Grandiose narcissists consider intelligence so important bc they see it as leading to benefits across life domains; maintain & defend illusory positive intellectual self-views; & are extremely motivated to appear intelligent

Why Do Narcissists Care So Much About Intelligence? Marcin Zajenkowski, Michael Dufner. Current Directions in Psychological Science, June 4, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721420917152

Abstract: Grandiose narcissists typically pursue agentic goals, such as social status, competence, and autonomy. We argue that because high intelligence is a key asset for the attainment of such agentic goals, the concept of intelligence should play a prominent role in grandiose narcissists’ self-regulation and social behavior. We review the relevant literature and report evidence in support of this claim. Grandiose narcissists consider intelligence to be an important resource that leads to benefits across life domains, they tend to maintain and defend illusory positive intellectual self-views, and they are extremely motivated to appear intelligent to other people. Thus, even though grandiose narcissism is essentially unrelated to objectively assessed intelligence, intelligence nevertheless plays an important role in the way grandiose narcissists think, feel, and behave. We discuss potential implications for social relationships and point toward avenues for future research.

Keywords: agency, grandiose narcissism, intelligence, narcissism

Men appreciate more aggresive and sexual humor; other differences seem based in roles, not natural differences

Gender differences in humor-related traits, humor appreciation, production, comprehension, (neural) responses, use, and correlates: A systematic review. Jennifer Hofmann, Tracey Platt, Chloé Lau & Jorge Torres-Marín. Current Psychology Jun 4 2020. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-020-00724-1

Abstract: All available peer-reviewed literature on humor and gender differences (1977–2018) was screened and evaluated according to a priori defined QUALSYST criteria. The 77 papers surpassing a conservative quality criterion generated seven emergent themes around humor and gender differences. In short, men score higher in the aggressive humor style (M > F), while no other gender differences were consistently reported in humor-related traits (M = F). In the prediction of negative outcomes (stress, loneliness, depression), differential effects for humor in both genders are reported, but not consistently (M ≠ F). Gender differences exist for the appreciation of sexual humor (M > F), even in mixed target stimuli, and hostile humor (both genders appreciate opposite gender target stimuli more). Gender differences are absent in nonsense and neutral humor (M = F). For humor production, three samples showed no gender differences (M = F), while three samples suggested men are funnier (M > F) and one that women are funnier (M < F). No studies reporting differences in humor comprehension were identified (M = F). For humor use and communication, gender differences were found across methods (M ≠ F), yet, they depend on the context (e.g., workplace) and may thus resemble gender roles rather than “natural differences”. Moreover, few studies provide hard data on actual humor use and communication in different domains. When exposed to humor stimuli, different neural responses of men and women in prefrontal cortex activations (or selected parts) were found (M ≠ F). Also, self-report data suggest that both genders value a sense of humor in their partner (M = F), yet women typically value the humor production abilities more than humor receptivity, while for men, the woman’s receptivity of their own humor is more important than a woman’s humor production abilities, in line with gender stereotypes (M ≠ F). To conclude, much progress has been achieved in the past 15 years to overcome methodological flaws in early works on humor and gender differences. Importantly, attention should be paid to disentangling actual gender differences from gender role expectations and gender stereotypes. Methodologically, designs need to be checked for potential bias (i.e. self-reports may accentuate roles and stereotypes) and more hard data is needed to substantiate claims from self-report studies.

No pain, no gain: Perceived partner mate value mediates the desire-inducing effect of being hard to get

No pain, no gain: Perceived partner mate value mediates the desire-inducing effect of being hard to get during online and face-to-face encounters. Gurit E. Birnbaum, Kobi Zholtack, Harry T. Reis.  Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, June 4, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407520927469

Abstract: Playing hard to get is a common strategy used to attract mates. Past research has been unclear about whether and why this strategy facilitates mate pursuit. In three studies, we examined whether perceiving potential partners as hard to get instigated sexual desire and whether perceived partner mate value explained this effect. In doing so, we focused on tactics that give the impression that potential partners are hard to get and may genuinely signal their mate value (being selective in choosing mates, efforts invested in their pursuit). In all studies, participants interacted with an opposite-sex confederate and rated their perceptions of the confederate. In Study 1, participants interacted with confederates whose profile indicated that they were either hard to get or easy to attract. In Study 2, participants exerted (or not) real efforts to attract the confederate. In Study 3, interactions unfolded spontaneously and were coded for efforts made to see the confederate again. Results indicated that the perception of whether a confederate was hard to get was associated with their mate value, which, in turn, predicted greater desire and efforts to see the confederate again, suggesting that being hard to get is an effective strategy that heightens perceptions of partners’ mate value.

Keywords: Attraction, dating, hard to get, sexual desire, relationship initiation

USA & Denmark: Those scoring higher in narcissism participate more in politics (contacting politicians, signing petitions, joining demonstrations, donating money, & voting in midterm elections)

Narcissism in Political Participation. Zoltán Fazekas, Peter K. Hatemi. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, June 4, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220919212

Abstract: Much attention has focused on the social, institutional, and mobilization factors that influence political participation, with a renewed interest in psychological motivations. One trait that has a deep theoretical connection to participation, but remains underexplored, is narcissism. Relying on three studies in the United States and Denmark, two nationally representative, we find that those scoring higher in narcissism, as measured by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory–40 (NPI-40), participate more in politics, including contacting politicians, signing petitions, joining demonstrations, donating money, and voting in midterm elections. Both agentic and antagonistic components of narcissism were positively and negatively related to different types of political participation when exploring the subfactors independently. Superiority and Authority/Leadership were positively related to participation, while Self Sufficiency was negatively related to participation. In addition, the combined Entitlement/Exploitativeness factor was negatively related to turnout, but only in midterm elections. Overall, the findings support a view of participation that arises in part from instrumental motivations.

Keywords narcissism, political participation, NPI, authority-seeking, superiority

Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (an enduring feeling that the self is a victim across different kinds of interpersonal relationships) & the need for recognition, moral elitism, lack of empathy, & rumination

The tendency for interpersonal victimhood: The personality construct and its consequences. Rahav Gabay et al. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 165, October 15 2020, 110134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110134

Abstract: In the present research, we introduce a conceptualization of the Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV), which we define as an enduring feeling that the self is a victim across different kinds of interpersonal relationships. Then, in a comprehensive set of eight studies, we develop a measure for this novel personality trait, TIV, and examine its correlates, as well as its affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences. In Part 1 (Studies 1A-1C) we establish the construct of TIV, with its four dimensions; i.e., need for recognition, moral elitism, lack of empathy, and rumination, and then assess TIV's internal consistency, stability over time, and its effect on the interpretation of ambiguous situations. In Part 2 (Studies 2A-2C) we examine TIV's convergent and discriminant validities, using several personality dimensions, and the role of attachment styles as conceptual antecedents. In Part 3 (Studies 3–4) we explore the cognitive and behavioral consequences of TIV. Specifically, we examine the relationships between TIV, negative attribution and recall biases, and the desire for revenge (Study 3), and the effects of TIV on behavioral revenge (Study 4). The findings highlight the importance of understanding, conceptualizing, and empirically testing TIV, and suggest that victimhood is a stable and meaningful personality tendency.

Keywords: VictimhoodInterpersonal relationsPersonalityCognitive biasesAttachment styles

To beer or not to beer: A meta-analysis of the effects of beer consumption on cardiovascular health

To beer or not to beer: A meta-analysis of the effects of beer consumption on cardiovascular health. Giorgia Spaggiari et al. PLoS, June 3, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233619

Abstract: A moderate alcohol consumption is demonstrated to exert a protective action in terms of cardiovascular risk. Although this property seems not to be beverage-specific, the various composition of alcoholic compounds could mediate peculiar effects in vivo. The aim of this study was to evaluate potential beer-mediated effects on the cardiovascular health in humans, using a meta-analytic approach (trial registration number: CRD42018118387). The literature search, comprising all English articles published until November, 30th 2019 in EMBASE, PubMed and Cochrane database included all controlled clinical trials evaluating the cardiovascular effects of beer assumption compared to alcohol-free beer, water, abstinence or placebo. Both sexes and all beer preparations were considered eligible. Outcome parameters were those entering in the cardiovascular risk charts and those related to endothelial dysfunction. Twenty-six trials were included in the analysis. Total cholesterol was significantly higher in beer drinkers compared to controls (14 studies, 3.52 mg/dL, 1.71–5.32 mg/dL). Similar increased levels were observed in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (18 studies, 3.63 mg/dL, 2.00–5.26 mg/dL) and in apolipoprotein A1 (5 studies, 0.16 mg/dL, 0.11–0.21 mg/dL), while no differences were detected in low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (12 studies, -2.85 mg/dL, -5.96–0.26 mg/dL) and triglycerides (14 studies, 0.40 mg/dL, -5.00–5.80 mg/dL) levels. Flow mediated dilation (FMD) resulted significantly higher in beer-consumers compared to controls (4 studies, 0.65%, 0.07–1.23%), while blood pressure and other biochemical markers of inflammation did not differ. In conclusion, the specific beer effect on human cardiovascular health was meta-analysed for the first time, highlighting an improvement of the vascular elasticity, detected by the increase of FMD (after acute intake), and of the lipid profile with a significant increase of HDL and apolipoprotein A1 serum levels. Although the long-term effects of beer consumption are not still understood, a beneficial effect of beer on endothelial function should be supposed.

Achilles & Patroklos - from Edward Carpenter's book, Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship (1902)

Achilles & Patroklos

[The following excerpt, on the lover-warriors Achilles and Patroklos (or Patroclus), is from Edward Carpenter's book, Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship (1902). Carpenter himself translated the passage from the Iliad.]


POETRY OF FRIENDSHIP AMONG GREEKS AND ROMANS

THE fact, already mentioned, that the romance of love among the Greeks was chiefly felt towards male friends, naturally led to their poetry being largely inspired by friendship; and Greek literature contains such a great number of poems of this sort, that I have thought it worth while to dedicate the main portion of the following section to quotations from them. No translations of course can do justice to the beauty of the originals, but the few specimens given may help to illustrate the depth and tenderness as well as the temperance and sobriety which on the whole characterized Greek feeling on this subject, at any rate during the best period of Hellenic culture....
    It is not always realized that the Iliad of Homer turns upon the motive of friendship, but the extracts immediately following will perhaps make this clear. E. F. M. Benecke in his Position of Women in Greek Poetry (p. 76) says of the Iliad: —

        It is a story of which the main motive is the love of Achilles for Patroclus. This solution is astoundingly simple, and yet it took me so long to bring myself to accept it that I am quite ready to forgive any one who feels a similar hesitation. But those who do accept it cannot fail to observe, on further consideration, how thoroughly suitable a motive of this kind would be in a national Greek epic. For this is the motive running through the whole of Greek life, till that life was transmuted by the influence of Macedonia. The lover-warriors Achilles and Patroclus are the direct spiritual ancestors of the sacred Band of Thebans, who died to a man on the field of Chæronæa.

    The following two quotations are from The Greek Poets by J. A. Symonds, ch. iii., p. 80 et seq.: —

        The Iliad therefore has for its whole subject the passion of Achilles — that ardent energy or μηνις of the hero which displayed itself first as anger against Agamemnon, and afterwards as love for the lost Patroclus. The truth of this was perceived by one of the greatest poets and profoundest critics of the modern world, Dante. When Dante, in the Inferno, wished to describe Achilles, he wrote, with characteristic brevity:  

                                                  “Achille
                  Che per amore al fine combatteo.”

                                                            (“Achilles
                  Who at the last was brought to fight by love.”)

        In this pregnant sentence Dante sounded the whole depth of the Iliad. The wrath of Achilles for Agamemnon, which prevented him at first from fighting; the love of Achilles, passing the love of women, for Patroclus, which induced him to forego his anger and to fight at last; these are the two poles on which the Iliad turns.

    After his quarrel with Agamemnon, not even all the losses of the Greeks and the entreaties of Agamemnon himself will induce Achilles to fight — not till Patroclus is slain by Hector — Patroclus, his dear friend “whom above all my comrades I honored, even as myself.” Then he rises up, dons his armor, and driving the Trojans before him revenges himself on the body of Hector. But Patroclus lies yet unburied; and when the fighting is over, to Achilles comes the ghost of his dead friend: —

        The son of Peleus, by the shore of the roaring sea lay, heavily groaning, surrounded by his Myrmidons; on a fair space of sand he lay, where the waves lapped the beach. Then slumber took him, loosing the cares of his heart, and mantling softly around him, for sorely wearied were his radiant limbs with driving Hector on by windy Troy. There to him came the soul of poor Patroclus, in all things like himself, in stature, and in the beauty of his eyes and voice, and on the form was raiment like his own. He stood above the hero's head, and spake to him: —

            Sleepest thou, and me hast thou forgotten, Achilles? Not in my life wert thou neglectful of me, but in death. Bury me soon, that I may pass the gates of Hades. Far off the souls, the shadows of the dead, repel me, nor suffer me to join them on the river bank; but, as it is, thus I roam around the wide-doored house of Hades. But stretch to me thy hand I entreat; for never again shall I return from Hades when once ye shall have given me the meed of funeral fire. Nay, never shall we sit in life apart from our dear comrades and take counsel together. But me hath hateful fate enveloped — fate that was mine at the moment of my birth. And for thyself, divine Achilles, it is doomed to die beneath the noble Trojan's wall. Another thing I say to thee, and bid thee do it if thou wilt obey me: — lay not my bones apart from thine, Achilles, but lay them together; for we were brought up together in your house, when Mencœtius brought me, a child, from Opus to your house, because of woeful bloodshed on the day in which I slew the son of Amphidamas, myself a child, not willing it but in anger at our games. Then did the horseman, Peleus, take me, and rear me in his house, and cause me to be called thy squire. So then let one grave also hide the bones of both of us, the golden urn thy goddess-mother gave to thee.

    Him answered swift-footed Achilles: —

            Why, dearest and most honoured, hast thou hither come, to lay on me this thy behest? All things most certainly will I perform, and bow to what thou biddest. But stand thou near: even for one moment let us throw our arms upon each other's neck, and take our fill of sorrowful wailing.

        So spake he, and with his outstretched hands he clasped, but could not seize. The spirit, earthward, like smoke, vanished with a shriek. Then all astonished arose Achilles, and beat his palms together, and spake a piteous word: —

            Heavens! is there then, among the dead, soul and the shade of life, but thought is theirs no more at all? For through the night the soul of poor Patroclus stood above my head, wailing and sorrowing loud, and bade me do his will ; it was the very semblance of himself.

        So spake he, and in the hearts of all of them he raised desire of lamentation; and while they were yet mourning, to them appeared rose-fingered dawn about the piteous corpse. Iliad, xxiii. 59 et seq.

PLATO in the Symposium dwells tenderly on this relation between Achilles and Patroclus: —

        [And great] was the reward of the true love of Achilles towards his lover Patroclus - his lover and not his love (the notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which Æschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the two, fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs us, he was still beardless, and younger far). And greatly as the gods honor the virtue of love, still the return of love on the part of the beloved to the lover is more admired and valued and rewarded by them, for the lover has a nature more divine and worthy of worship. Now Achilles was quite aware, for he had been told by his mother, that he might avoid death and return home, and live to a good old age, if he abstained from slaying Hector. Nevertheless he gave his life to revenge his friend, and dared to die, not only on his behalf, but after his death. Wherefore the gods honored him even above Alcestis, and sent him to the Islands of the Blest. Symposium, speech of Phædrus, trans. by B. Jowett.

And on this passage Symonds has the following note: —

        Plato, discussing the Myrmidones of Æschylus, remarks in the Symposium that the tragic poet was wrong to make Achilles the lover of Patroclus, seeing that Patroclus was the elder of the two, and that Achilles was the youngest and most beautiful of all the Greeks. The fact however is that Homer raises no question in our minds about the relation of lover and beloved. Achilles and Patroclus are comrades. Their friendship is equal. It was only the reflective activity of the Greek mind, working upon the Homeric legend by the light of subsequent custom, which introduced these distinctions. The Greek Poets, ch. iii. p. 103.

Back to Gay Liberation.

Home

Assessment of Psychopathology: Is Asking Questions Good Enough?

Assessment of Psychopathology: Is Asking Questions Good Enough? Barbara Pavlova. JAMA Psychiatry. 2020;77(6):557-558. March 11 2020, doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.0108

The evaluation and success of our efforts to prevent, detect, and treat mental illness depend on the assessment of psychopathology. Almost all psychiatric assessments consist of asking questions, through questionnaires or interviews, about behaviors and experiences. We either ask the person being assessed or someone who knows them well. Based on the answers, we diagnose, recommend treatment, and monitor outcome. Regardless of who is reporting, overreporting and underreporting are common. People may overreport or underreport on purpose when they are hoping for benefits associated with a diagnosis (eg, educational support, time off work, or access to medication), or fearing the consequences of diagnosis, including stigma or adverse effects of medication. Beliefs about mental illness not being real, concerns about privacy, health insurance cost, and implications for custody of children are also reasons for underreporting.

Unintentional overreporting and underreporting are even more common. Many diagnoses rely on recalling duration and frequency of multiple symptoms, which is prone to memory bias. Recent events are more salient, and people are more likely to remember times when their mood was similar to the mood at the time of reporting. Mood-dependent memory impedes the assessment of bipolar disorder, where individuals typically present in the depressive phase, and correct diagnosis depends on their recall of manic episodes. What is being reported about others is also influenced by reporters’ mental state. For example, mothers experiencing depression and anxiety report more severe symptoms in their children than the children themselves.1 These biases have been demonstrated in children thanks to routine use of multiple informants. It is likely that biases of self-report in adults remain hidden, because report by others is underused in adult psychiatric practice and research. Other reporting inaccuracies may stem from reporters’ implicit and explicit biases related to age, sex, race/ethnicity, appearance, or disability of the person whose behavior they are describing.

The comparison group that the reporter uses also has an effect and is the most likely explanation for why younger children within the classroom are more often diagnosed as having attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder than their older classmates.2 Similarly, clinicians who are likely to see those who are severely ill may underestimate problems of the relatively less affected. It is likely that the comparison group also affects self-report in adults and may contribute to apparent strong effects of income inequality and urban environment on psychopathology. Self-report and report by others may have complementary strengths depending on the problem that is being evaluated. While observable problems, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, may be suited to report by others, the less visible difficulties, including anxiety, may be more accurately captured by self-report.

The studies that evaluated the relative predictive value of information from multiple reporters suggest that while everyone comes with their own biases, each reporter also contributes to the assessment/prediction in a meaningful way. Self-rated depression questionnaire and clinician-rated interview differ, but each contributes uniquely to the prediction of antidepressant treatment outcome.3 Similarly, parents’ ratings of their offspring’s depressive symptoms as well as those self-reported by the offspring prospectively predict a new-onset mood disorder.4

Problems with self-report and recall bias have been known for decades, but alternative methods have not been adopted in practice. The impracticability of accessing multiple informants and lack of objective unbiased standards may be why we continue to use suboptimal but convenient assessment methods. To improve assessment and prediction accuracy, we need methods that are more objective and less biased.

First, observation of behavior by a person who has no stakes in the assessment result improves assessment and prediction of functional outcomes. Independent observation of classroom behavior predicts future attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder–associated impairment with greater accuracy than the parent and teacher reports.5 Independent raters unaware of parent diagnosis observed more inattention, language/thought problems, and oppositional behavior in offspring of parents with mood and psychotic disorders than in offspring of parents without these disorders.6 Ratings of behavior by independent assessors may also contribute to predicting and evaluating treatment outcome.

Second, ecological momentary assessment (ie, repeated assessment of respondents’ experiences in their natural environment in real time) minimizes memory bias. For example, it may help identify early signs of mood and energy deterioration, which could enable clinicians to intervene early to prevent a major mood episode.

Third, automated analysis of behavior has a potential to avoid biases associated with human reporters. As with human observers, automated analysis of behavior uses the discernible signs of mental state, including speech content and prosody, body movement, and facial expressions. Automated analysis of speech could contribute to diagnosis and prediction of response to treatment. For example, features of speech, including speed, articulation, or repetitiveness, may aid the diagnosis of depression. Corcoran et al7 showed that automated speech analysis can predict psychosis onset among individuals at clinical high risk with high accuracy. In addition, increased pupillary reactivity to sad words distinguished children and young people with depression from their nondepressed peers.8 Automated analysis of speech and pupillary reactivity may also identify individuals at risk for depression. Finally, actigraphy can contribute to the assessment of mental illness through identifying changes in activity and sleep that precede a relapse of psychosis or depression.9 While automated analysis of speech, pupillary reactivity, and actigraphy contribute predictive information that complements self-report, none of these has been developed and validated as a comprehensive stand-alone assessment method that could replace questionnaires and interviews.10

The limits and biases of self-report have been known for decades, and the calls for integrating more objective measurement into psychiatric assessment are not new.11 Yet little has changed in psychiatric assessment to date. The last decade has brought evidence that multisource assessment actually improves the prediction of meaningful outcomes.3,4,7 At the same time, the feasibility of objective measurement is rapidly improving with the availability of wearable technology.9 The next steps in implementing objective assessment should include prospective evaluation of predictive value of objective tests used alone or alongside established interview and questionnaire methods.10 Clinical applicability will be enhanced if these steps are informed by what is known about report biases and multisource assessment. Because each reporter contributes unique predictive information,3-5 new methods should be evaluated against multireporter assessment rather than relying on a single reporter for a standard. New technology often uses artificial intelligence to learn from existing data that include the biases reviewed here. When calibrating new methods, care must be taken to ensure fairness and avoid perpetuation of biases pertaining to race/ethnicity, sex, and education.

While objective measurement of psychopathology is desirable, the presently available methods are far from being universally applicable.10 Although reports by self and others come with various biases and inaccuracies, they will likely remain the most informative way of assessment in psychiatry in the foreseeable future. Yet these traditional methods can and should also be improved. Unbiased objective measures of mental state, with methods such as speech analysis, pupillary reactivity, and actigraphy, may help to design and calibrate self-report and clinical interview measures so that they are less prone to bias.

Combination of multireporter assessment with objective analysis of behavior offers an opportunity to improve diagnosis and prediction of mental illness to better target treatment and preventative efforts. The key to implementing this knowledge may lie in practical solutions that allow incorporating objective and unbiased assessment in the work flow of research and clinical practice.

We present converging evidence demonstrating poor reliability of task-fMRI measures

What Is the Test-Retest Reliability of Common Task-Functional MRI Measures? New Empirical Evidence and a Meta-Analysis. Maxwell L. Elliott et al. Psychological Science, June 3, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620916786

Abstract: Identifying brain biomarkers of disease risk is a growing priority in neuroscience. The ability to identify meaningful biomarkers is limited by measurement reliability; unreliable measures are unsuitable for predicting clinical outcomes. Measuring brain activity using task functional MRI (fMRI) is a major focus of biomarker development; however, the reliability of task fMRI has not been systematically evaluated. We present converging evidence demonstrating poor reliability of task-fMRI measures. First, a meta-analysis of 90 experiments (N = 1,008) revealed poor overall reliability—mean intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = .397. Second, the test-retest reliabilities of activity in a priori regions of interest across 11 common fMRI tasks collected by the Human Connectome Project (N = 45) and the Dunedin Study (N = 20) were poor (ICCs = .067–.485). Collectively, these findings demonstrate that common task-fMRI measures are not currently suitable for brain biomarker discovery or for individual-differences research. We review how this state of affairs came to be and highlight avenues for improving task-fMRI reliability.

Keywords: neuroimaging, individual differences, statistical analysis, cognitive neuroscience

Japanese macaques: Some adult females mount adult males in the context of heterosexual consortships; this research has implications for the evolution of non-conceptive sex in primates

Is female-male mounting functional? An analysis of the temporal patterns of sexual behaviors in Japanese macaques. Noëlle Gunst et al. Physiology & Behavior, June 3 2020, 112983. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2020.112983

Highlights
• Behavioral structure contributes to testing hypotheses about behavioral function
• Temporal analysis of mating sequences helps test the function of female-male mounts
• Female-male mounting may be a sexual solicitation in Japanese monkeys
• Female-male mounting may be a sexual adaptation in Japanese monkeys
• Our research has implications for the evolution of non-conceptive sex in primates

Abstract: In certain populations of Japanese macaques, adult females mount adult males in the context of heterosexual consortships (i.e., temporary but exclusive sexual associations between a male and a female). Previous research suggested that, in this primate species, female-male mounting (FMM) may be a behavioral adaptation. This functional hypothesis holds that FMM is a (special) courtship behaviour, or a (super) sexual solicitation, that serves the function of focusing the male's attention, preventing him from moving away, and expediting male-female mounting, in the context of high female competition for male mates. In this study, we aimed to test some of the proposed functional features of FMM in Japanese macaques by comparing the temporal structure of mating behavioral sequences, including various well-known sexual solicitations, exhibited during heterosexual consortships with and without FMM. To identify and compare recurring series of behavioral events within and across sequences, we used a temporal analysis known as “T-pattern detection and analysis”. Our results (partly) supported the “FMM as a (super) sexual solicitation” hypotheses, and supported the “FMM as a sexual adaptation” hypothesis. The utilization of TPA allows for the detection of hidden features of primates’ behaviors otherwise undetectable by using conventional quantitative approaches, such as the calculation of frequencies or durations of isolated behavioral components, disjointed from the comprehensive behavioral architecture. This study fits into the scheme of a broader investigation of the functionality of non-conceptive mounting patterns observed in Japanese macaques and a reconstruction of their evolutionary history.

Keywords: Structure-functionTemporal structureT-pattern analysisNon-conceptive sexAdaptationEvolutionary by-product

Sperm sex ratio adjustment in a mammal: perceived male competition leads to elevated proportions of female-producing sperm

Sperm sex ratio adjustment in a mammal: perceived male competition leads to elevated proportions of female-producing sperm. Renée C. Firman, Jamie N. Tedeschi and Francisco Garcia-Gonzalez. Biology Letters, June 3 2020. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0929

Abstract: Mammal sex allocation research has focused almost exclusively on maternal traits, but it is now apparent that fathers can also influence offspring sex ratios. Parents that produce female offspring under conditions of intense male–male competition can benefit with greater assurance of maximized grand-parentage. Adaptive adjustment in the sperm sex ratio, for example with an increase in the production of X-chromosome bearing sperm (CBS), is one potential paternal mechanism for achieving female-biased sex ratios. Here, we tested this mechanistic hypothesis by varying the risk of male–male competition that male house mice perceived during development, and quantifying sperm sex ratios at sexual maturity. Our analyses revealed that males exposed to a competitive ‘risk’ produced lower proportions of Y-CBS compared to males that matured under ‘no risk’ of competition. We also explored whether testosterone production was linked to sperm sex ratio variation, but found no evidence to support this. We discuss our findings in relation to the adaptive value of sperm sex ratio adjustments and the role of steroid hormones in socially induced sex allocation.

4. Discussion

Recent research has indicated that the sperm sex ratio is a plastic trait that responds to prevailing social conditions [9], which highlights the potential that these adjustments function as a mechanism of male-driven sex allocation [31–34]. In a previous experiment on house mice, we found that exposure to high-male density conditions during sexual development (3–12 weeks of age) resulted in the production of higher proportions of Y-CBS and larger testes [9], which taken together support the male fertility hypothesis [31]. Despite there being strong evidence that low testosterone levels lead to the production of female offspring [45], the precise mechanism by which testosterone influences sperm sex ratios is currently unknown. In the current investigation, we tested whether sperm sex ratio adjustments are linked to variation in testosterone production. Contrary to our expectation, we found that males reared under a risk of competition produced lower sperm sex ratios (i.e. more X-CBS biased) compared with males that matured in the absence of rivals. It is interesting that males exposed to the competitive environment in the current experiment (risk) produced more X-CBS biased sperm ratios than males exposed to the non-competitive environment (no risk), while the opposite result was observed in our previous study (competitive environment = ‘high-male density’; non-competitive = ‘high-female density’) [9]. While these results are seemingly contradictory, differences in experimental design are likely to account for the different responses. The degree of perceived male–male competition was comparatively less intense in our previous experiment (i.e. males maturing within the same room as other males; [9]) than what was applied in the current experiment (i.e. rival males maturing within close proximity to one another within the same experimental tub), which highlights the intriguing possibility that variation in the intensity of competition (and not just presence/absence) leads to different sperm sex ratio responses.

Theory predicts that it would be maladaptive for parents to produce male offspring in a mate competitive environment because they would be forced to compete for access to females and/or be subjected to sperm competition [20]. Conversely, with guaranteed mate availability, high-male density conditions will be evolutionarily favourable for females. Thus, the production of daughters under these conditions is expected to be advantageous to both mothers and fathers [20]. Adaptive maternal sex allocation in relation to male density within the local neighbourhood has been demonstrated in diverse species, including spider mites [21] and house mice [29]. Here, we used house mice sourced from an island population where dispersal capacity is severely restricted and consequently parents and offspring often experience the same local social conditions (see the electronic supplementary material for more information). As a consequence, it is likely that males are forced to compete with both related (sensu local mate competition; [20]) and unrelated males for access to females. We demonstrated that male house mice reared under conditions of intense male–male competition produced higher proportions of X-CBS relative to males not subjected to competition—an outcome that has the potential to have adaptive paternal consequences. Certainly, if increased numbers of female-producing sperm translate to more female offspring, sperm sex ratio adjustments could potentially be an effective strategy for males to enhance their grand-parentage under competitive conditions. We plan to explore this currently untested hypothesis in our future research.

The precise mechanism(s) controlling sex allocation in mammals is currently not well understood. In terms of paternally driven proximate mechanisms, recent research has linked variation in sperm sex ratios [34] and differential X- and Y-CBS motility to offspring sex ratios [46,47]. Further to this, there is evidence to suggest that the ultimate cause of socially induced sex ratio biases involves physiological responses via endocrine signalling [30,48]. Here, we found that the social environment influenced testosterone concentration, but only as a consequence of elevated levels in a subset of ‘risk’ males. Although these individuals produced proportions of Y-CBS at the lower end of the scale, our statistical analyses provided no evidence that sperm sex ratio plasticity is driven by variation in testosterone production. The division in testosterone levels in the ‘risk’ treatment (i.e. less than 20 ng ml⁻¹ and greater than 30 ng ml⁻¹) may be indicative of hormone profiles linked to social status. The default assumption is that social hierarchies are associated with differential testosterone levels, but, in fact, more often than not there is no predictive pattern (e.g. see [49] and references therein). For example, it is only the most aggressive dominant male mice that display elevated testosterone levels (relative to less aggressive dominant males and subordinate males) [49], which likely explains the pattern we have observed in our ‘risk’ treatment. Stress hormones, such as corticosterone, are more commonly associated with social status in male mice, although the direction of the effect has been inconsistent [49]. Offspring sex ratio biases have been linked to maternal stress in a number of mammals [29,30], yet the role that paternal stress plays in sex allocation remains an open question. To address this gap in knowledge, our future research will focus on the relationship between socially induced paternal stress and variation in the sperm sex ratio.

The Earliest Origins of Genetic Nurture: The Prenatal Environment Mediates the Association Between Maternal Genetics and Child Development

The Earliest Origins of Genetic Nurture: The Prenatal Environment Mediates the Association Between Maternal Genetics and Child Development. Emma Armstrong-Carter et al. Psychological Science, June 2, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620917209

Abstract: Observed genetic associations with educational attainment may be due to direct or indirect genetic influences. Recent work highlights genetic nurture, the potential effect of parents’ genetics on their child’s educational outcomes via rearing environments. To date, few mediating childhood environments have been tested. We used a large sample of genotyped mother–child dyads (N = 2,077) to investigate whether genetic nurture occurs via the prenatal environment. We found that mothers with more education-related genes are generally healthier and more financially stable during pregnancy. Further, measured prenatal conditions explain up to one third of the associations between maternal genetics and children’s academic and developmental outcomes at the ages of 4 to 7 years. By providing the first evidence of prenatal genetic nurture and showing that genetic nurture is detectable in early childhood, this study broadens our understanding of how parental genetics may influence children and illustrates the challenges of within-person interpretation of existing genetic associations.

Keywords: genetics, childhood development, prenatal

Most US transportation infrastructure is not deteriorating and the existing scientific literature and does not show that infrastructure creates growth or reduces congestion

Transportation Infrastructure in the US. Matthew Turner, Gilles Duranton, Geetika Nagpal. NBER Working Paper No. 27254, May 2020. https://www.nber.org/papers/w27254

Support for massive investments in transportation infrastructure, possibly with a change in the share of spending on transit, seems widespread. Such proposals are often motivated by the belief that our infrastructure is crumbling, that infrastructure causes economic growth, that current funding regimes disadvantage rural drivers at the expense of urban public transit, or that capacity expansions will reduce congestion. In fact, most US transportation infrastructure is not deteriorating and the existing scientific literature and does not show that infrastructure creates growth or reduces congestion. However, current annual expenditure on public transit buses exceeds that on interstate construction and maintenance. The evidence suggests the importance of an examination of how funding is allocated across modes but not of massive new expenditures.

“They Don’t Know Better Than I Do”: People Are Reluctant to Rely on the Wisdom of Crowds in Individual Decision Making

Yonah, Merav, and Yoav Kessler. 2020. ““They Don’t Know Better Than I Do”: People Are Reluctant to Rely on the Wisdom of Crowds in Individual Decision Making.” PsyArXiv. June 2. doi:10.31234/osf.io/z8nr2

Abstract: Establishing the way people decide to use or avoid information when making a decision is of great theoretical and applied interest. In particular, the “big data revolution” enable decision makers to harness the wisdom of crowds (WoC) toward reaching better decisions. The WoC is a well-documented phenomenon that highlights the potential superiority of collective wisdom over that of an individual. However, individuals may fail to acknowledge the power of collective wisdom as a means for optimizing decision outcomes. Using a random dot motion task, the present study examined situations in which decision makers must choose between relying on their own personal information or relying on the WoC in their decision. Although the latter was always the rational choice, a substantial part of the participants chose to rely on their own observation and also advised others to do so. This choice tendency was associated with higher confidence, but not with better task performance, and hence reflects overconfidence. Acknowledging and understanding this decision bias may help mitigating it in applied settings.

From 2019... The Psychology of Alibis

From 2019... The Psychology of Alibis. Steve Charman, Kureva Matuku, Alexandra Mosser. Advances in Psychology and Law pp 41-72, February 6 2019. https://rd.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-11042-0_2

Abstract: The psychological study of alibis is in its nascent phase, and the empirical literature on alibis is correspondingly inchoate. This chapter reviews the current state of the literature on the psychology of alibis. First, we discuss the process of alibi generation and argue that there are three main obstacles that prevent innocent suspects from generating accurate and believable alibis: They often lack a memory of the critical event, they rely heavily on schema-based responding, and they lack the ability to produce corroborating evidence. Based on the extant literature, we propose the schema disconfirmation model as a theoretical framework in which to understand the process of alibi generation. Next, we discuss the process of alibi evaluation and delineate the factors that make alibis more or less believable. To reconcile seemingly conflicting findings, we suggest theoretical refinements to the alibi skepticism hypothesis, which claims that evaluators are particularly skeptical of alibi claims. Finally, we propose directions for future research with the aim of (a) advancing our theoretical understanding of the alibi generation and evaluation processes, and (b) encouraging researchers to adopt a system variables approach to maximize the impact alibi research can have on the collection and treatment of alibi evidence.

Keywords: Alibi generation Alibi believability Schemas Autobiographical memory Wrongful convictions Policing

Rational, impartial, benevolent bureaucratic government: Arthur Naftalin, Minneapolis Mayor

"You Can't Legislate the Heart": Minneapolis Mayor Charles Stenvig and the Politics of Law and Order. Jeffrey T. Manuel and Andrew Urban. American Studies, Volum 49, Number 3/4, Fall/Winter 2008. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/394619

In addition to maintaining a close connection between the mayor's office and the University of Minnesota, Naftalin's background in the social sciences led him to believe that government could ultimately function as a science, which, theoretically, could be perfected. This belief in the possibilities for rational and scientific governance of the city was evident in his long-range thinking about the possibilities of city government. Naftalin willingly outlined his programs to the press and openly theorized about how government could be improved through scientific reforms. Speculating in 1969 about the possibility of consolidating the fragmented governments in American metropolitan areas into singular, metropolitan-wide entities, Naftalin argued that with "proper computers," a single executive authority could easily—and rationally—control a widely-scattered metropolitan area. For Naftalin, a rational executive would have to make unpopular decisions based on his or her expert knowledge of what was best for the city.

Although evidence in modern humans does not support the prosociality hypothesis of homosexuality, the sociosexuality hypothesis has received notable support

Luoto, S. Did Prosociality Drive the Evolution of Homosexuality? Arch Sex Behav (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01749-0

Introduction
Possible evolutionary origins of homosexuality is a topic that has received broad interest in the scientific community. In a recent article, Barron and Hare (2020) argued that same-sex sexual attraction (SSSA) was selected for in recent human evolution because of its “non-conceptive social benefits” in hominids and other primates in which there was strong selection for heightened prosociality and sociosexuality. Barron and Hare pitched this as a new hypothesis but failed to discuss existing work which has proposed and tested similar ideas in various ways. In formulating the prosociality hypothesis, Barron and Hare dismissed other hypotheses that have received broad empirical support, namely gender shift and endocrinological hypotheses of homosexuality. The purpose of this article is to critically discuss Barron and Hare’s prosociality hypothesis in order to help other researchers and the general public to better assess the plausibility and novelty of the prosociality and sociosexuality hypotheses of same-sex sexual attraction and behavior.

Conclusion
Although evidence in modern humans does not support the prosociality hypothesis of homosexuality, the sociosexuality hypothesis has received notable support, especially regarding a gender shift to heightened sociosexuality in nonheterosexual women (Luoto et al., 2019a, b). The biological and evolutionary underpinnings of homosexuality suggest that there are other proximate mechanisms than genetic ones (e.g., endocrinological and neurodevelopmental ones), and other ultimate functions than prosociality, that cause and maintain homosexuality in human and nonhuman animal populations. Current evidence provides little support for the hypothesis that prosociality is one such ultimate evolutionary function.

Check also Prosociality and a Sociosexual Hypothesis for the Evolution of Same-Sex Attraction in Humans. Andrew B. Barron and Brian Hare. Front. Psychol., 16 January 2020. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/01/same-sex-sexual-attraction-evolved-as.html

From 2015... Walking a fine line: Young people negotiate pornified heterosex

From 2015... Walking a fine line: Young people negotiate pornified heterosex. Monique Mulholland. Sexualities, 2015, Vol. 18(5/6) 731–74. DOI: 10.1177/1363460714561721

Abstract: Heteronormal histories have been shaped by a recurring set of debates about what
kinds of explicit sexual expression and representation are publicly allowed, structured
by a form of line-drawing that sanctions certain forms of public heterosexual practice in
popular culture and representation. While depictions of heterosexual activity in popular
cultural representations are tolerated within certain parameters, and while such
parameters around what is possible and acceptable have shifted over time in
Anglophone discourses of sexuality, overtly pornographic depictions are consistently
cast as a non-normative, deviant form of heterosexual expression.
Over the past decade, the emergence of ‘pornified’ culture prompts us to ask new
kinds of questions about heterosexual practice, pointing to some interesting transgressive potentials. What happens when a historically non-normative form of public sexual
expression attains a measure of social acceptability? Does this challenge the historical
signifiers of good heterosex? To explore these questions, this article draws on a study
with young people aged 12–16 in South Australian schools who have some interesting
things to say about the ‘explicit’ in public. They describe an alteration to the historical
relegation of explicit porn sex to secret private spaces, and articulate how pornified
culture works as moments for curious exploration: a fun, fleshy spectacle. However, in
making this claim, I (and they) walk a careful line. The extent to which heterosexual
porn can be a matter of ‘fun’ and experimentation is simultaneously moderated
by historically persistent signifiers of classed and gendered respectability. While the
repertoire for open acknowledgment of certain forms of play and pleasure may be
opening up (perhaps disrupting existing orthodoxies of heteronormativity in some
key ways), heteronormal conventions simultaneously constrain these possibilities.

Keywords: Gender resistance, heteronormativity, pornography, pornification, respectability, young
people

Review evidence challenging the hypothesis that memories are processed/consolidated in sleep; the brain is in an unconscious state in sleep, akin to general anesthesia, & is incapable of meaningful cognitive processing

No cognitive processing in the unconscious, Anesthetic‐Like, state of sleep. Robert P. Vertes,  Stephanie B. Linley. Journal of Comparative Neurology, May 30 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/cne.24963

Abstract: We review evidence challenging the hypothesis that memories are processed or consolidated in sleep. We argue that the brain is in an unconscious state in sleep, akin to general anesthesia, and hence is incapable of meaningful cognitive processing – the sole purview of waking consciousness. At minimum, the encoding of memories in sleep would require that waking events are faithfully transferred to and reproduced in sleep. Remarkably, however, this has never been demonstrated, as waking experiences are never truly replicated in sleep but rather appear in very altered or distorted forms. General anesthetics (GAs) exert their effects through endogenous sleep‐wake control systems and accordingly GAs and sleep share several common features: sensory blockade, immobility, amnesia and lack of awareness (unconsciousness). The loss of consciousness in non‐REM (NREM) sleep or to GAs is characterized by: (1) delta oscillations throughout the cortex; (2) marked reductions in neural activity (from waking) over widespread regions of the cortex, most pronounced in frontal and parietal cortices; and (3) a significant disruption of the functional connectivity of thalamocortical and corticocortical networks, particularly those involved in “higher order” cognitive functions. Several (experimental) reports in animals and humans have shown that disrupting the activity of the cortex, particularly the orbitofrontal cortex, severely impairs higher order cognitive and executive functions. The profound and widespread deactivation of the cortex in the unconscious states of NREM sleep or GA would be expected to produce an equivalent, or undoubtedly a much greater, disruptive effect on mnemonic and cognitive functions. In conclusion, we contend that the unconscious, severely altered state of the brain in NREM sleep would negate any possibility of cognitive processing in NREM sleep.

Infidelity, chastity/purity, and long-term mating success increase women’s status more than men’s; promiscuity lowers the status of both sexes, but lowers it more dramatically for women than for men

Buss, D. M., Durkee, P. K., Shackelford, T. K., Bowdle, B. F., Schmitt, D. P., Brase, G. L., Choe, J. C., & Trofimova, I. (2020). Human status criteria: Sex differences and similarities across 14 nations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, May 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000206

Abstract: Social status is a central and universal feature of our highly social species. Reproductively relevant resources, including food, territory, mating opportunities, powerful coalitional alliances, and group-provided health care, flow to those high in status and trickle only slowly to those low in status. Despite its importance and centrality to human social group living, the scientific understanding of status contains a large gap in knowledge—the precise criteria by which individuals are accorded high or low status in the eyes of their group members. It is not known whether there exist universal status criteria, nor the degree to which status criteria vary across cultures. Also unknown is whether status criteria are sex differentiated, and the degree of cross-cultural variability and consistency of sex-differentiated status criteria. The current article investigates status criteria across 14 countries (N = 2,751). Results provide the first systematic documentation of potentially universal and sex-differentiated status criteria. Discussion outlines important next steps in understanding the psychology of status.

---

[T]he content-level analyses further confirmed that all components of attractiveness (i.e., hygiene, appearance) and domestic skills (i.e., cooking ability, parenting skill, and cleanliness) are more central to women’s status than men’s status across the countries sampled. Sex differences in the effects of women’s sexual strategy on status are especially clear at the content level. Infidelity, chastity/purity, and long-term mating success increase women’s status more than men’s. Sexual promiscuity lowers the status of both sexes, but lowers it more dramatically for women than for men (see Figure 11).

How Financial News Affects Prosocial Behavior

Kang, Polly and Daniels, David and Schweitzer, Maurice E., How Financial News Affects Prosocial Behavior (April 22, 2020). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3583884

Abstract: A fundamental puzzle in the social and natural sciences is why humans, in contrast to other animals, routinely help strangers at substantial personal cost. Scholars assert that humans’ hyper-prosociality can be explained by the “warm glow” prosocial actors derive from helping others, and predict that people with greater resources will help more. We challenge these assertions. Many prosocial behaviors involving feedback, like volunteering, are actually warm glow gambles: first, prosocial actors invest affective resources trying to help others; then, positive feedback (e.g., feedback suggesting “success”) boosts affective resources but negative feedback (e.g., feedback suggesting “failure”) diminishes affective resources. We theorize that either negative affect shocks (by depleting affective resources) or positive affect shocks (by triggering risk aversion) can decrease people’s likelihood of taking warm glow gambles. We test this by studying the influence of a complex human institution, the stock market, which broadcasts negative affect shocks when the market falls (suggesting bad financial news) and positive affect shocks when it rises (suggesting good financial news). Analyzing a unique, massive five-year dataset of nearly 3 million text messages sent by volunteer crisis counselors, we show that significantly fewer people volunteer when stock returns are either extremely negative or extremely positive; prosocial behavior peaks on “normal” days when returns approach zero. Further supporting our theory, these effects are moderated by the level of positive affect in volunteers’ geographical areas. Our findings contradict existing theories and lay beliefs. Ironically, an institution designed for economic efficiency broadcasts signals that profoundly influence humans’ hyper-prosocial behavior.

Keywords: prosocial behavior; warm glow; prospect theory; financial markets

France: Ideological extremity is associated with a reduced adherence to public health recommendations; at the same time, compliance increases as one moves from Left to Right

Sociodemographic and Psychological Correlates of Compliance with the COVID-19 Public Health Measures in France. Sylvain Brouard, Pavlos Vasilopoulos & Michael Becher. Canadian Journal of Political Science, April 23 2020. : https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423920000335

Extract: The COVID-19 disease was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, having since spread rapidly across the world. The infection and mortality rates of the disease have forced governments to implement a wave of public health measures. Depending on the context, these range from the implementation of simple hygienic rules to measures such as social distancing or lockdowns that cause major disruptions in citizens’ daily lives. The success of these crucial public health measures rests on the public's willingness to comply. However, individual differences in following the official public health recommendations for stopping the spread of COVID-19 have not yet to our knowledge been assessed. This study aims to fill this gap by assessing the sociodemographic and psychological correlates of implementing public health recommendations that aim to halt the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigate these associations in the context of France, one of the countries that has been most severely affected by the pandemic, and which ended up under a nationwide lockdown on March 17. In the next sections we describe our theoretical expectations over the associations between sociodemographics, personality, ideology, and emotions with abiding by the COVID-19 public health measures. We then test these hypotheses using data from the French Election Study.

COVID-19 paradoxical duality: there is a tendency to be optimistic about one’s own risk of infection (private optimism) & at the same time to be pessimistic about the risk to others (public pessimism)

Globig, Laura K., Bastien Blain, and Tali Sharot. 2020. “When Private Optimism Meets Public Despair: Dissociable Effects on Behavior and Well-being.” PsyArXiv. May 29. psyarxiv.com/gbdn8. Final version Perceptions of personal and public risk: Dissociable effects on behavior and well-being. Laura K. Globig, Bastien Blain & Tali Sharot. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Apr 2 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11166-022-09373-0

Abstract: When faced with a threat, peoples’ estimate of risk guides their response. When danger is to the self as well as to others two estimates are generated: the risk to oneself and the risk to others. As these estimates likely differ, it is unclear how exactly they drive a response. To answer this question, we studied a large representative sample of Americans facing the COVID-19 pandemic at two time points (N1=1145, N2=683). We discover a paradoxical duality: a tendency to be optimistic about one’s own risk of infection (private optimism) while at the same time to be pessimistic about the risk to others (public pessimism). These two estimates were found to be differentially related to affect and choice. First, private optimism, but not public pessimism, was associated with people’s positive feelings. The association between private optimism and positive affect was mediated by people’s sense of agency over their future. However, negative affect was related to both private risk perception and public risk perception. Second, people predominantly engaged in protective behaviors based on their estimated risk to the population rather than to themselves. This suggests that people were predominantly engaging in protective behaviors for the benefit of others. The findings are important for understanding how people’s beliefs about their own future and that of others are related to protective behaviors and well-being.

Discussion

Surveying a representative sample of Americans over two time points during the pandemic of 2020 we found that many people believed COVID-19 posed a significant health danger to humans and perceived the risk of an average person to get COVID-19 as high. However, the majority did not consider their own risk to be high in absolute terms, nor higher relative to others their age and gender (see also Kuper-Smith et al., 2020; Wise et al., 2020). The question we posed was how these different perceptions of risk were related to psychological well-being and behavior. We found that individuals who believed they were less at risk of being infected by COVID-19 than others were happier. However, believing COVID-19 posed a great danger to humanity was unrelated to people’s happiness. This suggest that one’s perceived risk relative to others is especially important for people’s positive affect, while perceived risk to humanity is not. At the same time, both risk perceptions were related to anxiety. People who believed COVID-19 was a risk to themselves and/or to the human race tended to be more anxious. This suggests that while perceived relative personal risk relates to both positive and negative affect, perceived public risk relates only to negative affect.

Surprisingly, the likelihood that individuals complied with behavioral recommendations to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 was related to their views regarding the danger the virus poses to people in general, but not significantly related to whether they believed they themselves were at high risk. That is, people who believed the virus posed a great danger to humanity reported putting greater effort in social distancing, handwashing and avoiding touching their faces. Believing that the virus posed an especially high risk to the self was, however, unrelated to these behaviors. This effect remained even when accounting for anxiety and replicated across both time points. We thus speculate that the main motive for behavioral compliance was reducing the risk to the population as a whole, rather than the risk to the self. This in accordance with recent findings suggesting that public health messaging which focus on the concern for the greater good and responsibilities towards others may help induce behavioral compliance (Everett et al., 2020). Indeed, this may explain the success of the British Government’s message during the pandemic—"Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives” -which focused not on saving oneself but on saving “lives” and saving the national health service.

We tested the same subjects across two times—at the beginning of the crisis when states were moving into lockdown (time 1) and a month later when states were under lockdown (time 2). Interestingly, we observed a positive change in subjects’ well-being. A month into lockdown anxiety was lower than it was when states were just entering lockdown, happiness was greater and participants’ perception of the danger of COVID-19 to humanity was lower. These results align with past studies showing that humans adapt well to adversities and environmental change (Bonanno et al., 2002, 2004; Brickman et al., 1978; Dijkers, 1997; Frederick & Loewenstein, 1999).

In general people exhibited significant resilience during the pandmic with half of the population indicating they were as, or more happy as other times in their lives. The strongest predictor of happiness was a sense of control. Those who believed they had agency over their own life were happier, less anxious and perceived the danger COVID poses to themsleves and others as lower. In fact, the positive relationship between perceived personal risk and happiness was partially related to people’s sense of control. These results align with the suggestions that a sense of control is related to both optimism (Harris, 1996; Helweg-Larsen & Shepperd, 2001; Klein & Helweg-Larsen, 2002; Zakay, 1984) and overall well-being (Lachman & Weaver, 1998; Larson, 1989).

Here we examined people’s attitudes regarding a specific threat—COVID-19. There is some evidence, however, that the results generalize to other threats. For example, following the financial collapse of 2008 polls showed that people were pessimistic about the financial future of their country, less so about their own financial prospects (Ipsos MORI, 2008). Moreover, people perceive their fatality risk from natural disasters as below average (Viscusi & Zeckhauser, 2006), and with regards to climate change, people express little concern about the likely effects of climate change in their own region, but are more pessimistic with regards to the effects on their nation and the planet as a whole (Dunlap and Gallup, 1993). Such markedly different estimates of risk to oneself and others may arise because when estimating their own risk individuals assign more weight to their direct experience than to the experience of others (Viscusi & Zeckhauser, 2015). In other words, as most individuals were not infected by COVID themselves nor experienced a natural disaster, they estimate their own future risks in these domains as lower than the known risk in the population. Another factor contributing to this dissociation is people’s tendency to be overly optimistic about their own prospects relative to others (Sharot, 2011; Weinstein, 1980), which arises as people update their beliefs about their own vulnerability to a larger extent when receiving good news than when receiving bad news (Sharot et al., 2011). Moreover, past studies have shown that different moderators influence people’s perception of risk to oneself and to others, with factors associated with negative affect and sense of control primarily influencing personal risk estimates (for review see Helweg-Larsen & Shepperd, 2001).

Future studies are needed to examine whether the effects on well-being and behavior reported in this study generalize to other threats such as war, financial collapse and climate change. The results of such studies would be important for predicting the impact of such threats on people’s well-being and for understanding when and why people are likely to change their behavior to mitigate risk. For example, similar to the findings reported here, it is possible that the likelihood that people make “green choices” is related to their belief that climate change poses a threat to humanity, regardless of whether they believe it poses a perceived relative personal risk. Such knowledge can be useful for advocates and policy makers in framing information to nudge individuals to select actions that protect themselves and others from natural and man-made threats.