger approach bias for vegetarian than for non-vegetarian food stimuli, this bias was of similar size to that observed in the omnivorous group. Most interestingly, vegetarian eaters’ approach bias towards non-vegetarian food pictures also did not differ from that of the omnivorous group, despite vegetarians rating those pictures as much less pleasant. Our findings suggest that approach biases towards food items are quite robust and do not rapidly change with dietary practice. However, despite approach biases often guiding behaviour, vegetarian eaters successfully withstand these implicit action tendencies and avoid non-vegetarian produce. Potential implications of this finding for the addiction literature are discussed.

Hyper-realistic Face Masks in a Live Passport-Checking Task: The masks went undetected during live identity checks in large numbers

Hyper-realistic Face Masks in a Live Passport-Checking Task. David J. Robertson. Perception, February 3, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0301006620904614

Abstract: Hyper-realistic face masks have been used as disguises in at least one border crossing and in numerous criminal cases. Experimental tests using these masks have shown that viewers accept them as real faces under a range of conditions. Here, we tested mask detection in a live identity verification task. Fifty-four visitors at the London Science Museum viewed a mask wearer at close range (2 m) as part of a mock passport check. They then answered a series of questions designed to assess mask detection, while the masked traveller was still in view. In the identity matching task, 8% of viewers accepted the mask as matching a real photo of someone else, and 82% accepted the match between masked person and masked photo. When asked if there was any reason to detain the traveller, only 13% of viewers mentioned a mask. A further 11% picked disguise from a list of suggested reasons. Even after reading about mask-related fraud, 10% of viewers judged that the traveller was not wearing a mask. Overall, mask detection was poor and was not predicted by unfamiliar face matching performance. We conclude that hyper-realistic face masks could go undetected during live identity checks.

Keywords: masks, silicone, realistic, face perception, face recognition, passports, identification, fraud, deception

They formulate a plausible evolutionary function, the sexual exploitation hypothesis: Psychopathy exhibits “special design” features for subverting female mate choice, facilitating the induction of favorable impressions & sexual desire

Psychopathy and the Induction of Desire: Formulating and Testing an Evolutionary Hypothesis. Kristopher J. Brazil & Adelle E. Forth. Evolutionary Psychological Science 6, pages 64–81 (2020). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-019-00213-0

Abstract: The problems psychopathic individuals impose on society and in their interpersonal relationships can be held in stark contrast to reports of their appeal and sexual success in some of those relationships. In the current paper, we seek to contextualize this enigma by focusing on the interpersonal dynamics of psychopathic individuals in romantic encounters. We first formulate a plausible evolutionary function, the sexual exploitation hypothesis, that proposes psychopathy exhibits “special design” features for subverting female mate choice, facilitating the induction of favorable impressions and desire in prospective intimate relationships. We then test the hypothesis in two studies with university samples. Study 1 had young men assessed on psychopathy, social intelligence, and sociosexuality engage in a filmed dating interaction. Study 2 had young women view a subsample of the videos, rate them on desirability, and leave voice messages. Results show psychopathy was related to sociosexuality, specific factors of social intelligence, and generating higher desirability ratings from women after controlling for men’s physical attractiveness. Analyses involving comparisons of two men showed women’s ratings increased in favor of the more psychopathic man. Women’s voice pitch also changed, but only in response to different facets of psychopathy. The results provide preliminary support for the sexual exploitation hypothesis and suggest that more dynamic assessment of putative desirability in psychopathy may be required to capture its plausible special design features in prospective dating encounters.

Inequality aversion and altruistic concerns play an important role for redistributive voting that is particularly pronounced for above-median income earners

Other-regarding Preferences and Redistributive Politics. Thomas Epper, Ernst Fehr and Julien Senn (2020), Working paper series / Department of Economics Working Paper No. 339. https://www.econ.uzh.ch/static/release/workingpapers.php?id=1018

Abstract: Increasing inequality and associated egalitarian sentiments have again put redistribution on the political agenda. Support for redistribution may also be affected by altruistic and egalitarian preferences, but knowledge about the distribution of these preferences in the broader population and how they relate to political support for redistributive policies is still scarce. In this paper, we take advantage of Swiss direct democracy, where people voted several times in national plebiscites on strongly redistributive policies, to study the link between other-regarding preferences and support for redistribution in a broad sample of the Swiss population. Based on a recently developed non-parametric clustering procedure, we identify three disjunct groups of individuals with fundamentally different other-regarding preferences: (i) a large share of inequality averse people, (ii) a somewhat smaller yet still large share of people with an altruistic concern for social welfare and the worse off, and (iii) a considerable minority of primarily selfish individuals. Controlling for a large number of determinants of support for redistribution, we document that inequality aversion and altruistic concerns play an important role for redistributive voting that is particularly pronounced for above-median income earners. However, the role of these motives differs depending on the nature of redistributive proposals. Inequality aversion has large and robust effects in plebiscites that demand income reductions for the rich, while altruistic concerns play no significant role in these plebiscites.

Keywords: Social preferences, altruism, inequality aversion, preference heterogeneity, demand for redistribution
JEL Classification: D31, D72, H23, H24


inequality averse individuals (comprising 50% of our population), individuals with altruistic concerns about social welfare and those worse off( 35%) and predominantly selfish individuals ( 15%)


5 Summary and conclusions

Rising inequality in advanced capitalist countries has again put the issue of redistribution on
the political agenda. In this paper, we examined the role of other-regarding preferences for
individuals’ support for redistribution – a question that has so far received relatively scarce
attention in the political economy literature. To answer this question, we took advantage of
Swiss direct democracy where 4 radically redistributive proposals were put to vote in national
plebiscites during the last 10 years. This enabled us to measure people’s support for policy
proposals that were actually put to vote instead of using more general hypothetical questions
related to demand for redistribution.
Previous research suggests that other-regarding preference may have multiple facets –
i.e., individuals may not simply differ in their degree of “other-regardingness”, but that there
may be qualitatively distinct, and in some sense fundamentally incompatible, types of otherregarding
preferences. In our context, this incompatibility concerns, for example, the extent
to which other-regarding individuals are willing to sacrifice their own payoff for the sake of
achieving equality by reducing richer people’s income. Therefore, the first task is to identify
which fundamentally distinct social preference types exist in the broader population and to
assess their quantitative importance.
For this purpose, we designed an experiment that enables us to identify the existence
of distinct social preference types and their quantitative importance in a broad sample of
the Swiss population. Applying a novel Bayesian non-parametric clustering method to the
data of this experiment, we uncover three fundamentally distinct social preference types with
a clear behavioral interpretation: inequality averse individuals (comprising 50% of our
population), individuals with altruistic concerns about social welfare and those worse off
( 35%) and predominantly selfish individuals ( 15%). Interestingly, the individual-level
behavioral variation within types is generally relatively low but within the social welfare type
there are two meaningful subgroups – a strong type that puts more weight on helping those
who are worse off, and a moderate type that puts more weight on joint payoffs.
We link individuals’ type of social preference with their political support for redistribution
and show that both types of other-regarding preference are associated with a significantly
higher support for redistribution compared to the predominantly selfish type. This
association is robust to controlling for additional covariates which includes a large battery of
socio-demographic variables and other important determinants of demand for redistribution
that were previously discussed in the literature. Even after controlling for individuals’ political
identity, other-regarding preferences remain strongly associated with political support
for redistribution. In addition, we also show that social preferences are particularly strong
predictors of support for redistribution among individuals with an income above the median.
Inequality averse above-median income earners are 20 percentage points more likely
to support redistribution than predominantly selfish individuals. Similarly, above-median
income earners with a social welfare concern are 13 percentage points more likely to support
redistribution compared to predominantly selfish individuals. In contrast, for below-median
income earners the discernible effect of social preferences is strongly diluted. Finally, the
identification of two quantitatively important social preference types enables us to examine
their potentially differential role for different types of redistributive policies. It turns out that
inequality averse individuals are substantially more likely to support policies that “reduce the
income of the rich” than those with an altruistic concern for social welfare, while the latter
appear to be (slightly) more supportive of policies that “help the worse off”.
Altogether, these results suggest that one can gain interesting new insights into the political
economy of support for redistribution by taking other-regarding preferences – and the
variety thereof – into account. We therefore believe that the future research in this domain
would benefit from routinely measuring other-regarding preferences like inequality aversion
and concerns for social welfare. To make this possible, we provide a simplified version of our
experimental tool which allows the identification of the different social preference types with
only 5 different budget lines. We hope that this simplified tool will facilitate the application
of the methods used in this paper to examine the distribution of other-regarding preferences
in many more contexts including other cultures, countries and other types of redistributive
policies.

Sentencers prefer certain numbers when meting out sentence lengths (in custody and community service) and amounts (for fines/compensation)

Criminal Sentencing by Preferred Numbers. Mandeep K. Dhami et al. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, February 3 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12246

Abstract: Criminal sentencing is a complex cognitive activity often performed by the unaided mind under suboptimal conditions. As such, sentencers may not behave according to policy, guidelines, or training. We analyzed the distribution of sentences meted out in one year in two different jurisdictions (i.e., England and Wales, and New South Wales, Australia). We reveal that sentencers prefer certain numbers when meting out sentence lengths (in custody and community service) and amounts (for fines/compensation). These “common doses” accounted for over 90 percent of sentences in each jurisdiction. The size of these doses increased as sentences became more severe, and doses followed a logarithmic pattern. Our findings are compatible with psychological research on preferred numbers and are reminiscent of Weber's and Fechner's laws. The findings run contrary to arguments against efforts to reduce judicial discretion, and potentially undermine the notion of individualized justice, as well as raise questions about the (cost) effectiveness of sentencing.

Physically attractive faces attract us physically; effect is greater with males

Physically attractive faces attract us physically. Robin S.S. Kramer et al. Cognition, Volume 198, May 2020, 104193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104193

Abstract: When interacting with other humans, facial expressions provide valuable information for approach or avoid decisions. Here, we consider facial attractiveness as another important dimension upon which approach-avoidance behaviours may be based. In Experiments 1–3, we measured participants' responses to attractive and unattractive women's faces in an approach-avoidance paradigm in which there was no explicit instruction to evaluate facial attractiveness or any other stimulus attribute. Attractive faces were selected more often, a bias that may be sensitive to response outcomes and was reduced when the faces were inverted. Experiment 4 explored an entirely implicit measure of approach, with participants passively viewing single faces while standing on a force platform. We found greater lean towards attractive faces, with this pattern being most obvious in male participants. Taken together, these results demonstrate that attractiveness activates approach-avoidance tendencies, even in the absence of any task demand.

How Firm Are the Foundations of Mind-Set Theory? The Claims Appear Stronger Than the Evidence

How Firm Are the Foundations of Mind-Set Theory? The Claims Appear Stronger Than the Evidence. Alexander P. Burgoyne, David Z. Hambrick, Brooke N. Macnamara. Psychological Science, February 3, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619897588

Abstract: Mind-set refers to people’s beliefs about whether attributes are malleable (growth mind-set) or unchangeable ( fixed mind-set). Proponents of mind-set theory have made bold claims about mind-set’s importance. For example, one’s mind-set is described as having profound effects on one’s motivation and achievements, creating different psychological worlds for people, and forming the core of people’s meaning systems. We examined the evidentiary strength of six key premises of mind-set theory in 438 participants; we reasoned that strongly worded claims should be supported by equally strong evidence. However, no support was found for most premises. All associations (rs) were significantly weaker than .20. Other achievement-motivation constructs, such as self-efficacy and need for achievement, have been found to correlate much more strongly with presumed associates of mind-set. The strongest association with mind-set (r = −.12) was opposite from the predicted direction. The results suggest that the foundations of mind-set theory are not firm and that bold claims about mind-set appear to be overstated.

Keywords: mind-set theory, implicit theories, growth mind-set, fixed mind-set, achievement, open data, open materials, preregistered

Echo Chambers Exist! (But They're Full of Opposing Views)

Echo Chambers Exist! (But They're Full of Opposing Views). Jonathan Bright, Nahema Marchal, Bharath Ganesh, Stevan Rudinac. arXiv Jan 30 2020. arXiv:2001.11461

Abstract: The theory of echo chambers, which suggests that online political discussions take place in conditions of ideological homogeneity, has recently gained popularity as an explanation for patterns of political polarization and radicalization observed in many democratic countries. However, while micro-level experimental work has shown evidence that individuals may gravitate towards information that supports their beliefs, recent macro-level studies have cast doubt on whether this tendency generates echo chambers in practice, instead suggesting that cross-cutting exposures are a common feature of digital life. In this article, we offer an explanation for these diverging results. Building on cognitive dissonance theory, and making use of observational trace data taken from an online white nationalist website, we explore how individuals in an ideological 'echo chamber' engage with opposing viewpoints. We show that this type of exposure, far from being detrimental to radical online discussions, is actually a core feature of such spaces that encourages people to stay engaged. The most common 'echoes' in this echo chamber are in fact the sound of opposing viewpoints being undermined and marginalized. Hence echo chambers exist not only in spite of but thanks to the unifying presence of oppositional viewpoints. We conclude with reflections on policy implications of our study for those seeking to promote a more moderate political internet.

Check also The rise in the political polarization in recent decades is not accounted for by the dramatic rise in internet use; claims that partisans inhabit wildly segregated echo chambers/filter bubbles are largely overstated:

Deri, Sebastian. 2019. “Internet Use and Political Polarization: A Review.” PsyArXiv. November 6. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/11/the-rise-in-political-polarization-in.html

And Testing popular news discourse on the “echo chamber” effect: Does political polarisation occur among those relying on social media as their primary politics news source? Nguyen, A. and Vu, H.T. First Monday, 24 (5), 6. Jun 4 2019. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/10/testing-popular-news-discourse-on-echo.html

Mating with immature females is an alternative tactic for brown widow males, since adult females cannibalize mating males & immature females do not; but males approached and preferred to mate with adult females

Alternative mating tactics in a cannibalistic widow spider: do males prefer the safer option? Lenka Sentenská, Gabriele Uhl, Yael Lubin. Animal Behaviour, Volume 160, February 2020, Pages 53-59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.11.021

Highlights
•    Mating with immature females is an alternative tactic for brown widow males.
•    Adult females cannibalize mating males, but immature females do not.
•    Males approached and preferred to mate with adult females over receptive immatures.
•    Males did not show a preference for unreceptive versus late-stage receptive immatures.
•    Close-range cues in webs of immatures may indicate receptivity.

Abstract: Mating generally occurs with adult females, which undergo a suite of changes in morphology, physiology and behaviour during maturation. In the brown widow spider, Latrodectus geometricus, however, males can mate with immature females during a short period before they moult to the adult stage. Mating with immature females seems beneficial for males, because they are not at risk of being cannibalized, whereas cannibalism inevitably occurs in matings with adult females. We conducted choice experiments to elucidate male preference, courtship and mating behaviour with immature and adult females of different ages. We controlled for age of the females’ webs to provide males with potential web-borne attractants of similar age. We tested whether males distinguish immature females that are ready to mate (late subadult stage) from adult females and from immature females that do not mate (early subadults), and we examined male response to young versus old adult females. Males approached and mated with adult females more frequently than late subadult females, but there were no differences in the frequencies of approach to early and late subadults or to adult females of different ages. Once on the web, however, males attempted to mate with the late subadults. We suggest that web-borne volatile cues, typical of adult females, may be reduced or lacking in late subadult females, yet less volatile cues may indicate receptivity.

Discussion

Male L. geometricus mated with late subadult females, which would seem to be highly advantageous for the male due to the reduced courtship combined with consistently successful copulation with both palps and lack of sexual cannibalism (Biaggio et al., 2016, Waner et al., 2018; this study). However, when we presented males with late subadult and adult females simultaneously, they typically chose adult, cannibalistic females over the noncannibalistic subadult females. Males showed this preference even when we controlled for web age, a confounding factor that might have affected their choice for adult females observed in a previous study (Waner et al., 2018).

Sexual Attractants

Male L. geometricus might not recognize subadult females as potential mates due to a lack of sex pheromone (Waner et al., 2018). For example, Fisher et al. (2018) suggested that subadult females of the false black widow spider, Steatoda grossa, do not produce a sexual-attractant pheromone. However, male widow spiders are often found on webs of subadult females in nature (Y. Lubin, personal observation). Furthermore, males readily approached the subadult females in their webs, when we exposed the males to late subadult females against an empty control and they did so as rapidly as when they approached adult females. These observations suggest that even before the final moult females produce cues that act as sexual attractants by which males recognize subadult females as potential mates.

In our experiments, we found no evidence that the age of adult females influenced the male's response in choice tests, contrary to previous findings (Waner et al., 2018) where males preferred older adult females to young adults and late stage subadults. The result of Waner et al. (2018) was probably due to the presence of a stronger pheromone cue that had accumulated in the older web. We also observed no difference in the male's approach towards late subadult females, which are ready to mate, and early subadult females, which are not. This suggests that males cannot identify from a distance whether the subadult females are ready to mate. However, after contacting their webs, males courted the early subadult females only very briefly and then remained in their webs without any further courting, but males immediately courted and then mated with late subadult females. Thus, our observations agree with other studies on spider chemical communication, which suggest that airborne chemicals provide less specific information than chemicals detected by contact with the web (reviewed in Gaskett, 2007, Uhl, 2013). Similarly, when presented with adult and late subadult females, males seemed to recognize the female stage only upon contacting the web because only then did they begin to add silk when with an adult female or vibrate when with a late subadult female.

The observed preference of males for adult rather than subadult females could be due to quantitative differences in male-attracting signals or to different cues emitted by subadult and adult females. Virgin adult females of many spider species attract males by producing pheromones that signal readiness to mate (Gaskett, 2007, Kasumovic and Andrade, 2004, Riechert and Singer, 1995, Roberts and Uetz, 2005, Stoltz et al., 2007, Uhl, 2013). Subadult mating in L. geometricus occurs during a 4-day period before the final moult (late subadult stage). In general, adults seem to produce more pheromone and thus provide a stronger signal than immature females and often only adults produce pheromones (Gaskett, 2007, Uhl and Elias, 2011, Uhl, 2013, Fischer et al., 2018). Then, the observed preference for adult females represents rather an attraction to a stronger signal than a preference for a certain stage per se. A few pheromones have been chemically characterized for virgin adult females (e.g. in the genus Latrodectus; Jerhot, Stoltz, Andrade, & Schulz, 2010) but none for subadults. Although males often cohabit with subadult females (Jackson, 1986), these females might not produce sex pheromones, and males may identify them by unintentionally produced chemical cues (Fischer, 2019). Therefore, olfactory cues produced by subadult females may be qualitatively different from pheromones of adult females, potentially allowing males to differentiate between the two stages. If these chemicals are distinguishable by males, the choice of adult females over late subadults might indicate that the former are perceived as higher-quality mates, even though mating with them limits males to a single copulation and sometimes even to a single insertion (Segoli, Arieli, et al., 2008).

Costs to Males of Mating with Subadult Females

There may be fitness costs to males adopting the subadult mating tactic. After mating, subadult-mated females still have to undergo a final moult to adulthood and may have a lower probability of surviving to oviposition than adult-mated females. The moulting process itself is a sensitive period due to the risk of predation on moulting or freshly moulted spiders, the risk of desiccation or an inability to release the old cuticle (e.g. Horner and Starks, 1972, Jones, 1941, Tanaka, 1984). Thus, males may prefer to mate with adult females due to the overall greater probability of successful reproduction.

Costs of mating with late subadult females could also arise from the specific mating behaviour and the mechanisms of copulation, sperm transfer and sperm storage. When mating with subadult females, L. geometricus males do not somersault and are not cannibalized. In the congener L. hasselti, cannibalism reduces the likelihood of a female remating (Andrade, 1996). Thus, the lack of cannibalism might lead to a greater probability of remating in subadult-mated females and consequently to paternity loss for the first male. Furthermore, during courtship with adult females, the male removes a large part of the female's web and adds his own silk. Webs of adult female L. hasselti that were thus altered by males attracted fewer suitors (Scott, Kirk, McCann, & Gries, 2015), a phenomenon observed also in other web-building species (reviewed in Scott, Anderson, & Andrade, 2018). By contrast, we showed here that webs of subadult-mated females were not altered by the male; male courtship was brief, the web remained intact and the male added little silk. A subsequent male might thus have no indication of a previous visitor. It is unclear whether subadult-mated females remain attractive to males and whether these females will remate after maturing to adults (Biaggio et al., 2016, Waner et al., 2019). Finally, although mating with a subadult female enables the male to seek an additional female, high mortality during mate search (more than 80% of L. hasselti males die without finding a mate; Andrade, 2003) may reduce the benefit of such matings.

A male mating with subadult females may have lower paternity than expected for the first male in adult matings due to unfavourable sperm storage conditions or incorrect placement of sperm in the subadult female spermathecae, or to lower competitive ability of his sperm against a second male's sperm. If the internal genitalia of late subadult females are not fully developed, sperm storage conditions may differ from those in adult females and might result in a lower paternity share for a male's sperm when competing with ejaculates of other males. It is possible that the mating plugs cannot be placed correctly or can shift when subadult females moult and thus may be a less effective barrier to remating. Additionally, the lack of somersaulting while mating with late subadult females may mechanically alter the insertion mechanism and affect where sperm is deposited within the female's reproductive tract. The location of deposited sperm and the storage conditions, together with potentially insufficient plugging in subadult matings, may yield lower reproductive success. In the congener, L. hasselti, the first of two males mating with an adult female achieves approximately 80% paternity (Snow & Andrade, 2005). However, the paternity share may differ if a subsequent male inseminates a female mated as subadult after she has moulted. These potential costs of mating with a subadult female can be revealed through paternity assessments in double-mating trials.

Our observation showed that L. geometricus males mate with late subadult females, but do not attempt to do so with younger subadults. Despite this, they did not show any preference for late over early subadult females. Cohabiting with subadult females and then mating with them when they moult is known for many spider species (Jackson, 1986) including the widow spiders (Biaggio et al., 2016, Segoli et al., 2006). Although in L. hasselti and L. geometricus the encounter with late subadult females often leads to immediate mating, cohabiting with early subadult females and waiting for them to mature may be another mating tactic in a male's repertoire. Additionally, it is likely that males cannot determine from a distance subadult females' readiness to mate.

Comparing learning to normative benchmarks reveals that people overreact to signals about goods that they own, but that learning is close to Bayesian for non-owned goods

Ownership, Learning, and Beliefs. Samuel M. Hartzmark Samuel Hirshmany Alex Imasz. November 2019. https://fraconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ownership_learning_beliefs.pdf

Abstract: We examine how owning a good affects learning and beliefs about its quality. We show that people have more extreme reactions to information about a good that they own compared to the same information about a non-owned good: ownership causes more optimistic beliefs after receiving a positive signal and more pessimistic beliefs after receiving a negative signal. This effect on beliefs impacts the valuation gap between the minimum owners are willing to accept to part with the good and the maximum non-owners are willing to pay to attain it, i.e. the endowment effect. We show that the endowment effect increases in response to positive information and disappears with negative information. Comparing learning to normative benchmarks reveals that people overreact to signals about goods that they own, but that learning is close to Bayesian for non-owned goods. In exploring the mechanism, we find that ownership increases attention to recent signals about owned goods, exacerbating over-extrapolation. We demonstrate a similar relationship between ownership and over-extrapolation in survey data about stock market expectations. Our findings have implications for any setting with trade and scope for learning, and provide a microfoundation for models of disagreement that generate volume in asset markets.

KEYWORDS: biased beliefs, endowment effect, ownership, attention, behavioral economics, learning, extrapolation
JEL Classifications: D9, D12

American atheists are relatively liberal and likely to experience political conflict and follow political news; agnostics are particularly likely to vote and feel politically isolated from their families

The Politics of Religious Nones. Philip Schwadel. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, February 2 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12640

Abstract: Americans with no religious affiliation (aka religious “Nones”) are not a politically homogeneous community. Just as there are political differences between groups of Christians, there are political differences between groups of religious Nones. I use nationally representative survey data to examine the political activities and perspectives of atheists, agnostics, and those who are “nothing in particular.” Results show that Americans who report that their religion is nothing in particular are relatively uninterested in politics and unlikely to be politically active; atheists are relatively liberal and likely to experience political conflict and follow political news; and agnostics are particularly likely to vote and feel politically isolated from their families. In many ways, the “softer” secularism of those who are nothing in particular is politically more similar to religious affiliates than the “harder” secularism of agnostics and especially atheists. These results have important implications for the future of American politics as Nones now have the potential to rival evangelical Protestants as a politically relevant constituency.

The data used for this study come from Wave 23 of the Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel. The data can be downloaded from the Pew Research Center website: https://www.pewresearch.org/american-trends-panel-datasets/

Exposure to half-dressed women and economic behavior: Men take more risk, no effect on willingness to compete & math performance; very little effect on economic decision making

Exposure to half-dressed women and economic behavior. Evelina Bonnier et al. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 168, December 2019, Pages 393-418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2019.10.017

Highlights
•    We randomize 648 participants of both genders in the lab to advertising images.
•    The images contain either half-dressed women, fully dressed women, or no women.
•    We study the effects on risk taking, willingness to compete and math performance.
•    We find no treatment effects on any outcome measure for women.
•    There is some evidence of men taking more risk after viewing half-dressed women.

Abstract: Images of half-dressed women are ubiquitous in advertising and popular culture. Yet little is known about the potential impacts of such images on economic decision making. We randomize 648 participants of both genders to advertising images including either women in bikini or underwear, fully dressed women, or no women, and examine the effects on risk taking, willingness to compete and math performance in a lab experiment. We find no treatment effects on any outcome measure for women. For men, our results indicate that men take more risk after having been exposed to images of half-dressed women compared to no women.