‘The intelligence coup of the century.’ Greg Miller. The Washington Post, Feb. 11, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com
For decades, the CIA read the encrypted communications of allies and adversaries.
For more than half a century, governments all over the world trusted a single company to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers and diplomats secret.
The company, Crypto AG, got its first break with a contract to build code-making machines for U.S. troops during World War II. Flush with cash, it became a dominant maker of encryption devices for decades, navigating waves of technology from mechanical gears to electronic circuits and, finally, silicon chips and software.
The Swiss firm made millions of dollars selling equipment to more than 120 countries well into the 21st century. Its clients included Iran, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican.
But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA in a highly classified partnership with West German intelligence. These spy agencies rigged the company’s devices so they could easily break the codes that countries used to send encrypted messages.
The decades-long arrangement, among the most closely guarded secrets of the Cold War, is laid bare in a classified, comprehensive CIA history of the operation obtained by The Washington Post and ZDF, a German public broadcaster, in a joint reporting project.
The account identifies the CIA officers who ran the program and the company executives entrusted to execute it. It traces the origin of the venture as well as the internal conflicts that nearly derailed it. It describes how the United States and its allies exploited other nations’ gullibility for years, taking their money and stealing their secrets.
The operation, known first by the code name “Thesaurus” and later “Rubicon,” ranks among the most audacious in CIA history.
“It was the intelligence coup of the century,” the CIA report concludes. “Foreign governments were paying good money to the U.S. and West Germany for the privilege of having their most secret communications read by at least two (and possibly as many as five or six) foreign countries.”
From 1970 on, the CIA and its code-breaking sibling, the National Security Agency, controlled nearly every aspect of Crypto’s operations — presiding with their German partners over hiring decisions, designing its technology, sabotaging its algorithms and directing its sales targets.
Then, the U.S. and West German spies sat back and listened.
They monitored Iran’s mullahs during the 1979 hostage crisis, fed intelligence about Argentina’s military to Britain during the Falklands War, tracked the assassination campaigns of South American dictators and caught Libyan officials congratulating themselves on the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco.
The program had limits. America’s main adversaries, including the Soviet Union and China, were never Crypto customers. Their well-founded suspicions of the company’s ties to the West shielded them from exposure, although the CIA history suggests that U.S. spies learned a great deal by monitoring other countries’ interactions with Moscow and Beijing.
There were also security breaches that put Crypto under clouds of suspicion. Documents released in the 1970s showed extensive — and incriminating — correspondence between an NSA pioneer and Crypto’s founder. Foreign targets were tipped off by the careless statements of public officials including President Ronald Reagan. And the 1992 arrest of a Crypto salesman in Iran, who did not realize he was selling rigged equipment, triggered a devastating “storm of publicity,” according to the CIA history.
But the true extent of the company’s relationship with the CIA and its German counterpart was until now never revealed.
The German spy agency, the BND, came to believe the risk of exposure was too great and left the operation in the early 1990s. But the CIA bought the Germans’ stake and simply kept going, wringing Crypto for all its espionage worth until 2018, when the agency sold off the company’s assets, according to current and former officials.
The company’s importance to the global security market had fallen by then, squeezed by the spread of online encryption technology. Once the province of governments and major corporations, strong encryption is now as ubiquitous as apps on cellphones.
Even so, the Crypto operation is relevant to modern espionage. Its reach and duration help to explain how the United States developed an insatiable appetite for global surveillance that was exposed in 2013 by Edward Snowden. There are also echoes of Crypto in the suspicions swirling around modern companies with alleged links to foreign governments, including the Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky, a texting app tied to the United Arab Emirates and the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
This story is based on the CIA history and a parallel BND account, also obtained by The Post and ZDF, and interviews with current and former Western intelligence officials as well as Crypto employees. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.
It is hard to overstate how extraordinary the CIA and BND histories are. Sensitive intelligence files are periodically declassified and released to the public. But it is exceedingly rare, if not unprecedented, to glimpse authoritative internal histories of an entire covert operation. The Post was able to read all of the documents, but the source of the material insisted that only excerpts be published.
Click any underlined text in the story to see an excerpt from the CIA history.
The CIA and the BND declined to comment, though U.S. and German officials did not dispute the authenticity of the documents. The first is a 96-page account of the operation completed in 2004 by the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, an internal historical branch. The second is an oral history compiled by German intelligence officials in 2008.
The overlapping accounts expose frictions between the two partners over money, control and ethical limits, with the West Germans frequently aghast at the enthusiasm with which U.S. spies often targeted allies.
But both sides describe the operation as successful beyond their wildest projections. At times, including in the 1980s, Crypto accounted for roughly 40 percent of the diplomatic cables and other transmissions by foreign governments that cryptanalysts at the NSA decoded and mined for intelligence, according to the documents.
All the while, Crypto generated millions of dollars in profits that the CIA and BND split and plowed into other operations.
Crypto’s sign is still visible atop its longtime headquarters near Zug, Switzerland, though the company was liquidated in 2018. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
Crypto’s products are still in use in more than a dozen countries around the world, and its orange-and-white sign still looms atop the company’s longtime headquarters building near Zug, Switzerland. But the company was dismembered in 2018, liquidated by shareholders whose identities have been permanently shielded by the byzantine laws of Liechtenstein, a tiny European nation with a Cayman Islands-like reputation for financial secrecy.
Two companies purchased most of Crypto’s assets. The first, CyOne Security, was created as part of a management buyout and now sells security systems exclusively to the Swiss government. The other, Crypto International, took over the former company’s brand and international business.
Each insisted that it has no ongoing connection to any intelligence service, but only one claimed to be unaware of CIA ownership. Their statements were in response to questions from The Post, ZDF and Swiss broadcaster SRF, which also had access to the documents.
CyOne has more substantial links to the now-dissolved Crypto, including that the new company’s chief executive held the same position at Crypto for nearly two decades of CIA ownership.
A CyOne spokesman declined to address any aspect of Crypto AG’s history but said the new firm has “no ties to any foreign intelligence services.”
Andreas Linde, the chairman of the company that now holds the rights to Crypto’s international products and business, said he had no knowledge of the company’s relationship to the CIA and BND before being confronted with the facts in this article.
“We at Crypto International have never had any relationship with the CIA or BND — and please quote me,” he said in an interview. “If what you are saying is true, then absolutely I feel betrayed, and my family feels betrayed, and I feel there will be a lot of employees who will feel betrayed as well as customers.”
The Swiss government announced on Tuesday that it was launching an investigation of Crypto AG’s ties to the CIA and BND. Earlier this month, Swiss officials revoked Crypto International’s export license.
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The CIA’s ‘coup of the century’Subscribe0:00151532:01
The timing of the Swiss moves was curious. The CIA and BND documents indicate that Swiss officials must have known for decades about Crypto’s ties to the U.S. and German spy services, but intervened only after learning that news organizations were about to expose the arrangement.
The histories, which do not address when or whether the CIA ended its involvement, carry the inevitable biases of documents written from the perspectives of the operation’s architects. They depict Rubicon as a triumph of espionage, one that helped the United States prevail in the Cold War, keep tabs on dozens of authoritarian regimes and protect the interests of the United States and its allies.
The papers largely avoid more unsettling questions, including what the United States knew — and what it did or didn’t do — about countries that used Crypto machines while engaged in assassination plots, ethnic cleansing campaigns and human rights abuses.
The revelations in the documents may provide reason to revisit whether the United States was in position to intervene in, or at least expose, international atrocities, and whether it opted against doing so at times to preserve its access to valuable streams of intelligence.
Nor do the files deal with obvious ethical issues at the core of the operation: the deception and exploitation of adversaries, allies and hundreds of unwitting Crypto employees. Many traveled the world selling or servicing rigged systems with no clue that they were doing so at risk to their own safety.
Juerg Spoerndli is an electrical engineer who spent 16 years working at Crypto. Deceived employees said the revelations about the company have deepened a sense of betrayal, of themselves and customers. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
In recent interviews, deceived employees — even ones who came to suspect during their time at Crypto that the company was cooperating with Western intelligence — said the revelations in the documents have deepened a sense of betrayal, of themselves and customers.
“You think you do good work and you make something secure,” said Juerg Spoerndli, an electrical engineer who spent 16 years at Crypto. “And then you realize that you cheated these clients.”
Those who ran the clandestine program remain unapologetic.
“Do I have any qualms? Zero,” said Bobby Ray Inman, who served as director of the NSA and deputy director of the CIA in the late 1970s and early 1980s. “It was a very valuable source of communications on significantly large parts of the world important to U.S. policymakers.”
Boris Hagelin, the founder of Crypto, and his wife arrive in New York in 1949. Hagelin fled to the United States when the Nazis occupied Norway in 1940. (Bettmann Archive)
A denial operation
This sprawling, sophisticated operation grew out of the U.S. military’s need for a crude but compact encryption device.
Boris Hagelin, Crypto’s founder, was an entrepreneur and inventor who was born in Russia but fled to Sweden as the Bolsheviks took power. He fled again to the United States when the Nazis occupied Norway in 1940.
He brought with him an encryption machine that looked like a fortified music box, with a sturdy crank on the side and an assembly of metal gears and pinwheels under a hard metal case.
It wasn’t nearly as elaborate, or secure, as the Enigma machines being used by the Nazis. But Hagelin’s M-209, as it became known, was portable, hand-powered and perfect for troops on the move. Photos show soldiers with the eight-pound boxes — about the size of a thick book — strapped to their knees. Many of Hagelin’s devices have been preserved at a private museum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
Marc Simons and Paul Reuvers founded the Crypto Museum in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The virtual museum has preserved many of Hagelin’s devices. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) Hagelin’s M-209 encryption machine had a crank on the side and an assembly of metal gears and pinwheels under a hard metal case. Portable and hand-powered, it was used mainly for tactical messages about troop movements. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
Sending a secure message with the device was tedious. The user would rotate a dial, letter by letter, and thrust down the crank. The hidden gears would turn and spit out an enciphered message on a strip of paper. A signals officer then had to transmit that scrambled message by Morse code to a recipient who would reverse the sequence.
Security was so weak that it was assumed that nearly any adversary could break the code with enough time. But doing so took hours. And since these were used mainly for tactical messages about troop movements, by the time the Nazis decoded a signal its value had probably perished.
Over the course of the war, about 140,000 M-209s were built at the Smith Corona typewriter factory in Syracuse, N.Y., under a U.S. Army contract worth $8.6 million to Crypto. After the war, Hagelin returned to Sweden to reopen his factory, bringing with him a personal fortune and a lifelong sense of loyalty to the United States.
Even so, American spies kept a wary eye on his postwar operations. In the early 1950s, he developed a more advanced version of his war-era machine with a new, “irregular” mechanical sequence that briefly stumped American code-breakers.
Learn how secret messages are created using an early encryption machine 2:11
Marc Simons, co-founder of Crypto Museum, a virtual museum of cipher machines, explains how secret messages were created using the Hagelin CX-52. (Stanislav Dobak/The Washington Post)
Alarmed by the capabilities of the new CX-52 and other devices Crypto envisioned, U.S. officials began to discuss what they called the “Hagelin problem.”
These were “the Dark Ages of American cryptology,” according to the CIA history. The Soviets, Chinese and North Koreans were using code-making systems that were all but impenetrable. U.S. spy agencies worried that the rest of the world would also go dark if countries could buy secure machines from Hagelin.
The Americans had several points of leverage with Hagelin: his ideological affinity for the country, his hope that the United States would remain a major customer and the veiled threat that they could damage his prospects by flooding the market with surplus M-209s from the war.
The U.S. Army’s Signals Intelligence Service was headed by William Friedman, center, in the mid-1930s. Other members, from left: Herrick F. Bearce, Solomon Kullback, U.S. Army Capt. Harold G. Miller, Louise Newkirk Nelson, seated, Abraham Sinkov, U.S. Coast Guard Lt. L.T. Jones and Frank B. Rowlett. (Fotosearch/Getty Images)
The United States also had a more crucial asset: William Friedman. Widely regarded as the father of American cryptology, Friedman had known Hagelin since the 1930s. They had forged a lifelong friendship over their shared backgrounds and interests, including their Russian heritage and fascination with the complexities of encryption.
There might never have been an Operation Rubicon if the two men had not shaken hands on the very first secret agreement between Hagelin and U.S. intelligence over dinner at the Cosmos Club in Washington in 1951.
The deal called for Hagelin, who had moved his company to Switzerland, to restrict sales of his most sophisticated models to countries approved by the United States. Nations not on that list would get older, weaker systems. Hagelin would be compensated for his lost sales, as much as $700,000 up front.
It took years for the United States to live up to its end of the deal, as top officials at the CIA and the predecessor to the NSA bickered over the terms and wisdom of the scheme. But Hagelin abided by the agreement from the outset, and over the next two decades, his secret relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies deepened.
In 1960, the CIA and Hagelin entered into a “licensing agreement” that paid him $855,000 to renew his commitment to the handshake deal. The agency paid him $70,000 a year in retainer and started giving his company cash infusions of $10,000 for “marketing” expenses to ensure that Crypto — and not other upstarts in the encryption business — locked down contracts with most of the world’s governments.
It was a classic “denial operation” in the parlance of intelligence, a scheme designed to prevent adversaries from acquiring weapons or technology that would give them an advantage. But it was only the beginning of Crypto’s collaboration with U.S. intelligence. Within a decade, the whole operation belonged to the CIA and BND.
U.S. officials had toyed since the outset with the idea of asking Hagelin whether he would be willing to let U.S. cryptologists doctor his machines. But Friedman overruled them, convinced that Hagelin would see that as a step too far.
The CIA and NSA saw a new opening in the mid-1960s, as the spread of electronic circuits forced Hagelin to accept outside help adapting to the new technology, or face extinction clinging to the manufacturing of mechanical machines.
NSA cryptologists were equally concerned about the potential impact of integrated circuits, which seemed poised to enable a new era of unbreakable encryption. But one of the agency’s senior analysts, Peter Jenks, identified a potential vulnerability.
If “carefully designed by a clever crypto-mathematician,” he said, a circuit-based system could be made to appear that it was producing endless streams of randomly generated characters, while in reality it would repeat itself at short enough intervals for NSA experts — and their powerful computers — to crack the pattern.
Two years later, in 1967, Crypto rolled out a new, all-electronic model, the H-460, whose inner workings were completely designed by the NSA.
The CIA history all but gloats about crossing this threshold. “Imagine the idea of the American government convincing a foreign manufacturer to jimmy equipment in its favor,” the history says. “Talk about a brave new world.”
The NSA didn’t install crude “back doors” or secretly program the devices to cough up their encryption keys. And the agency still faced the difficult task of intercepting other governments’ communications, whether plucking signals out of the air or, in later years, tapping into fiber optic cables.
But the manipulation of Crypto’s algorithms streamlined the code-breaking process, at times reducing to seconds a task that might otherwise have taken months. The company always made at least two versions of its products — secure models that would be sold to friendly governments, and rigged systems for the rest of the world.
In so doing, the U.S.-Hagelin partnership had evolved from denial to “active measures.” No longer was Crypto merely restricting sales of its best equipment but actively selling devices that were engineered to betray their buyers.
The payoff went beyond the penetration of the devices. Crypto’s shift to electronic products buoyed business so much that it became addicted to its dependence on the NSA. Foreign governments clamored for systems that seemed clearly superior to the old clunky mechanical devices but in fact were easier for U.S. spies to read.
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By the end of the 1960s, Hagelin was nearing 80 and anxious to secure the future for his company, which had grown to more than 180 employees. CIA officials were similarly anxious about what would happen to the operation if Hagelin were to suddenly sell or die.
Hagelin had once hoped to turn control over to his son, Bo. But U.S. intelligence officials regarded him as a “wild card” and worked to conceal the partnership from him. Bo Hagelin was killed in a car crash on Washington’s Beltway in 1970. There were no indications of foul play.
U.S. intelligence officials discussed the idea of buying Crypto for years, but squabbling between the CIA and NSA prevented them from acting until two other spy agencies entered the fray.
The French, West German and other European intelligence services had either been told about the United States’ arrangement with Crypto or figured it out on their own. Some were understandably jealous and probed for ways to secure a similar deal for themselves.
In 1967, Hagelin was approached by the French intelligence service with an offer to buy the company in partnership with German intelligence. Hagelin rebuffed the offer and reported it to his CIA handlers. But two years later, the Germans came back seeking to make a follow-up bid with the blessing of the United States.
In a meeting in early 1969 at the West German Embassy in Washington, the head of that country’s cipher service, Wilhelm Goeing, outlined the proposal and asked whether the Americans “were interested in becoming partners too.”
Months later, CIA Director Richard Helms approved the idea of buying Crypto and dispatched a subordinate to Bonn, the West German capital, to negotiate terms with one major caveat: the French, CIA officials told Goeing, would have to be “shut out.”
West Germany acquiesced to this American power play, and a deal between the two spy agencies was recorded in a June 1970 memo carrying the shaky signature of a CIA case officer in Munich who was in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease and the illegible scrawl of his BND counterpart.
The two agencies agreed to chip in equally to buy out Hagelin for approximately $5.75 million, but the CIA left it largely to the Germans to figure out how to prevent any trace of the transaction from ever becoming public.
A Liechtenstein law firm, Marxer and Goop, helped hide the identities of the new owners of Crypto through a series of shells and “bearer” shares that required no names in registration documents. The firm was paid an annual salary “less for the extensive work but more for their silence and acceptance,” the BND history says. The firm, now named Marxer and Partner, did not respond to a request for comment.
A new board of directors was set up to oversee the company. Only one member of the board, Sture Nyberg, to whom Hagelin had turned over day-to-day management, knew of CIA involvement. “It was through this mechanism,” the CIA history notes, “that BND and CIA controlled the activities” of Crypto. Nyberg left the company in 1976. The Post and ZDF could not locate him or determine whether he is still alive.
The two spy agencies held their own regular meetings to discuss what to do with their acquisition. The CIA used a secret base in Munich, initially on a military installation used by American troops and later in the attic of a building adjacent to the U.S. Consulate, as the headquarters for its involvement in the operation.
The CIA and BND agreed on a series of code names for the program and its various components. Crypto was called “Minerva,” which is also the title of the CIA history. The operation was at first code-named “Thesaurus,” though in the 1980s it was changed to “Rubicon.”
Each year, the CIA and BND split any profits Crypto had made, according to the German history, which says the BND handled the accounting and delivered the cash owed to the CIA in an underground parking garage.
From the outset, the partnership was beset by petty disagreements and tensions. To CIA operatives, the BND often seemed preoccupied with turning a profit, and the Americans “constantly reminded the Germans that this was an intelligence operation, not a money-making enterprise.” The Germans were taken aback by the Americans’ willingness to spy on all but their closest allies, with targets including NATO members Spain, Greece, Turkey and Italy.
Mindful of the limitations to their abilities to run a high-tech company, the two agencies brought in corporate outsiders. The Germans enlisted Siemens, a Munich-based conglomerate, to advise Crypto on business and technical issues in exchange for 5 percent of the company’s sales. The United States later brought in Motorola to fix balky products, making it clear to the company’s CEO this was being done for U.S. intelligence. Siemens declined to comment. Motorola officials did not respond to a request for comment.
To its frustration, Germany was never admitted to the vaunted “Five Eyes,” a long-standing intelligence pact involving the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. But with the Crypto partnership, Germany moved closer into the American espionage fold than might have seemed possible in World War II’s aftermath. With the secret backing of two of the world’s premier intelligence agencies and the support of two of the world’s largest corporations, Crypto’s business flourished.
A table in the CIA history shows that sales surged from 15 million Swiss francs in 1970 to more than 51 million in 1975, or $19 million. The company’s payroll expanded to more than 250 employees.
“The Minerva purchase had yielded a bonanza,” the CIA history says of this period. The operation entered a two-decade stretch of unprecedented access to foreign governments’ communications.
Iranian suspicions
The NSA’s eavesdropping empire was for many years organized around three main geographic targets, each with its own alphabetic code: A for the Soviets, B for Asia and G for virtually everywhere else.
By the early 1980s, more than half of the intelligence gathered by G group was flowing through Crypto machines, a capability that U.S. officials relied on in crisis after crisis.
In 1978, as the leaders of Egypt, Israel and the United States gathered at Camp David for negotiations on a peace accord, the NSA was secretly monitoring the communications of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat with Cairo.
A year later, after Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy and took 52 American hostages, the Carter administration sought their release in back-channel communications through Algeria. Inman, who served as NSA director at the time, said he routinely got calls from President Jimmy Carter asking how the Ayatollah Khomeini regime was reacting to the latest messages.
“We were able to respond to his questions about 85 percent of the time,” Inman said. That was because the Iranians and Algerians were using Crypto devices.
Inman said the operation also put him in one of the trickiest binds he’d encountered in government service. At one point, the NSA intercepted Libyan communications indicating that the president’s brother, Billy Carter, was advancing Libya’s interests in Washington and was on leader Moammar Gaddafi’s payroll.
Inman referred the matter to the Justice Department. The FBI launched an investigation of Carter, who falsely denied taking payments. In the end, he was not prosecuted but agreed to register as a foreign agent.
Throughout the 1980s, the list of Crypto’s leading clients read like a catalogue of global trouble spots. In 1981, Saudi Arabia was Crypto’s biggest customer, followed by Iran, Italy, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Jordan and South Korea.
To protect its market position, Crypto and its secret owners engaged in subtle smear campaigns against rival companies, according to the documents, and plied government officials with bribes. Crypto sent an executive to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with 10 Rolex watches in his luggage, the BND history says, and later arranged a training program for the Saudis in Switzerland where the participants’ “favorite pastime was to visit the brothels, which the company also financed.”
At times, the incentives led to sales to countries ill-equipped to use the complicated systems. Nigeria bought a large shipment of Crypto machines, but two years later, when there was still no corresponding payoff in intelligence, a company representative was sent to investigate. “He found the equipment in a warehouse still in its original packaging,” according to the German document.
In 1982, the Reagan administration took advantage of Argentina’s reliance on Crypto equipment, funneling intelligence to Britain during the two countries’ brief war over the Falkland Islands, according to the CIA history, which doesn’t provide any detail on what kind of information was passed to London. The documents generally discuss intelligence gleaned from the operation in broad terms and provide few insights into how it was used.
Reagan appears to have jeopardized the Crypto operation after Libya was implicated in the 1986 bombing of a West Berlin disco popular with American troops stationed in West Germany. Two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman were killed as a result of the attack.
Reagan ordered retaliatory strikes against Libya 10 days later. Among the reported victims was one of Gaddafi’s daughters. In an address to the country announcing the strikes, Reagan said the United States had evidence of Libya’s complicity that “is direct, it is precise, it is irrefutable.”
The evidence, Reagan said, showed that Libya’s embassy in East Berlin received orders to carry out the attack a week before it happened. Then, the day after the bombing, “they reported back to Tripoli on the great success of their mission.”
Reagan’s words made clear that Tripoli’s communications with its station in East Berlin had been intercepted and decrypted. But Libya wasn’t the only government that took note of the clues Reagan had provided.
Iran, which knew that Libya also used Crypto machines, became increasingly concerned about the security of its equipment. Tehran didn’t act on those suspicions until six years later.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
GDPR: Consumers that opt out reduce noise on remaining consumers and make them more trackable; the average value of the remaining consumers to advertisers has increased
Aridor, Guy and Che, Yeon-Koo and Nelson, William and Salz, Tobias, The Economic Consequences of Data Privacy Regulation: Empirical Evidence from GDPR (January 29, 2020). SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3522845
Abstract: This paper studies the effects of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on the ability of firms to collect consumer data, identify consumers over time, accrue revenue via online advertising, and predict their behavior. Utilizing a novel dataset by an intermediary that spans much of the online travel industry, we perform a difference-in-differences analysis that exploits the geographic reach of GDPR. We find a 12.5% drop in the intermediary- observed consumers as a result of GDPR, suggesting that a nonnegligible number of consumers exercised the opt-out right enabled by GDPR. At the same time, the remaining consumers are more persistently trackable. This observed pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that privacy-conscious consumers substitute away from less efficient privacy protection (e.g, cookie deletion) to explicit opt out, a process that would reduce noise on remaining consumers and make them more trackable. Further in keeping with this hypothesis, we observe that the average value of the remaining consumers to advertisers has increased, offsetting most of the losses from consumers that opt-out. Our results highlight the externalities that consumer privacy decisions have both on other consumers and for firms.
Keywords: GDPR, Data Privacy Regulation, E-Commerce
JEL Classification: L50; K20; L81
Abstract: This paper studies the effects of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on the ability of firms to collect consumer data, identify consumers over time, accrue revenue via online advertising, and predict their behavior. Utilizing a novel dataset by an intermediary that spans much of the online travel industry, we perform a difference-in-differences analysis that exploits the geographic reach of GDPR. We find a 12.5% drop in the intermediary- observed consumers as a result of GDPR, suggesting that a nonnegligible number of consumers exercised the opt-out right enabled by GDPR. At the same time, the remaining consumers are more persistently trackable. This observed pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that privacy-conscious consumers substitute away from less efficient privacy protection (e.g, cookie deletion) to explicit opt out, a process that would reduce noise on remaining consumers and make them more trackable. Further in keeping with this hypothesis, we observe that the average value of the remaining consumers to advertisers has increased, offsetting most of the losses from consumers that opt-out. Our results highlight the externalities that consumer privacy decisions have both on other consumers and for firms.
Keywords: GDPR, Data Privacy Regulation, E-Commerce
JEL Classification: L50; K20; L81
Whereas observers believe that acting heroically involves extreme personal burden, actors view their personal burden as relatively unimportant. Being a hero is a distinctly less positive experience than observing one
Heroes Perceive Their Own Actions as Less Heroic Than Other People Do. Nadav Klein. Social Psychological and Personality Science, February 18, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550619893967
Abstract: Heroic acts are prosocial actions that involve extreme sacrifice and risk. Such acts receive near-ubiquitous praise. However, the present article suggests that one group refrains from praising heroic acts—heroes themselves. Using self-reflections provided in news reports, Experiment 1 finds that people who actually saved others’ lives do not view themselves as positively as they should according to outside observers. Experiment 2 measures participants’ recollections of their own extreme prosocial acts and finds that self-evaluations are less positive than observers’ evaluations. Experiment 3 finds that participants who imagine themselves performing a heroic act evaluate it less positively than participants who observe the same act. Experiments 2–3 identify differences in perceptions of personal burden as a mechanism—whereas observers believe that acting heroically involves extreme personal burden, actors view their personal burden as relatively unimportant. Being a hero is a distinctly less positive experience than observing one.
Keywords: social judgment, helping/prosocial behavior, actor–observer, self-other differences
Abstract: Heroic acts are prosocial actions that involve extreme sacrifice and risk. Such acts receive near-ubiquitous praise. However, the present article suggests that one group refrains from praising heroic acts—heroes themselves. Using self-reflections provided in news reports, Experiment 1 finds that people who actually saved others’ lives do not view themselves as positively as they should according to outside observers. Experiment 2 measures participants’ recollections of their own extreme prosocial acts and finds that self-evaluations are less positive than observers’ evaluations. Experiment 3 finds that participants who imagine themselves performing a heroic act evaluate it less positively than participants who observe the same act. Experiments 2–3 identify differences in perceptions of personal burden as a mechanism—whereas observers believe that acting heroically involves extreme personal burden, actors view their personal burden as relatively unimportant. Being a hero is a distinctly less positive experience than observing one.
Keywords: social judgment, helping/prosocial behavior, actor–observer, self-other differences
Third person effect: We report a good ability to spot fake news, greater than that of the others; predictors of the effect are ducation, income, interest in politics, Facebook dependency and confirmation bias
‘They can’t fool me, but they can fool the others!’ Third person effect and fake news detection. Nicoleta Corbu, Denisa-Adriana Oprea, Elena Negrea-Busuioc, et al. European Journal of Communication, February 17, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323120903686
Abstract: The aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential Elections and the Brexit campaign in Europe have opened the floor to heated debates about fake news and the dangers that these phenomena pose to elections and to democracy, in general. Despite a growing body of scholarly literature on fake news and its close relatives misinformation, disinformation or, more encompassing, communication and information disorders, few studies have so far attempted to empirically account for the effects that fake news might have, especially with respect to what communication scholars call the third person effect. This study aims to provide empirical evidence for the third person effect in the case of people’s self-perceived ability to detect fake news and of their perception of others’ ability to detect it. Based on a survey run in August 2018 and comprising a national, diverse sample of Romanian adults (N = 813), this research reveals that there is a significant third person effect regarding people’s self-reported ability to spot fake news and that this effect is stronger when people compare their fake news detection literacy to that of distant others than to that close others. Furthermore, this study shows that the most important predictors of third person effect related to fake news detection are education, income, interest in politics, Facebook dependency and confirmation bias, with age being a non-significant predictor.
Keywords: Distant and close others, fake news, predictors, third person effect
Abstract: The aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential Elections and the Brexit campaign in Europe have opened the floor to heated debates about fake news and the dangers that these phenomena pose to elections and to democracy, in general. Despite a growing body of scholarly literature on fake news and its close relatives misinformation, disinformation or, more encompassing, communication and information disorders, few studies have so far attempted to empirically account for the effects that fake news might have, especially with respect to what communication scholars call the third person effect. This study aims to provide empirical evidence for the third person effect in the case of people’s self-perceived ability to detect fake news and of their perception of others’ ability to detect it. Based on a survey run in August 2018 and comprising a national, diverse sample of Romanian adults (N = 813), this research reveals that there is a significant third person effect regarding people’s self-reported ability to spot fake news and that this effect is stronger when people compare their fake news detection literacy to that of distant others than to that close others. Furthermore, this study shows that the most important predictors of third person effect related to fake news detection are education, income, interest in politics, Facebook dependency and confirmation bias, with age being a non-significant predictor.
Keywords: Distant and close others, fake news, predictors, third person effect
While women are more willing to present face-to-face, they are considerably less likely to give a public presentation; aversion to speaking does not depend on differences in ability, risk aversion, self-confidence & self-esteem
Women Shy Away from Public Speaking? A Field Experiment. Maria De Paola, Rosetta Lombardo, Valeria Pupo, Vincenzo Scoppa. IZA DP No. 12959. ftp.iza.org/dp12959.pdf
Abstract: Public speaking is an important skill for career prospects and for leadership positions, but many people tend to avoid it because it generates anxiety. We run a field experiment to analyze whether in an incentivized setting men and women show differences in their willingness to speak in public. The experiment involved more than 500 undergraduate students who could gain two points to add to the final grade of their exam by orally presenting solutions to a problem set. Students were randomly assigned to present only to the instructor or in front of a large audience (a class of 100 or more). We find that while women are more willing to present face-to-face, they are considerably less likely to give a public presentation. Female aversion to public speaking does not depend on differences in ability, risk aversion, self-confidence and self-esteem. The aversion to public speaking greatly reduces for daughters of working women. From data obtained through an on-line Survey we also show that neither increasing the gains deriving from public speaking nor allowing participants more time to prepare enable to close the gender gap.
JEL Classification: J56, D91, C93, M50
Keywords: public speaking, psychological gender differences, gender, leadership, glass ceiling, field experiment
8. Concluding Remarks
A number of psychological traits – such as risk aversion, willingness to compete, aversion to feedbacks – have been recently identified as particularly relevant in contributing to explain gender differences in occupations, wages and careers.
Public speaking is generally thought to be relevant for career prospects and leadership positions. The ability to present information publicly, clearly and eloquently gives an important competitive advantage in a variety of job settings. While giving individuals valuable opportunities, speaking to a public is also a possible source of anxiety and embarrassment. Little is known on factors affecting the willingness to face public speaking situations or the ability to deal with the stress deriving from this type of exposure to judgment and to be effective in public speech. Men and women could differ in the anxiety generated by public speaking and, therefore, be differently averse to public speaking. This in turn could cause gender differences in career prospects and access to top positions.
We contribute to the literature on this topic by running a field experiment allowing us to analyze whether, in an incentivized setting, men and women show differences in their willingness to speak in public. The experiment involved more than 500 undergraduate students who could gain two points to add to the final grade of their exam by presenting orally the solutions of a problem set. Students were randomly assigned to present in front of a large audience (a class of about 100 students or more) or, in alternative, only to the instructor.
We find very relevant differences among men and women in their willingness to present in public. While women are more willing to present face-to-face, they are considerably less likely to give a public presentation. We are able to show that this tendency does not depend on differences in individual abilities or in other psychological traits as risk aversion, self-confidence and self-esteem.
We also find that women with employed mothers are more prone to public speaking compared to women whose mothers are out of the labor market. This is in line with a growing literature showing that having a working mother leads to more egalitarian gender role attitudes.
Moreover, using data from an online Survey, we show that giving higher incentives for public presentation does not allow to close the gender gap in public speaking aversion. Even when the gains deriving from public speaking are quite high, women are much less likely than men to engage in this type of activity. Finally, we also find that women do not seem to benefit from increasing the amount of time available to prepare for the task.
These findings suggest that women’s tendency to shy away from public speaking situations is difficult to change, as it is probably the result of deeply embedded social norms.
This kind of aversion – together with other psychological traits such as risk aversion and unwillingness to compete – could be a relevant factor in explaining the gender differences in access to high-level positions and career prospects and, then, it is important to understand both how to design work and educational environments in order to not harm certain categories of the population and how to help women to overcome their aversion to public speaking.
Future research can greatly contribute to this objective, by trying to better understand whether individual aversion to public speaking responds to some specific situational aspects, such as the topic of the speech, the size and gender composition (and other characteristics) of the audience and by investigating whether and how this type of attitude is susceptible to changes over time, also in relation to specific policy interventions. For instance, it would be very interesting to assess the effectiveness of public speaking training or to understand if exposure to public speaking, allowing individuals to learn how to deal with the emotions deriving from it, helps at overcoming aversion.
Abstract: Public speaking is an important skill for career prospects and for leadership positions, but many people tend to avoid it because it generates anxiety. We run a field experiment to analyze whether in an incentivized setting men and women show differences in their willingness to speak in public. The experiment involved more than 500 undergraduate students who could gain two points to add to the final grade of their exam by orally presenting solutions to a problem set. Students were randomly assigned to present only to the instructor or in front of a large audience (a class of 100 or more). We find that while women are more willing to present face-to-face, they are considerably less likely to give a public presentation. Female aversion to public speaking does not depend on differences in ability, risk aversion, self-confidence and self-esteem. The aversion to public speaking greatly reduces for daughters of working women. From data obtained through an on-line Survey we also show that neither increasing the gains deriving from public speaking nor allowing participants more time to prepare enable to close the gender gap.
JEL Classification: J56, D91, C93, M50
Keywords: public speaking, psychological gender differences, gender, leadership, glass ceiling, field experiment
8. Concluding Remarks
A number of psychological traits – such as risk aversion, willingness to compete, aversion to feedbacks – have been recently identified as particularly relevant in contributing to explain gender differences in occupations, wages and careers.
Public speaking is generally thought to be relevant for career prospects and leadership positions. The ability to present information publicly, clearly and eloquently gives an important competitive advantage in a variety of job settings. While giving individuals valuable opportunities, speaking to a public is also a possible source of anxiety and embarrassment. Little is known on factors affecting the willingness to face public speaking situations or the ability to deal with the stress deriving from this type of exposure to judgment and to be effective in public speech. Men and women could differ in the anxiety generated by public speaking and, therefore, be differently averse to public speaking. This in turn could cause gender differences in career prospects and access to top positions.
We contribute to the literature on this topic by running a field experiment allowing us to analyze whether, in an incentivized setting, men and women show differences in their willingness to speak in public. The experiment involved more than 500 undergraduate students who could gain two points to add to the final grade of their exam by presenting orally the solutions of a problem set. Students were randomly assigned to present in front of a large audience (a class of about 100 students or more) or, in alternative, only to the instructor.
We find very relevant differences among men and women in their willingness to present in public. While women are more willing to present face-to-face, they are considerably less likely to give a public presentation. We are able to show that this tendency does not depend on differences in individual abilities or in other psychological traits as risk aversion, self-confidence and self-esteem.
We also find that women with employed mothers are more prone to public speaking compared to women whose mothers are out of the labor market. This is in line with a growing literature showing that having a working mother leads to more egalitarian gender role attitudes.
Moreover, using data from an online Survey, we show that giving higher incentives for public presentation does not allow to close the gender gap in public speaking aversion. Even when the gains deriving from public speaking are quite high, women are much less likely than men to engage in this type of activity. Finally, we also find that women do not seem to benefit from increasing the amount of time available to prepare for the task.
These findings suggest that women’s tendency to shy away from public speaking situations is difficult to change, as it is probably the result of deeply embedded social norms.
This kind of aversion – together with other psychological traits such as risk aversion and unwillingness to compete – could be a relevant factor in explaining the gender differences in access to high-level positions and career prospects and, then, it is important to understand both how to design work and educational environments in order to not harm certain categories of the population and how to help women to overcome their aversion to public speaking.
Future research can greatly contribute to this objective, by trying to better understand whether individual aversion to public speaking responds to some specific situational aspects, such as the topic of the speech, the size and gender composition (and other characteristics) of the audience and by investigating whether and how this type of attitude is susceptible to changes over time, also in relation to specific policy interventions. For instance, it would be very interesting to assess the effectiveness of public speaking training or to understand if exposure to public speaking, allowing individuals to learn how to deal with the emotions deriving from it, helps at overcoming aversion.
No surprise when processing misfortunes when they happen to occur to antisocial peers (i.e., schadenfreude), as if we were expecting such compensation for their behavior
He had it Comin’: ERPs Reveal a Facilitation for the Processing of Misfortunes to Antisocial Characters. Pablo RodrÃguez-Gómez, Manuel MartÃn-Loeches, Fernando Colmenares, MarÃa Verónica Romero Ferreiro & Eva M. Moreno. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, Feb 11 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13415-020-00773-w
Abstract: Human sociality and prosociality rely on social and moral feelings of empathy, compassion, envy, schadenfreude, as well as on the preference for prosocial over antisocial others. We examined the neural underpinnings of the processing of lexical input designed to tap into these type of social feelings. Brainwave responses from 20 participants were measured as they read sentences comprising a randomly delivered ending outcome (fortunate or unfortunate) to social agents previously profiled as prosocial or antisocial individuals. Fortunate outcomes delivered to prosocial and antisocial agents aimed to tap into empathy and envy/annoying feelings, respectively, whereas unfortunate ones into compassion for prosocial agents and schadenfreude for antisocial ones. ERP modulations in early attention-capture (100-200 ms), semantic fit (400 ms), and late reanalysis processes (600 ms) were analyzed. According to the functional interpretation of each of these event-related electrophysiological effects, we conclude that: 1) a higher capture of attention is initially obtained in response to any type of outcome delivered to a prosocial versus an antisocial agent (frontal P2); 2) a facilitated semantic processing occurs for unfortunate outcomes delivered to antisocial agents (N400); and 3) regardless of the protagonist’s social profile, an increased later reevaluation for overall unfortunate versus fortunate outcomes takes place (Late Positive Potential). Thus, neural online measures capture a stepwise unfolding impact of social factors during language comprehension, which include a facilitated processing of misfortunes when they happen to occur to antisocial peers (i.e., schadenfreude).
Abstract: Human sociality and prosociality rely on social and moral feelings of empathy, compassion, envy, schadenfreude, as well as on the preference for prosocial over antisocial others. We examined the neural underpinnings of the processing of lexical input designed to tap into these type of social feelings. Brainwave responses from 20 participants were measured as they read sentences comprising a randomly delivered ending outcome (fortunate or unfortunate) to social agents previously profiled as prosocial or antisocial individuals. Fortunate outcomes delivered to prosocial and antisocial agents aimed to tap into empathy and envy/annoying feelings, respectively, whereas unfortunate ones into compassion for prosocial agents and schadenfreude for antisocial ones. ERP modulations in early attention-capture (100-200 ms), semantic fit (400 ms), and late reanalysis processes (600 ms) were analyzed. According to the functional interpretation of each of these event-related electrophysiological effects, we conclude that: 1) a higher capture of attention is initially obtained in response to any type of outcome delivered to a prosocial versus an antisocial agent (frontal P2); 2) a facilitated semantic processing occurs for unfortunate outcomes delivered to antisocial agents (N400); and 3) regardless of the protagonist’s social profile, an increased later reevaluation for overall unfortunate versus fortunate outcomes takes place (Late Positive Potential). Thus, neural online measures capture a stepwise unfolding impact of social factors during language comprehension, which include a facilitated processing of misfortunes when they happen to occur to antisocial peers (i.e., schadenfreude).
Sexually Aggressive Are Men More Likely to Misperceive Other Men’s Sexual Desires and Behavior
Social Norms: Are Sexually Aggressive Men More Likely to Misperceive Other Men’s Sexual Desires and Behavior? Erin A. Casey, N. Tatiana Masters & Blair Beadnell. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, Feb 12 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2019.1711278
ABSTRACT: Separate lines of research show that men overestimate the extent of male peers’ sexual activity, and independently, that sexually aggressive men believe that other men approve of coercive behavior. This study examined the intersection of these lines of inquiry, testing whether the degree of male participants’ misperception of other men’s sexual behavior differs as a function of perpetrator status. In a national sample, we presented heterosexually active men (n = 497) with sexual scenarios varying in sexual acts, partner types, and circumstances. Results showed that participants significantly overestimated the typicality of all types of sexual situations for other men. Participants also misjudged the desirability of scenarios consistent with a traditional masculinity sexual script to other men; these scenarios reflected an adversarial perspective on relationships and an impersonal approach to sexuality – a known risk factor for sexual aggression. Further, sexually aggressive men overestimated the desirability of these traditional masculinity scenarios to a greater extent than non-aggressive peers. Findings suggest that interventions that provide accurate knowledge about social norms, or “typical” sexual desires and behaviors among other men, may reduce pressure to live up to perceived but perhaps inaccurate masculine ideals, as well as reduce social norm-related risks for sexually aggressive behavior.
KEYWORDS: Sexual assault, sexual behavior, social norms, men
ABSTRACT: Separate lines of research show that men overestimate the extent of male peers’ sexual activity, and independently, that sexually aggressive men believe that other men approve of coercive behavior. This study examined the intersection of these lines of inquiry, testing whether the degree of male participants’ misperception of other men’s sexual behavior differs as a function of perpetrator status. In a national sample, we presented heterosexually active men (n = 497) with sexual scenarios varying in sexual acts, partner types, and circumstances. Results showed that participants significantly overestimated the typicality of all types of sexual situations for other men. Participants also misjudged the desirability of scenarios consistent with a traditional masculinity sexual script to other men; these scenarios reflected an adversarial perspective on relationships and an impersonal approach to sexuality – a known risk factor for sexual aggression. Further, sexually aggressive men overestimated the desirability of these traditional masculinity scenarios to a greater extent than non-aggressive peers. Findings suggest that interventions that provide accurate knowledge about social norms, or “typical” sexual desires and behaviors among other men, may reduce pressure to live up to perceived but perhaps inaccurate masculine ideals, as well as reduce social norm-related risks for sexually aggressive behavior.
KEYWORDS: Sexual assault, sexual behavior, social norms, men
Understanding the Forbidden Fruit Effect: People's Desire to See What Is Forbidden and Unavailable
FitzGibbon, Lily, Cansu Ogulmus, Greta M. Fastrich, Johnny K. L. Lau, Sumeyye Aslan, Lorella Lepore, and Kou Murayama. 2020. “Understanding the Forbidden Fruit Effect: People's Desire to See What Is Forbidden and Unavailable.” OSF Preprints. February 17. doi:10.31219/osf.io/ndpwt
Abstract: Curiosity - the drive for information - is often perceived as a dangerous trait. This is exacerbated by the perception that when something is forbidden, curiosity towards it increases. Surprisingly little is known about the mechanisms by which this forbidden fruit effect occurs. In a series of five experiments (total N = 2,141), we used a novel card selection task with an arbitrarily forbidden card to demonstrate the forbidden fruit effect across a broad age range (5 to 79 years). All of the experiments controlled for uncertainty of forbidden card, and the effect remained when we controlled for visual saliency, potential item selection bias, and even when participants were aware that the prohibited card had been selected randomly. These results suggest that people's attraction to unavailable options is not only driven by their beliefs about importance or scarcity but also by lower-level cognitive mechanisms such as memory availability.
Abstract: Curiosity - the drive for information - is often perceived as a dangerous trait. This is exacerbated by the perception that when something is forbidden, curiosity towards it increases. Surprisingly little is known about the mechanisms by which this forbidden fruit effect occurs. In a series of five experiments (total N = 2,141), we used a novel card selection task with an arbitrarily forbidden card to demonstrate the forbidden fruit effect across a broad age range (5 to 79 years). All of the experiments controlled for uncertainty of forbidden card, and the effect remained when we controlled for visual saliency, potential item selection bias, and even when participants were aware that the prohibited card had been selected randomly. These results suggest that people's attraction to unavailable options is not only driven by their beliefs about importance or scarcity but also by lower-level cognitive mechanisms such as memory availability.
Monday, February 17, 2020
Sex declines, but engagement in, or being target of, dominant behaviors (spanking, choking, name calling, performing aggressive fellatio, facial ejaculation, penetration without first asking/discussing) seems more frequent
Sex frequency and satisfaction seems to be declining in the West:
, but roughness seems to be increasing:
Herbenick D, Fu T-C, Wright P, et al. Diverse Sexual Behaviors and Pornography Use: Findings From a Nationally Representative Probability Survey of Americans Aged 14 to 60 Years. J Sex Med 2020;XX:XXX–XXX, Feb17 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2020.01.013
Abstract
Background Convenience sample data indicate that substantial portions of adults have engaged in sexual behaviors sometimes described as rough; little is known about these behaviors at the population level.
Aim To describe, in a U.S. probability sample of Americans aged 18 to 60 years, (i) the prevalence of diverse sexual behaviors, described here as dominant and target behaviors; (ii) the age at first pornography exposure as well as prevalence, range, and frequency of pornography use; (iii) the association between past year pornography use frequency and dominant/target sexual behaviors; and (iv) associations between lifetime range of pornography use and dominant/target sexual behaviors.
Methods A confidential cross-sectional online survey was used in this study.
Outcomes Lifetime engagement in dominant behaviors (eg, spanking, choking, name calling, performing aggressive fellatio, facial ejaculation, penile-anal penetration without first asking/discussing) and lifetime engagement in target behaviors (eg, being spanked, being choked, being called names during sex, having their face ejaculated on, receiving aggressive fellatio, or receiving penile-anal penetration without having discussed) were assessed; lifetime pornography use, age at first porn exposure, past-year frequency of porn viewing, and lifetime range of pornography were also assessed.
Results Women as well as men who have sex with men were more likely to report target sexual behaviors: having been choked (21.4% women), having one's face ejaculated on (32.3% women, 52.7% men who have sex with men), and aggressive fellatio (34.0% women). Lifetime pornography use was reported by most respondents. After adjusting for age, age at first porn exposure, and current relationship status, the associations between pornography use and sexual behaviors was statistically significant.
Clinical Implications Clinicians need to be aware of recent potential shifts in sexual behaviors, particularly those such as choking that may lead to harm.
Strengths & Limitations Strengths include U.S. probability sampling to provide population level estimates and the use of Internet-based data collection on sensitive topics. We were limited by a lack of detail and context related to understanding the diverse sexual behaviors assessed.
Conclusion Clinicians, educators, and researchers have unique and important roles to play in continued understanding of these sexual behaviors in the contemporary United States.
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Check also previous work by some of these authors:
Feeling Scared During Sex: Findings From a U.S. Probability Sample of Women and Men Ages 14 to 60. Debby Herbenick, Elizabeth Bartelt, Tsung-Chieh (Jane) Fu, Bryant Paul, Ronna Gradus, Jill Bauer et al. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy , Volume 45, 2019 - Issue 5, Pages 424-439, Apr 4 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2018.1549634
Abstract: Using data from a U.S. probability survey of individuals aged 14 to 60, we aimed (1) to assess the proportion of respondents who ever reported scary sexual situations and (2) to examine descriptions of sexual experiences reported as scary. Data were cross-sectional and collected via the GfK KnowledgePanel®. Scary sexual situations were reported by 23.9% of adult women, 10.3% of adult men, 12.5% of adolescent women, and 3.8% of adolescent men who had ever engaged in oral, vaginal, or anal sex. Themes included sexual assault/rape, incest, being held down, anal sex, choking, threats, multiple people, novelty/learning, among others.
Discussion
Our study provides insights into sexual experiences that 14- to 60-year-old Americans have found scary. Rather than investigate a specific behavioral category (e.g., sexual assault or coercion), we chose to center on respondents’ emotional lives and ask about scary experiences. We hoped to understand more about sexual events that may be problematic, hurtful, or frightening and that may otherwise be missed in research focused only on sexual violence. Our research questions were informed by having heard from students and interview participants, over a number of years, about frightening sexual experiences that seemed to go beyond “bad hook-ups” (Littleton, Tabernik, Canales, & Backstrom, 2009). Sometimes people would describe sexual encounters that were frightening in their entirety; other times, the frightening experience occurred within an otherwise pleasurable sexual encounter. We aimed to augment the literature by addressing both the prevalence of scary sexual experiences and respondents’ descriptions of these.
We were struck, but not surprised, at the gendered aspects of our findings. Substantially more women than men reported that someone had done something during sex that had scared them. This is likely because scary things truly do happen more often to women than men during sex. This is important considering that women’s allegations of assault are still sometimes characterized as simple “misunderstandings” (e.g., Kitchener, 2018; Levin, 2016). We note that some of the men’s descriptions of scary sex (e.g., that referred to menstruation, adolescent/learning curve, first coitus, wondering whether the person who’s performing oral sex is friends with a prior partner) differed considerably from examples more often provided by women that pertained to rape, forced sex, being held down, threatened with weapons, choked, and painful sex that one asks to stop but that does not stop. Even among the pregnancy/STI risk responses, women’s experiences more often alluded to feeling pressured into unprotected sex. In contrast, men’s responses in this category described forgetting to use a condom, not knowing about a partner’s sexual history, or finding out a female partner had many prior sex partners. And yet, the overall proportion of men who reported ever experiencing sex as scary was nearly half that of women; subsequent research might focus on better understanding the range of (perhaps underreported) male trauma.
We identify these gendered differences not to dismiss the experiences of men who had sex with women and who felt scared about some aspect of sex, but to highlight the different kinds of sex (and perhaps the different kinds of fear) that people grapple with during their sexual exploration and development. Those who have not generally experienced alarming aspects of sex, moments in which they wondered whether they were about to be raped or killed, may find it difficult to imagine how scary sex can feel for others. Consequently, some may find it difficult to empathize with what it means to be a sexually active woman in a society where quite scary things happen; we are reminded of Gavey (2012), who wrote about “sexuality in a sexist world.”
We note, too, that quite a few of the men who described scary sexual situations (especially those that involved physical aggression or forced penetration) alluded to the other person being male. This finding is consistent with literature demonstrating that gay and bisexual men are at disproportionately greater risk of sexual violence (Rothman, Exner, & Baughman, 2011). That adults who report lower household income were more likely to report having had scary sexual experiences should be further interrogated. It may be that the scary experiences were traumatic in ways that altered life and career paths for some individuals. Others may have experienced scary sexual experiences as part of a larger pattern of disadvantage or differential opportunity or may have put up with sexual coercion because they felt they had limited options.
We were struck by how often the scary experiences reflected interpersonal violations of the sexual rights identified by WAS (World Association for Sexual Health, 2014). For example, those who wrote about their partner continuing sex after being asked to stop experienced a violation of their autonomy. Respondents who wrote about forced sex, sexual assault, or rape experienced a violation of their right to be free from sexual violence and coercion. In addition, those whose request to use contraception was ignored experienced violations of rights related to making their own reproductive choices. Because the scary experiences were also disproportionately reported by women as well as by men who have sex with men, collectively they reflect sexual inequities derived from societal inequities. Sex that disproportionately frightens women and other minoritized individuals reflects cultural and social issues that need to be reckoned with.
Our findings add to a body of literature that, as described earlier, demonstrates a privileging of men’s sexual pleasure, with women more often reporting lower levels of sexual pleasure and arousal, less frequent orgasm (Herbenick et al., 2010b), more frequent pain (Herbenick et al., 2015) and, described here, more common experiences of frightening sex. Indeed, scholars have long described how women’s economic and political insubordination impacts their sexual lives and opportunities (e.g., Tiefer, 2001), making them vulnerable to sex that feels scary, painful, or beyond one’s ability to control or consent to (e.g., Bay-Cheng, 2010; Gavey, 2012; Tiefer, 2001).
Even in consensual sex, women more often give reasons for having sex that include feeling pressured, obligated, or at the insistence of one’s partner (Meston & Buss, 2007). In addition, many young women choose to continue having vaginal intercourse even when it is painful, not wanting to spoil sex for their partner by interrupting sex (Elmerstig, Wijma, & Swahnberg, 2013). What we know less of is how this comes to be. How common is it for women to begin their sexual lives believing that sex should continue at all costs, even if it hurts? Alternatively, is this something that some women learn from trying to stop painful intercourse only to have their partner ignore their request?
Aside from sexual assault and rape, some of the most common descriptions of sexual situations that respondents found scary involved anal sex or choking. Indeed, in the past few decades, the prevalence of Americans reporting lifetime anal sex has nearly doubled, even as the frequency has remained low (Herbenick et al., 2010a). For such a common behavior, we found it striking how commonly anal sex was included in descriptions of scary sex. Subsequent research might further explore this. To what extent is anal sex scary at first but then evolves into a neutral or even pleasurable experience? What do individuals find scary about anal sex? For some respondents, it seems that the scary aspect was that they had already communicated to their partner that they did not want to have anal sex, but their partner coerced or forced anal sex anyway. For others, their partner did not stop after they were asked to stop or else anal sex got too rough, suggesting that anal sex itself might not necessarily have been scary had it been wanted, consensual, and better communicated about. (By “communicated” we acknowledge the critical roles of both verbal communication and listening/responding.) Indeed, in a series of studies of college men and women, it was not uncommon for women to indicate that their refusals to engage in various sexual behaviors were often met with men expressing displeasure, anger, or continuing with sexual advances despite the woman’s expressed wishes to stop (see Byers, 1996, for overview).
Choking and other aggressive behaviors (such as hitting and forceful hair pulling) were also often described among the scary sexual experiences. Like anal sex, choking appears to have become more commonly portrayed in sexually explicit media and sexual choking behaviors (and interest in choking) are associated with pornography use (Bridges, Sun, Ezzell, & Johnson, 2016; Sun, Wright, & Steffen, 2017). In recent years, choking and various forms of breath restriction/breath play have also become a part of nonsexual games that some adolescents engage in (Linkletter, Gordon, & Dooley, 2010). However, choking and breath play are associated with serious risks—including accidental death—and thus it is not surprising to see choking often described as scary. Most of the choking instances described appear to have not been discussed by partners in advance; the other person just started choking the respondent. Consequently, some worried they were being strangled: a common form of intimate partner violence, especially committed against women who partner with men (Messing, Thomas, Ward-Lasher, & Brewer, 2018). Given how little is known about the role of choking in contemporary sexual repertoires, we encourage subsequent research to consider questions such as the following: How do people first learn about choking during sex? To what extent are sexually explicit media contributing to sexual behaviors such as choking? What do they learn about it? What kinds of conversations do sexual partners have about choking?
Our data provide opportunities for sexuality therapists, educators, parents, and couples to think about the many different ways that sexuality can be experienced. Findings underscore that unwanted, unpleasurable, and even frightening things can happen during sex that is otherwise wanted and pleasurable. Even well-meaning partners can err by introducing sex toys or sex acts that the other person does not like. Our data also speak to the importance of listening to one’s sex partner, that is, not doing something that they have said they do not want to do, stopping sex when they ask to stop, and using condoms or other contraceptives if they ask to do so. Clinicians have a critical role to play in supporting clients to create consensual and mutually pleasurable sexual lives. Clinicians might also consider asking clients about their past experiences with scary or frightening sexual experiences, as sexual history guides often address assault or rape but few other kinds of negative situations.
Strengths and limitations
A strength of our study is that we used the GfK KnowledgePanel, which uses probability-based sampling for panel establishment and is intended to be nationally representative of the English-speaking, non-institutionalized U.S. population. This method was well suited to establishing the prevalence of having experienced scary sexual situations among the U.S. population. We took care to communicate to parents the aims of our study and how we would go about showing questions to their adolescent sons and daughters that were appropriate for their sexual development and experiences to date. Yet, it is possible that parents chose not to allow us to survey their child if they felt their son or daughter was sexually naïve or if they knew they had experienced sexual trauma. As with any study, we can imagine varied reasons that some people may choose not to participate in a study or to allow their child to do so. Given the small number of adolescent reports, these estimates should be viewed with caution and subsequent research should examine adolescents’ scary sexual experiences in greater detail. We also have no way of knowing the full range of scary experiences that respondents had actually endured, and some respondents may have chosen to share a relatively neutral example rather than share something particularly frightening to them. Conversely, some respondents may have chosen to share the worst or more frightening example.
We also collected data over the Internet, which has been shown to facilitate reporting on sensitive topics (Burkill et al., 2016). Yet, a limitation of Internet-based surveys is that they tend to yield less detail than do in-person interviews (some people declined to provide examples of scary situations and others wrote only brief responses). Subsequent research might utilize interviews to better understand the details of individuals’ scary sexual experiences. For this initial study, we were content to leave the idea of feeling “scared” open to interpretation so that we could understand a range of experiences. However, subsequent research may want to differentiate feeling scared about one’s safety versus scared about novel experiences.
Due to budget-related survey space restrictions, we only asked two questions about scary sexual experiences. We did not ask about respondents’ age at the time of the experience, the gender(s) of those involved, or other details. It is unclear how recall bias may have factored into respondents’ endorsement of having experienced scary sexual situations. We hope that our study, in presenting sexual situations experienced as scary, may inform the development of more nuanced research going forward. Subsequent research might investigate how scary situations are resolved (if/when they are) and how they become incorporated into individuals’ sexual learning (e.g., what changes, if any, people make in their lives following scary experiences). Researchers might also examine how people interpret scary sexual situations (including how they may be recast over time), including the extent to which they feel guilt, shame, or anger or alternatively minimize their experience, as commonly occurs in sexually coercive situations (Jeffrey & Barata, 2017).
Our study is not able to address the prevalence of particular types of scary sex. For example, we cannot speculate what percentage of Americans have experienced choking and felt scared by it. Respondents could provide any example of a scary sexual experience, which may have been one of their more frightening or one markedly less so. Our data might inform the development of future checklists of potentially scary situations. The use of such a checklist would be better able to address population-based prevalence of specific experiences.
Declining Sexual Activity and Desire in Women: Findings from Representative German Surveys 2005 and 2016. Juliane Burghardt et al. Archives of Sexual Behavior, December 4 2019. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/12/declining-sexual-activity-and-desire-in.html
How strong the tendency among Finns still is to form only one, life-long relationship? Changes in how many partners they have, same-sex experiences, masturbation, etc. Monogamy vs Polygamy. Osmo Kontula. SexuS Journal, Winter-2019, Volume 04, Issue 11, Pages 959-978. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/09/kow-strong-tendency-among-finns-still.html
, but roughness seems to be increasing:
Herbenick D, Fu T-C, Wright P, et al. Diverse Sexual Behaviors and Pornography Use: Findings From a Nationally Representative Probability Survey of Americans Aged 14 to 60 Years. J Sex Med 2020;XX:XXX–XXX, Feb17 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2020.01.013
Abstract
Background Convenience sample data indicate that substantial portions of adults have engaged in sexual behaviors sometimes described as rough; little is known about these behaviors at the population level.
Aim To describe, in a U.S. probability sample of Americans aged 18 to 60 years, (i) the prevalence of diverse sexual behaviors, described here as dominant and target behaviors; (ii) the age at first pornography exposure as well as prevalence, range, and frequency of pornography use; (iii) the association between past year pornography use frequency and dominant/target sexual behaviors; and (iv) associations between lifetime range of pornography use and dominant/target sexual behaviors.
Methods A confidential cross-sectional online survey was used in this study.
Outcomes Lifetime engagement in dominant behaviors (eg, spanking, choking, name calling, performing aggressive fellatio, facial ejaculation, penile-anal penetration without first asking/discussing) and lifetime engagement in target behaviors (eg, being spanked, being choked, being called names during sex, having their face ejaculated on, receiving aggressive fellatio, or receiving penile-anal penetration without having discussed) were assessed; lifetime pornography use, age at first porn exposure, past-year frequency of porn viewing, and lifetime range of pornography were also assessed.
Results Women as well as men who have sex with men were more likely to report target sexual behaviors: having been choked (21.4% women), having one's face ejaculated on (32.3% women, 52.7% men who have sex with men), and aggressive fellatio (34.0% women). Lifetime pornography use was reported by most respondents. After adjusting for age, age at first porn exposure, and current relationship status, the associations between pornography use and sexual behaviors was statistically significant.
Clinical Implications Clinicians need to be aware of recent potential shifts in sexual behaviors, particularly those such as choking that may lead to harm.
Strengths & Limitations Strengths include U.S. probability sampling to provide population level estimates and the use of Internet-based data collection on sensitive topics. We were limited by a lack of detail and context related to understanding the diverse sexual behaviors assessed.
Conclusion Clinicians, educators, and researchers have unique and important roles to play in continued understanding of these sexual behaviors in the contemporary United States.
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Check also previous work by some of these authors:
Feeling Scared During Sex: Findings From a U.S. Probability Sample of Women and Men Ages 14 to 60. Debby Herbenick, Elizabeth Bartelt, Tsung-Chieh (Jane) Fu, Bryant Paul, Ronna Gradus, Jill Bauer et al. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy , Volume 45, 2019 - Issue 5, Pages 424-439, Apr 4 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2018.1549634
Abstract: Using data from a U.S. probability survey of individuals aged 14 to 60, we aimed (1) to assess the proportion of respondents who ever reported scary sexual situations and (2) to examine descriptions of sexual experiences reported as scary. Data were cross-sectional and collected via the GfK KnowledgePanel®. Scary sexual situations were reported by 23.9% of adult women, 10.3% of adult men, 12.5% of adolescent women, and 3.8% of adolescent men who had ever engaged in oral, vaginal, or anal sex. Themes included sexual assault/rape, incest, being held down, anal sex, choking, threats, multiple people, novelty/learning, among others.
Discussion
Our study provides insights into sexual experiences that 14- to 60-year-old Americans have found scary. Rather than investigate a specific behavioral category (e.g., sexual assault or coercion), we chose to center on respondents’ emotional lives and ask about scary experiences. We hoped to understand more about sexual events that may be problematic, hurtful, or frightening and that may otherwise be missed in research focused only on sexual violence. Our research questions were informed by having heard from students and interview participants, over a number of years, about frightening sexual experiences that seemed to go beyond “bad hook-ups” (Littleton, Tabernik, Canales, & Backstrom, 2009). Sometimes people would describe sexual encounters that were frightening in their entirety; other times, the frightening experience occurred within an otherwise pleasurable sexual encounter. We aimed to augment the literature by addressing both the prevalence of scary sexual experiences and respondents’ descriptions of these.
We were struck, but not surprised, at the gendered aspects of our findings. Substantially more women than men reported that someone had done something during sex that had scared them. This is likely because scary things truly do happen more often to women than men during sex. This is important considering that women’s allegations of assault are still sometimes characterized as simple “misunderstandings” (e.g., Kitchener, 2018; Levin, 2016). We note that some of the men’s descriptions of scary sex (e.g., that referred to menstruation, adolescent/learning curve, first coitus, wondering whether the person who’s performing oral sex is friends with a prior partner) differed considerably from examples more often provided by women that pertained to rape, forced sex, being held down, threatened with weapons, choked, and painful sex that one asks to stop but that does not stop. Even among the pregnancy/STI risk responses, women’s experiences more often alluded to feeling pressured into unprotected sex. In contrast, men’s responses in this category described forgetting to use a condom, not knowing about a partner’s sexual history, or finding out a female partner had many prior sex partners. And yet, the overall proportion of men who reported ever experiencing sex as scary was nearly half that of women; subsequent research might focus on better understanding the range of (perhaps underreported) male trauma.
We identify these gendered differences not to dismiss the experiences of men who had sex with women and who felt scared about some aspect of sex, but to highlight the different kinds of sex (and perhaps the different kinds of fear) that people grapple with during their sexual exploration and development. Those who have not generally experienced alarming aspects of sex, moments in which they wondered whether they were about to be raped or killed, may find it difficult to imagine how scary sex can feel for others. Consequently, some may find it difficult to empathize with what it means to be a sexually active woman in a society where quite scary things happen; we are reminded of Gavey (2012), who wrote about “sexuality in a sexist world.”
We note, too, that quite a few of the men who described scary sexual situations (especially those that involved physical aggression or forced penetration) alluded to the other person being male. This finding is consistent with literature demonstrating that gay and bisexual men are at disproportionately greater risk of sexual violence (Rothman, Exner, & Baughman, 2011). That adults who report lower household income were more likely to report having had scary sexual experiences should be further interrogated. It may be that the scary experiences were traumatic in ways that altered life and career paths for some individuals. Others may have experienced scary sexual experiences as part of a larger pattern of disadvantage or differential opportunity or may have put up with sexual coercion because they felt they had limited options.
We were struck by how often the scary experiences reflected interpersonal violations of the sexual rights identified by WAS (World Association for Sexual Health, 2014). For example, those who wrote about their partner continuing sex after being asked to stop experienced a violation of their autonomy. Respondents who wrote about forced sex, sexual assault, or rape experienced a violation of their right to be free from sexual violence and coercion. In addition, those whose request to use contraception was ignored experienced violations of rights related to making their own reproductive choices. Because the scary experiences were also disproportionately reported by women as well as by men who have sex with men, collectively they reflect sexual inequities derived from societal inequities. Sex that disproportionately frightens women and other minoritized individuals reflects cultural and social issues that need to be reckoned with.
Our findings add to a body of literature that, as described earlier, demonstrates a privileging of men’s sexual pleasure, with women more often reporting lower levels of sexual pleasure and arousal, less frequent orgasm (Herbenick et al., 2010b), more frequent pain (Herbenick et al., 2015) and, described here, more common experiences of frightening sex. Indeed, scholars have long described how women’s economic and political insubordination impacts their sexual lives and opportunities (e.g., Tiefer, 2001), making them vulnerable to sex that feels scary, painful, or beyond one’s ability to control or consent to (e.g., Bay-Cheng, 2010; Gavey, 2012; Tiefer, 2001).
Even in consensual sex, women more often give reasons for having sex that include feeling pressured, obligated, or at the insistence of one’s partner (Meston & Buss, 2007). In addition, many young women choose to continue having vaginal intercourse even when it is painful, not wanting to spoil sex for their partner by interrupting sex (Elmerstig, Wijma, & Swahnberg, 2013). What we know less of is how this comes to be. How common is it for women to begin their sexual lives believing that sex should continue at all costs, even if it hurts? Alternatively, is this something that some women learn from trying to stop painful intercourse only to have their partner ignore their request?
Aside from sexual assault and rape, some of the most common descriptions of sexual situations that respondents found scary involved anal sex or choking. Indeed, in the past few decades, the prevalence of Americans reporting lifetime anal sex has nearly doubled, even as the frequency has remained low (Herbenick et al., 2010a). For such a common behavior, we found it striking how commonly anal sex was included in descriptions of scary sex. Subsequent research might further explore this. To what extent is anal sex scary at first but then evolves into a neutral or even pleasurable experience? What do individuals find scary about anal sex? For some respondents, it seems that the scary aspect was that they had already communicated to their partner that they did not want to have anal sex, but their partner coerced or forced anal sex anyway. For others, their partner did not stop after they were asked to stop or else anal sex got too rough, suggesting that anal sex itself might not necessarily have been scary had it been wanted, consensual, and better communicated about. (By “communicated” we acknowledge the critical roles of both verbal communication and listening/responding.) Indeed, in a series of studies of college men and women, it was not uncommon for women to indicate that their refusals to engage in various sexual behaviors were often met with men expressing displeasure, anger, or continuing with sexual advances despite the woman’s expressed wishes to stop (see Byers, 1996, for overview).
Choking and other aggressive behaviors (such as hitting and forceful hair pulling) were also often described among the scary sexual experiences. Like anal sex, choking appears to have become more commonly portrayed in sexually explicit media and sexual choking behaviors (and interest in choking) are associated with pornography use (Bridges, Sun, Ezzell, & Johnson, 2016; Sun, Wright, & Steffen, 2017). In recent years, choking and various forms of breath restriction/breath play have also become a part of nonsexual games that some adolescents engage in (Linkletter, Gordon, & Dooley, 2010). However, choking and breath play are associated with serious risks—including accidental death—and thus it is not surprising to see choking often described as scary. Most of the choking instances described appear to have not been discussed by partners in advance; the other person just started choking the respondent. Consequently, some worried they were being strangled: a common form of intimate partner violence, especially committed against women who partner with men (Messing, Thomas, Ward-Lasher, & Brewer, 2018). Given how little is known about the role of choking in contemporary sexual repertoires, we encourage subsequent research to consider questions such as the following: How do people first learn about choking during sex? To what extent are sexually explicit media contributing to sexual behaviors such as choking? What do they learn about it? What kinds of conversations do sexual partners have about choking?
Our data provide opportunities for sexuality therapists, educators, parents, and couples to think about the many different ways that sexuality can be experienced. Findings underscore that unwanted, unpleasurable, and even frightening things can happen during sex that is otherwise wanted and pleasurable. Even well-meaning partners can err by introducing sex toys or sex acts that the other person does not like. Our data also speak to the importance of listening to one’s sex partner, that is, not doing something that they have said they do not want to do, stopping sex when they ask to stop, and using condoms or other contraceptives if they ask to do so. Clinicians have a critical role to play in supporting clients to create consensual and mutually pleasurable sexual lives. Clinicians might also consider asking clients about their past experiences with scary or frightening sexual experiences, as sexual history guides often address assault or rape but few other kinds of negative situations.
Strengths and limitations
A strength of our study is that we used the GfK KnowledgePanel, which uses probability-based sampling for panel establishment and is intended to be nationally representative of the English-speaking, non-institutionalized U.S. population. This method was well suited to establishing the prevalence of having experienced scary sexual situations among the U.S. population. We took care to communicate to parents the aims of our study and how we would go about showing questions to their adolescent sons and daughters that were appropriate for their sexual development and experiences to date. Yet, it is possible that parents chose not to allow us to survey their child if they felt their son or daughter was sexually naïve or if they knew they had experienced sexual trauma. As with any study, we can imagine varied reasons that some people may choose not to participate in a study or to allow their child to do so. Given the small number of adolescent reports, these estimates should be viewed with caution and subsequent research should examine adolescents’ scary sexual experiences in greater detail. We also have no way of knowing the full range of scary experiences that respondents had actually endured, and some respondents may have chosen to share a relatively neutral example rather than share something particularly frightening to them. Conversely, some respondents may have chosen to share the worst or more frightening example.
We also collected data over the Internet, which has been shown to facilitate reporting on sensitive topics (Burkill et al., 2016). Yet, a limitation of Internet-based surveys is that they tend to yield less detail than do in-person interviews (some people declined to provide examples of scary situations and others wrote only brief responses). Subsequent research might utilize interviews to better understand the details of individuals’ scary sexual experiences. For this initial study, we were content to leave the idea of feeling “scared” open to interpretation so that we could understand a range of experiences. However, subsequent research may want to differentiate feeling scared about one’s safety versus scared about novel experiences.
Due to budget-related survey space restrictions, we only asked two questions about scary sexual experiences. We did not ask about respondents’ age at the time of the experience, the gender(s) of those involved, or other details. It is unclear how recall bias may have factored into respondents’ endorsement of having experienced scary sexual situations. We hope that our study, in presenting sexual situations experienced as scary, may inform the development of more nuanced research going forward. Subsequent research might investigate how scary situations are resolved (if/when they are) and how they become incorporated into individuals’ sexual learning (e.g., what changes, if any, people make in their lives following scary experiences). Researchers might also examine how people interpret scary sexual situations (including how they may be recast over time), including the extent to which they feel guilt, shame, or anger or alternatively minimize their experience, as commonly occurs in sexually coercive situations (Jeffrey & Barata, 2017).
Our study is not able to address the prevalence of particular types of scary sex. For example, we cannot speculate what percentage of Americans have experienced choking and felt scared by it. Respondents could provide any example of a scary sexual experience, which may have been one of their more frightening or one markedly less so. Our data might inform the development of future checklists of potentially scary situations. The use of such a checklist would be better able to address population-based prevalence of specific experiences.
Children's understanding of dominance and prestige in China and the UK
Children's understanding of dominance and prestige in China and the UK. Anni Kajanus, Narges Afshordi, Felix Warneken. Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 41, Issue 1, January 2020, Pages 23-34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2019.08.002
Abstract: Individuals can gain high social rank through dominance (based on coercion and fear) and prestige (based on merit and admiration). We conducted a cross-cultural developmental study and tested 5- to 12-year-olds, and adults in the UK and China, aiming to determine (a) the age at which children distinguish dominance and prestige, and (b) the influence of cultural values on rank-related reasoning. We specifically tested participants in China because of the value of prestigious individuals modestly yielding to subordinates, a social skill that becomes more salient with age. In both populations, the distinction between dominance and prestige emerged at five years, and improved over childhood. When reasoning about a resource conflict between a high-ranking party and a subordinate, adults in both countries expected high-rank individuals to win, although Chinese adults were less likely to do so regarding prestigious individuals. Across the two countries, younger children (5–7 years) responded similarly to each other, not favoring either party as the winner. Older children (9–12 years), however, diverged. Those in the UK chose the high-rank party, while those in China made no systematic inference. Overall, our findings suggest that while children distinguish prestige and dominance comparably in the two countries, they develop culturally-influenced expectations about the behavior of high-rank individuals.
Abstract: Individuals can gain high social rank through dominance (based on coercion and fear) and prestige (based on merit and admiration). We conducted a cross-cultural developmental study and tested 5- to 12-year-olds, and adults in the UK and China, aiming to determine (a) the age at which children distinguish dominance and prestige, and (b) the influence of cultural values on rank-related reasoning. We specifically tested participants in China because of the value of prestigious individuals modestly yielding to subordinates, a social skill that becomes more salient with age. In both populations, the distinction between dominance and prestige emerged at five years, and improved over childhood. When reasoning about a resource conflict between a high-ranking party and a subordinate, adults in both countries expected high-rank individuals to win, although Chinese adults were less likely to do so regarding prestigious individuals. Across the two countries, younger children (5–7 years) responded similarly to each other, not favoring either party as the winner. Older children (9–12 years), however, diverged. Those in the UK chose the high-rank party, while those in China made no systematic inference. Overall, our findings suggest that while children distinguish prestige and dominance comparably in the two countries, they develop culturally-influenced expectations about the behavior of high-rank individuals.
5. General discussion
Our
aims were to test: (1) the age at which children differentiate
dominance and prestige; and (2) the influence of cultural ideas of
hierarchy and conflict on expectations about the behaviors of dominant
and prestigious individuals. The experiments yielded several key
findings for both lines of inquiry.
- (1) Developmental trajectory
First,
5- to 12-year-olds in both the UK and China easily identified dominant
and prestigious characters as high-ranking. Thus, even for the younger
group of children (5–7 years), cues to prestige (e.g. asking for advice,
following said advice) were enough to merit inferences about rank. In
fact, children were just as successful at recognizing that the
prestigious character was higher-ranking as they were for the dominant
character. Next, even younger children distinguished between prestigious
and dominant characters in a third-party situation, choosing the
prestigious character significantly more when asked whom the subordinate
would approach or like, than when asked whom she feared. This finding
is particularly interesting in light of the fact that children do not
shun coercive (or dominance-like) strategies in their peer groups until
eight years (Hawley, 1999).
Since our younger group was younger than eight years, the finding
suggests that shunning coercive strategies is not the result of noticing
the difference between dominant and prestigious strategies.
Nonetheless, the ability to distinguish dominance and prestige improved
with age. Finally, there were no differences between responses in the UK
and China, providing some of the first empirical evidence of children
from non-Euro-American cultures understanding cues to rank similarly to
children in Europe and the US. In summary, children attributed a
combination of traits to the characters that are reflective of a
conceptual distinction between dominance and prestige, viewing both as
having high social rank, but differing in prestigious characters being
liked and approached versus dominant individuals being feared and
avoided.
One alternative explanation of the findings
from Experiment 1 is that children did not actually distinguish
dominance from prestige, and instead succeeded in the task by answering
the questions (age, liking, approach, fear) piecemeal. In other words,
maybe they answered that Dimo would like and approach the prestigious
character simply because the character seemed nice and friendly, and
feared and avoided the dominant character because that one seemed mean
and aggressive. Similarly, children could have inferred age (i.e. rank)
by drawing on cues like being imitated. We do not dispute that these
cues led children to answer the questions correctly. In fact, we claim
that this is exactly what the understanding of prestige and dominance
looks like: an understanding of this combination of features.
None of these individual features differentiates between dominance and
prestige, but one person having high status while being nice and
approachable differentiates this person from a similarly high-ranking
individual who is mean and aggressive.
Although younger
children recognized the rank difference between the characters just as
easily as older children (Experiment 1), they did not infer that
higher-ranking parties would win resource conflicts (Experiment 3). This
failure cannot be attributed to a cultural effect, as children in the
UK and China performed similarly. When asked to justify their choice of
who would win the conflict, almost no children referenced rank in their
explanations, confirming that their failure to infer is a real
consequence of how they construed the scene. Thus, although younger
children extracted rank from watching interactions between characters in
Experiment 1, they were unable to automatically incorporate them into
inferences about subsequent behaviors in Experiment 3. Future work
should explore this finding further.
- (2) Cross-cultural differences
A
key contribution from our studies is evidence for the influence of
cultural norms and value systems on how children and adults understand
social hierarchies and reason about them. Adults in the UK and China
were similar in that they both inferred that high-ranking characters
would win against a subordinate. They did differ, however, in the degree
to which they made this inference in the prestige case. Chinese adults
were less likely than British adults to think that the prestigious
person would win the resource. This difference, while subtle, is a key
sign of the cultural difference reflecting the value specifically placed
on yielding to others when in a position of prestige (Kajanus, n.d.).
The cultural difference also manifested in older children (9–12 years),
but in a different way. Older children in the UK inferred that the
high-ranking party would win the conflict, regardless of whether the
character was prestigious or dominant. In contrast, older children in
China responded similarly to younger children in both countries,
demonstrating no systematic prediction about who would win in either of
the conflict cases. But unlike younger children's explanations, which
were shallow and unrelated to social rank, older children in China and
the UK provided similar levels of rank-relevant explanations (around
65%). Consequently, the lack of systematic inferences was age-driven in
younger children, but culturally influenced in older children in China.
Moreover, older children in China who thought the subordinate would win
the conflict were more likely to mention the prestigious character
yielding than the dominant character yielding. This finding aligns with
the value of yielding by prestigious individuals. Together, these
findings suggest that the difference between older children in China and
the UK is rooted in a cultural difference.
On the
topic of Chinese participants' choices, two points merit further
discussion. With regard to adults, the fact that Chinese participants
thought that both dominant and prestigious parties would win the
conflict gives room for pause, given the value of prestigious
individuals showing restraint and giving up resources to lower-status
parties. However, it is important to note that yielding to those in
lower positions is a sophisticated social skill highly dependent on the
nuances of the situation, such as the dynamics of ascribed status
hierarchies and the importance of the issue at the root of the conflict (Kajanus, n.d.).
Thus, most adults may have viewed the situation as one in which the
high-ranking character lacked the sophistication to yield, given the
cartoonish appearance of the characters, the simplicity of the
exchanges, and the prestigious character's unabashed and juvenile desire
for the resource. This may have made the high-ranking character's win
the more straightforward choice. A number of them may have, nonetheless,
considered the situation in terms of the prestigious character
yielding, thereby bringing about the difference with the British adults.
Another
puzzling finding has to do with the older Chinese children's responses
in Experiment 3. In a reverse situation from the adults, children held
no expectation of either party winning in either conflict case. The lack
of a clear prediction may be understandable for the prestige case, but
is more surprising in the dominance case. As the data do not clarify the
reason for this result, we can only speculate. One likely account is
that children at this age are not yet fully proficient in the
complexities of rank relations and the rules of yielding. They have
learned that high-ranking persons will sometimes yield, but the ways in
which personality characteristics (e.g. prestige, dominance) and
ascribed hierarchies (position, age, gender, etc.) factor into yielding
are still unclear. It is therefore possible that even though they
distinguish between dominant and prestigious processes, in relation to
yielding they simply treat them similarly as signs of high rank. It is
notable that even adults of both countries treated the prestige and
dominance cases the same in their predictions about yielding. This does
not mean that they cannot distinguish between prestige and dominance as
bases of high rank. Unlike Experiment 1, which specifically tested this
ability, Experiments 2 and 3 were focused on predictions about yielding
in a conflict between high-ranking and low-ranking character. Even so,
Chinese adults were less likely to choose the prestigious character as
the winner than the UK adults. Older children also showed signs of
making the distinction in relation to yielding, as they were more likely
to mention the higher-ranking character yielding in the prestige scene
than in the dominance scene.
One limitation of the present studies was the sample size (n = 40 per age, country), which although on par with previous work on children's reasoning about social rank (e.g. Charafeddine et al., 2015, Charafeddine et al., 2016),
was not very large. Although a larger sample would have been more
beneficial, the number of children in the schools we had access to
logistically limited us. We hope to remedy this in our future work.
Relying on large amounts of ethnographic evidence, Fiske (1992)
laid out a theory of four elementary forms of social relationships in
human societies, one of which is authority ranking, which corresponds to
hierarchical relationships marked by rank differences. Even though the
relational model of authority ranking might be universal, it can be
implemented in myriad ways. Children may be endowed with an innate
knowledge of the model of hierarchical relationships (Thomsen & Carey, 2013),
but they must learn its details and exactly how it operates in their
particular social milieu. These experiments provide evidence for one
such culturally-influenced aspect of hierarchical relationships across
two cultural backdrops. The range of cultural features and cues to
relationships is underexplored, as is how children come to learn them
and how long it takes them to do so. We offer an initial glimpse of one
particular aspect and hope that future work will go on to uncover many
more.
Forager-horticulturists: Lowering the voice fundamental frequency in audio clips of men speaking increased perceptions of fighting ability but did not affect perceptions of prestige and decreased their attractiveness to women
Sexual selection for low male voice pitch among Amazonian forager-horticulturists. Kevin A. Rosenfield et al. Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 41, Issue 1, January 2020, Pages 3-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2019.07.002
Abstract: Pitch is the most perceptually salient feature of the voice, yet it is approximately five standard deviations lower in men than in women, a degree of sexual dimorphism exceeding that of all extant nonhuman apes. Evidence from Western samples suggests that low-frequency vocalizations may have augmented male mating success ancestrally by intimidating competitors and/or attracting mates. However, data are lacking from small-scale societies. We therefore investigated sexual selection on male pitch (measured by fundamental frequency, fo) in a population of Bolivian forager-horticulturists, the Tsimané. We found that experimentally lowering fo in audio clips of men speaking increased perceptions of fighting ability but did not affect perceptions of prestige and decreased their attractiveness to women. Further, men with lower speaking fo reported higher numbers of offspring, and this was mediated by the reproductive rates of men's wives, suggesting that men with lower fo achieved higher reproductive success by having access to more fertile mates. These results thus provide new evidence that men's fo has been shaped by intrasexual competition.
Abstract: Pitch is the most perceptually salient feature of the voice, yet it is approximately five standard deviations lower in men than in women, a degree of sexual dimorphism exceeding that of all extant nonhuman apes. Evidence from Western samples suggests that low-frequency vocalizations may have augmented male mating success ancestrally by intimidating competitors and/or attracting mates. However, data are lacking from small-scale societies. We therefore investigated sexual selection on male pitch (measured by fundamental frequency, fo) in a population of Bolivian forager-horticulturists, the Tsimané. We found that experimentally lowering fo in audio clips of men speaking increased perceptions of fighting ability but did not affect perceptions of prestige and decreased their attractiveness to women. Further, men with lower speaking fo reported higher numbers of offspring, and this was mediated by the reproductive rates of men's wives, suggesting that men with lower fo achieved higher reproductive success by having access to more fertile mates. These results thus provide new evidence that men's fo has been shaped by intrasexual competition.
Who teaches children to forage among Hadza and BaYaka Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania and Congo? Child-to-child teaching was more frequent than adult-child teaching; and children taught more with age
Who teaches children to forage? Exploring the primacy of child-to-child teaching among Hadza and BaYaka Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania and Congo. Sheina Lew-Levy et al. Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 41, Issue 1, January 2020, Pages 12-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2019.07.003
Abstract: Teaching is cross-culturally widespread but few studies have considered children as teachers as well as learners. This is surprising, since forager children spend much of their time playing and foraging in child-only groups, and thus, have access to many potential child teachers. Using the Social Relations Model, we examined the prevalence of child-to-child teaching using focal follow data from 35 Hadza and 38 BaYaka 3- to 18-year-olds. We investigated the effect of age, sex and kinship on the teaching of subsistence skills. We found that child-to-child teaching was more frequent than adult-child teaching. Additionally, children taught more with age, teaching was more likely to occur within same-sex versus opposite-sex dyads, and close kin were more likely to teach than non-kin. The Hadza and BaYaka also showed distinct learning patterns; teaching was more likely to occur between sibling dyads among the Hadza than among the BaYaka, and a multistage learning model where younger children learn from peers, and older children from adults, was evident for the BaYaka, but not for the Hadza. We attribute these differences to subsistence and settlement patterns. These findings highlight the role of children in the intergenerational transmission of subsistence skills.
6. Discussion
The
present study aimed to investigate how age, sex, and kinship influenced
the teaching of subsistence skills in BaYaka and Hadza forager 3- to
18-year-olds. Our findings suggest that Hadza and BaYaka children
participated in teaching, either as a teacher or as a learner, between 6
and 8 times an hour. A majority of these teaching events occurred
within child dyads. Alongside research among the Aka and Ngandu (Boyette & Hewlett, 2017a; Hewlett & Roulette, 2016), Baka (Gallois, Duda, Hewlett, & Reyes-garcÃa, 2015), Maya (Maynard, 2002; Zarger, 2002), and Fijians (Kline, 2016),
our results highlight the central role Hadza and BaYaka children play
as teachers, and not just acquirers, of cultural knowledge.
Children
in both populations taught more with age, with overall teaching
directed to children peaking in adulthood. Teaching likely develops with
age because children's teaching abilities continue to increase, and
because they have more knowledge to share with others (Strauss & Ziv, 2012).
Though the development of children's teaching abilities have been
documented in multiple societies in the industrialized west (see Strauss & Ziv, 2012
for review), our findings lend support to a growing body of evidence
demonstrating that in non-western societies, this development occurs
independently of intensive formal schooling (Boyette & Hewlett, 2017a; Maynard & Tovote, 2009).
Interestingly, after approximately 30, the teaching of children
actually decreased with age. Since, by 30, most adults have children who
are old enough to teach their younger siblings, our findings may
reflect children's participation in offsetting their cost of care.
Children's participation in economic activities among the Maya likely
increases mother's reproductive success (Lee & Kramer, 2002).
By accelerating other children's subsistence knowledge acquisition
through teaching, children may be increasing their inclusive fitness by
promoting sibling self-sufficiency and shortening parental inter-birth
interval. Children may also be improving their individual fitness by
increasing their share of parental provisioning. Furthermore, children
may liberate parents to teach more complex skills to adolescents and
other adults, thus reducing the cost of cumulative cultural
transmission.
Consistent with kin selection theory,
teaching was more likely to occur between related dyads than unrelated
dyads in both groups. However, when compared to non-kin and other-kin,
sibling teaching was more common among the Hadza than among the BaYaka.
We interpret these findings as indicating that teaching was more likely
to occur within nuclear families among the Hadza compared to the BaYaka.
We propose that these findings are related to camp structure. As noted
earlier, BaYaka camps are typically more compact than Hadza camps (Hewlett et al., 2019)
partially because of the constraints imposed by living in a forested
environment rather than in the savannah. As a result, BaYaka children
are invariably in closer proximity to all other camp members while in
camp, while Hadza children can more easily assort with more closely
related individuals, including siblings and parents. This may result in
different teaching patterns, where other-kin and non-kin play a greater
role in knowledge transmission for the BaYaka, whereas for the Hadza,
the nuclear family may play a greater role in knowledge transmission. An
alternative explanation may be simply that, because the Hadza have more
siblings than the BaYaka, the former experienced more sibling teaching
than the latter. However, Blurton Jones (2016) states that the total fertility rate for the Hadza is 5.3, while, for the BaYaka, total fertility rate is reported by Hewlett (1991) as 6.2, with similar infant mortality rates (~20% Blurton Jones, Hawkes, & O'Connell, 2002; Hewlett, 1991). Furthermore, as Table 1
shows, the BaYaka had proportionally more siblings in camp than the
Hadza (5% vs. 3%), making it unlikely that number of siblings in camp
explains the observed difference in Hadza and BaYaka sibling teaching.
Thus, our results suggest that intra-site variation in settlement
structure may influence the distribution of kin teaching. Future studies
should further investigate this claim.
For the BaYaka
only, younger children were more likely to be taught by other children
while BaYaka adolescents were more likely to be taught by adults. This
finding is consistent with the multistage model of knowledge
acquisition, which suggests that children develop basic skills from
other children before seeking skilled adults from whom they can update
their knowledge, and who might also be more willing to teach individuals
with the necessary baseline competence (Henrich & Henrich, 2010; Reyes-GarcÃa et al., 2016).
While our data support a multistage model of learning among the BaYaka,
we found little difference in teacher's age for younger and older
learners among the Hadza. While unexpected, this finding may be
explained by examining foraging participation. Hadza children collect
between 25 and 50% and sometimes even 100% of their daily caloric needs
from an early age (Crittenden et al., 2013; Hawkes et al., 1995).
Although children tend to target easier to access resources such as
berries and baobab when they are younger, they are provided with
opportunities to practice more complex resource acquisition throughout
childhood; for example, boys as young as two are made small, functional
bows and arrows, and girls are provided with small, appropriately sized
digging sticks (Crittenden, 2016).
Unlike among the BaYaka, children are fully expected to collect food
with these tools. Thus, for the Hadza, teaching by adults may primarily
occur through stimulus enhancement in early life, after which children
are more likely to learn complex skills through participation in
foraging with other children than through teaching by adults. Though a
multistage learning model where children learn with other children when
younger, and by adults when older may be more common, it may nonetheless
depend on the foraging niche in which learning occurs. Future studies
should thus take seriously the role of ecological context when
investigating the distribution of learning processes across the
lifespan.
Mathematical models investigating optimal
learning strategies suggest that individual learning should occur only
after children have acquired knowledge socially (Aoki, Wakano, & Lehmann, 2012; Borenstein, Feldman, & Aoki, 2008; Lehmann et al., 2013). Although previous studies of play (Bock & Johnson, 2004), observation (Greenfield, 2004), and teaching (Boyette & Hewlett, 2017a)
found that social learning declined with age, presumably because older
individuals have begun to refine learned behavior through individual
practice, our final model found only a weak negative relationship
between learner's age and teaching. However, we note that learner's age
was a strong negative predictor in additional models which omitted this
interaction (see supplementary materials). This suggests that what might
first appear to be a decreasing likelihood for older individuals to be
learners is actually better explained by (a) a decrease in teaching by
older individuals, due to the declining latter portion of the quadratic
‘teacher age’ curve (Fig. 1),
and (b) a tendency for teachers and learners to be of similar ages, as
indicated by the positive teacher/learner age interactions. In other
words, the decline in teaching by older individuals is sufficient to
explain the decline in learning by older individuals as well.
As in other aspects of forager life (Allen-Arave et al., 2008; Crittenden & Zes, 2015; Peterson, 1993),
we found evidence for high dyadic reciprocity, and a large effect of
the dyad, in teaching. Researchers working with highly stratified
cultures have found collaboration to enhance children's knowledge
acquisition in experimental settings (Dean, Kendal, Schapiro, Thierry, & Laland, 2012; Dunn, 1983; Laland, 2004; Tomasello, 1999; Tomasello et al., 1993; Wood, Wood, Ainsworth, & Malley, 1995). When comparing collaborative problem solving across cultures, Nielsen, Mushin, Tomaselli, and Whiten (2016) found that Australian Indigenous children collaborated significantly more than Brisbane pre-schoolers (see also Rogoff, 1998). Since collaborative learning generates new knowledge forms (Tomasello, 1999; Tomasello et al., 1993),
it may be especially adaptive to foragers relying on unpredictable
resources. One limitation of our study is that we examined short-term
reciprocity. A long term examination of teaching may show a different,
and more unidirectional, pattern. Nonetheless, future studies should
examine the advantages conferred by reciprocal knowledge sharing during
daily interactions in childhood.
Finally, same-sex teaching was hypothesized to increase the likelihood that children would learn sex-specific skills (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001). Same-sex bias in learning has been noted among foragers the world over (Boyette & Hewlett, 2017a; Draper, 1975; Hewlett & Cavalli-Sforza, 1986; Lew-Levy, Lavi, Reckin, Cristóbal-Azkarate, & Ellis-Davies, 2018; MacDonald, 2007b). Here, we also found strong evidence for same-sex teaching among both the BaYaka and the Hadza.
7. Implications
Taken
together, this paper sheds light on the evolutionary importance of, and
cross-cultural variation in, child-to-child teaching. Most studies
investigating the evolution of childhood have assumed that children
require provisioning until at least adolescence (Kaplan et al., 2000), yet recent studies have challenged this claim, showing that children can be, and often are, producers (Bird & Bliege Bird, 2005; Crittenden et al., 2013; Tucker & Young, 2005), that children sometimes produce a surplus of calories which can be shared with the parental generation (Crittenden et al., 2013), and that children's production contributes to parental reproduction (Kramer, 2014; Lee & Kramer, 2002).
Similarly, many studies on the evolution of cumulative culture assume
that transmission only or primarily occurs from parents to offspring
(e.g. Shennan & Steele, 1999), and that childhood is a sensitive period for knowledge acquisition (Kaplan et al., 2000).
The results of the present paper problematize these claims because they
demonstrate that children are active teachers from an early age.
Child-to-child teaching may be especially adaptive because it has the
potential to increase children's inclusive and individual fitness by
offsetting their own, and their siblings' cost of care (Konner, 1976; Lee & Kramer, 2002).
Furthermore, because children can facilitate each other's knowledge
acquisition in the zone of proximal development, child-to-child teaching
may contribute to more rapid, and potentially less costly, knowledge
transfers for basic skills (Hewlett & Cavalli-Sforza, 1986).
Our
analysis was limited by the fact that dyadic proximity data proved too
difficult to collect while also keeping track of children's teaching and
foraging activities. Dyadic proximity is important because individuals
may choose to assort with the intent to share knowledge with each other.
At least among the BaYaka, adults report inviting children to forage
alongside them with the specific intent to teach subsistence skills (Lew-Levy et al., 2019). Similarly, BaYaka children sometimes preferred to forage in the absence of adults so that they could learn with their peers (Boyette & Lew-Levy, Under review).
Alternatively, teaching may occur opportunistically while individuals
are participating in other cooperative behaviors. For example, parents
who forage with their children because they require assistants may also
use a foraging trip as an opportunity to teach. Thus, future studies
should examine whether teaching is independent from, or a by-product of,
other social and cooperative relationships. Future studies should also
examine whether cross-cultural differences in associative patterns
translates to differences in teaching.
The present
paper brings to light several areas for future research. Since fieldwork
was only conducted during part of the year, we were unable to observe
every foraging activity (e.g. kombi fishing for the BaYaka,
weaver-bird collecting for the Hadza); future studies will examine how
seasonal variation in child and adult foraging and diet influences how
and from whom children learn (Crittenden & Schnorr, 2017; Gallois et al., 2015).
In addition, as demonstrated in Table S3, we observed little teaching
in especially complex domains, such as hunting and trapping. This may be
because these skills are acquired later in life (Gurven, Kaplan, & Gutierrez, 2006; Ohtsuka, 1989; Walker et al., 2002).
Since the age cut-off for the present study was approximately eighteen,
more longitudinal studies on the distribution of knowledge acquisition
across seasons, and in late adolescence and adulthood are needed.
Studies comparing teaching to other social learning forms, such as
observation and imitation, are also needed. Next, while the present
paper considered teaching generally, future studies will examine whether
different teaching types covary with the specific domain of subsistence
being transmitted. Finally, the foragers with whom we worked had
limited exposure to schooling. Future studies will examine how teaching
patterns change with increased exposure to schools.
Evolutionary theories suggest that humans prefer sexual dimorphism in faces because masculinity in men & femininity in women may be an indicator of immune function during development; Australian data seems to confirm this
Immune function during early adolescence positively predicts adult facial sexual dimorphism in both men and women. Yong Zhi Foo et al. Evolution and Human Behavior, February 17 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2020.02.002
Abstract: Evolutionary theories suggest that humans prefer sexual dimorphism in faces because masculinity in men and femininity in women may be an indicator of immune function during development. In particular, the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis proposes that sexual dimorphism indicates good immune function during development because the sex hormones, particularly testosterone in men, required for the development of sexually dimorphic facial features also taxes the immune system. Therefore, only healthy males can afford the high level of testosterone for the development of sexually dimorphic traits without compromising their survival. Researchers have suggested that a similar mechanism via the effects of oestrogen might also explain male preferences for female femininity. Despite the prominence of the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis, no studies have tested whether immune function during development predicts adult facial sexual dimorphism. Here, using data from a longitudinal public health dataset, the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study (Generation 2), we show that some aspects of immune function during early adolescence (14 years) positively predict sexually dimorphic 3D face shape in both men and women. Our results support a fundamental assumption that facial sexual dimorphism is an indicator of immune function during the development of facial sexual dimorphism.
Abstract: Evolutionary theories suggest that humans prefer sexual dimorphism in faces because masculinity in men and femininity in women may be an indicator of immune function during development. In particular, the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis proposes that sexual dimorphism indicates good immune function during development because the sex hormones, particularly testosterone in men, required for the development of sexually dimorphic facial features also taxes the immune system. Therefore, only healthy males can afford the high level of testosterone for the development of sexually dimorphic traits without compromising their survival. Researchers have suggested that a similar mechanism via the effects of oestrogen might also explain male preferences for female femininity. Despite the prominence of the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis, no studies have tested whether immune function during development predicts adult facial sexual dimorphism. Here, using data from a longitudinal public health dataset, the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study (Generation 2), we show that some aspects of immune function during early adolescence (14 years) positively predict sexually dimorphic 3D face shape in both men and women. Our results support a fundamental assumption that facial sexual dimorphism is an indicator of immune function during the development of facial sexual dimorphism.
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