Dementia Incidence Among US Adults Born 1893-1949: Incidence is lower for those born after the mid-1920s, & this lower incidence is not associated with early-life environment as measured in this study

Association of Demographic and Early-Life Socioeconomic Factors by Birth Cohort With Dementia Incidence Among US Adults Born Between 1893 and 1949. Sarah E. Tom et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(7):e2011094, July 27 2020, doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.11094

Key Points
Question  Are dementia incidence trends by birth cohort associated with early-life environment?

Findings  In this cohort study of 4277 participants in the Adult Changes in Thought study who were born between 1893 and 1949 and were followed up for up to 20 years (1994-2015), the age- and sex-adjusted dementia incidence was lower among those born during the Great Depression (1929-1939) and the period during World War II and postwar (1940-1949) compared with those born in the period before the Great Depression (1921-1928). The association between birth cohort and dementia incidence remained when accounting for early-life socioeconomic environment, educational level, and late-life vascular risk factors.

Meaning  The study’s findings indicate that dementia incidence is lower for individuals born after the mid-1920s compared with those born earlier, and this lower incidence is not associated with early-life environment as measured in this study.


Abstract
Importance  Early-life factors may be important for later dementia risk. The association between a more advantaged early-life environment, as reflected through an individual’s height and socioeconomic status indicators, and decreases in dementia incidence by birth cohort is unknown.

Objectives  To examine the association of birth cohort and early-life environment with dementia incidence among participants in the Adult Changes in Thought study from 1994 to 2015.

Design, Setting, and Participants  This prospective cohort study included 4277 participants from the Adult Changes in Thought study, an ongoing longitudinal population-based study of incident dementia in a random sample of adults 65 years and older who were born between 1893 and 1949 and are members of Kaiser Permanente Washington in the Seattle region. Participants in the present analysis were followed up from 1994 to 2015. At enrollment, all participants were dementia-free and completed a baseline evaluation. Subsequent study visits were held every 2 years until a diagnosis of dementia, death, or withdrawal from the study. Participants were categorized by birth period (defined by historically meaningful events) into 5 cohorts: pre–World War I (1893-1913), World War I and Spanish influenza (1914-1920), pre–Great Depression (1921-1928), Great Depression (1929-1939), and World War II and postwar (1940-1949). Participants’ height, educational level, childhood financial stability, and childhood household density were examined as indicators of early-life environment, and later-life vascular risk factors for dementia were assessed. Cox proportional hazards regression models, adjusted for competing survival risk, were used to analyze data. Data were analyzed from June 1, 2018, to April 29, 2020.

Main Outcomes and Measures  Participants completed the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument every 2 years to assess global cognition. Those with scores indicative of cognitive impairment completed an evaluation for dementia, with dementia diagnoses determined during consensus conferences using criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition.

Results  Among 4277 participants, the mean (SD) age was 74.5 (6.4) years, and 2519 participants (58.9%) were women. The median follow-up was 8 years (interquartile range, 4-12 years), with 730 participants developing dementia over 24 378 person-years. The age-specific dementia incidence was lower for those born in 1929 and later compared with those born earlier. Compared with participants born in the pre–Great Depression years (1921-1928), the age- and sex-adjusted hazard ratio was 0.67 (95% CI, 0.53-0.85) for those born in the Great Depression period (1929-1939) and 0.62 (95% CI, 0.29-1.31) for those born in the World War II and postwar period (1940-1949). Although indicators of a more advantaged early-life environment and higher educational level (college or higher) were associated with a lower incidence of dementia, these variables did not explain the association between birth cohort and dementia incidence, which remained when vascular risk factors were included and were similar by sex.

Conclusions and Relevance  Age-specific dementia incidence was lower in participants born after the mid-1920s compared with those born earlier. In this population, the decrease in dementia incidence may reflect societal-level changes or individual differences over the life course rather than early-life environment, as reflected through recalled childhood socioeconomic status and measured height, educational level, and later-life vascular risk.

Discussion

Among those born at the turn of the 20th century through the mid-20th century who participated in the ACT study, the age-specific dementia incidence was lower for participants born in 1929 and later compared with those born earlier. This trend was not explained by recalled childhood socioeconomic status and measured height, which reflect early-life environment, nor was it explained by educational level and vascular risk as an older adult. The literature on secular dementia trends reports a decrease in dementia incidence starting in the 1990s.^1-5 This timing is consistent with participants in the 1929 to 1939 birth cohorts who are entering the eighth decade of life, when dementia risk increases.^2,4,31 Political and economic changes during the first half of the 20th century may have had different implications for dementia risk based on the participant’s age during those experiences.³² Analysis by birth cohort captures this intersection of age and calendar time. Our results suggest that societal-level changes in the first half of the 20th century that were not captured by the individual early-life measures or the educational levels used in this study may have been associated with decreases in dementia incidence.

The 40% decrease in the US mortality rate from 1900 to 1940 was likely owing to the decrease in infectious diseases,³³ which disproportionately occur in the young. The decrease in dementia incidence observed in the ACT study began with birth cohorts who were born in the middle of this period. These early-life health gains may be factors in the decreased dementia incidence. Although we accounted for family-level socioeconomic status variables and height, these variables may not have captured all changes, such as economic innovation¹³ and nutritional improvement,¹² that may have been associated with decreases in mortality. In addition, variables included in this study may not have captured public heath improvements during this period.³³ It is possible that unmeasured differences were more important for assessing dementia risk by birth cohort than the socioeconomic factors we measured.

Across birth cohorts, participants with lower financial status and greater household density in childhood had a lower risk of developing dementia, which is inconsistent with our hypothesis and the results of previous studies.^34,35 While the Great Depression was a time of financial hardship, those in the pre–Great Depression and the World War I and Spanish influenza birth cohorts were the least likely to report the ability to afford both basic needs and small luxuries, and they had the smallest proportion of participants reporting the most stable childhood financial quartile. This pattern may reflect problems with measurement or sample selection. Participant responses may reflect experiences in later childhood and early adolescence, as recall of early-life experiences may be difficult. In contrast, parental educational levels, which were constant throughout childhood and adolescence for most of the birth cohorts, were higher for the World War I and Spanish influenza cohort and the pre–Great Depression cohort compared with cohorts born earlier. This pattern suggests a higher early-life standard of living in the more recent birth cohorts. Another possibility is that because these 2 birth cohorts were the oldest, those who survived to participate in the study were able to compensate for adverse early-life environments or had less accurate recall than younger participants.

Our study considered death as a competing risk, while a previous case-control study did not.^34,35 Most ACT participants were members of Kaiser Permanente Washington (formerly Group Health) when they were younger than 65 years, during which they primarily received health insurance through large employers. It is likely that those with lower financial status and higher household density during childhood survived adverse experiences to be able to participate the sample.

Together with height, an individual’s parental educational level, childhood financial stability, and childhood household density are likely to reflect their early-life environment. These variables did not explain the decrease in dementia incidence among the more recent birth cohorts. In a minimally adjusted model, the decrease in dementia incidence began with the Great Depression birth cohort, suggesting that societal-level experiences during later childhood to adolescence may have been more important than those during the in-utero through early childhood phase. If this earliest stage of life were important for dementia incidence, we would expect those born in the Great Depression cohort to have the greatest dementia risk. The largest difference in college completion was found between the pre–Great Depression and Great Depression birth cohorts. This disruption to economic opportunity for those born in the pre–Great Depression years may have had implications for dementia risk. The inclusion of late-life vascular risk factors did not appreciably alter the association between a more recent birth cohort and a lower incidence of dementia, which is consistent with analyses of the Einstein Aging Cohort¹⁰ and the Framingham Heart Study, which considered the cohort of study entry.¹

We found similar associations between birth cohort and decreased dementia incidence in 2 previous studies. An analysis of the English Longitudinal Study of Aging examined 2 birth cohorts based on birth-year median (1902-1925 and 1926-1943),⁹ and an analysis of the Einstein Aging Study used a data-focused approach to detect a changing point in continuous birth years.¹⁰ Our birth cohort categories were based on historically meaningful events. Because the ACT study is larger than the Einstein Aging Study, we were able to separate participants born after 1928 into 2 groups. In the ACT study, the most recent birth cohort (1940–1949) had higher educational levels and childhood financial stability compared with cohorts born earlier. Such categorization also allowed for the separation of worldwide economic disruption from family-level financial stability.

Our analysis may not have captured differences in adult social experiences. Educational level is associated with subsequent occupation and employment patterns. However, birth cohort may reflect experience of events during the 20th century that had broad implications, regardless of educational level. For example, men born in the first 2 decades of the 20th century are likely to have served in the armed forces during World War II and to have benefitted from the GI bill. Men and women from those birth cohorts would also have benefitted from the postwar economic expansion. Our analysis did not capture such adult experiences.

Limitations

Our study has several limitations. Participants in older cohorts necessarily had to survive longer to be included in the study. Because the greatest risk factor for dementia is age, the requirement of survival among the pre–World War I and World War I and Spanish influenza birth cohorts as a requirement to enter the ACT study may create differences in dementia risk that are difficult to detect in these groups. Our results suggest that the most recent birth cohorts may continue to experience lower age-specific dementia incidence. However, follow-up period is shorter in these birth cohorts. The ACT study participants are from 1 health system in the Pacific Northwest, and their educational level is high. The cohort is a random sample of age-eligible members of Kaiser Permanente Washington; results therefore reflect this specific population but may not be generalizable to the US population. Our results are consistent with a sample from the Bronx, New York,¹⁰ and a nationally representative sample from the United Kingdom,⁹ suggesting that the decrease in dementia incidence by birth cohort may be a widespread phenomenon. Because ACT study participants may be socioeconomically advantaged, the measures of early-life environment included in this study may not be sensitive enough to detect meaningful differences that have implications for dementia incidence trends by birth cohort.

The study did not include key health variables from later in the life course that are associated with dementia risk, notably midlife hypertension, hearing loss, late-life depression, diabetes, physical inactivity, and social isolation.⁶ As the ACT study is currently collecting data on most of these variables, future studies will be able to more fully capture life-course dementia risk factors. As a long-standing study, the follow-up included substantial age overlap of multiple birth cohorts, which had been a limitation in previous studies.⁹ Dementia diagnosis procedures have been consistent throughout the study. The large size of the ACT study and the theoretical basis of the cohort groups allowed for the inclusion of 2 cohort groups born after 1928 that aligned with historically meaningful events, whereas previous studies have considered only 1 group born after the mid-1920s.^9,10

Dementia incidence has decreased in more recent birth cohorts. Our measures of early-life socioeconomic status and educational level do not account for these differences in this study population. Birth cohort may reflect other historical and social changes that occurred during childhood or adulthood.

Self-control is associated with numerous positive outcomes, such as well-being; we argue that hedonic goal pursuit is equally important, & conflicting long-term goals can undermine it in the form of intrusive thoughts

Beyond Self-Control: Mechanisms of Hedonic Goal Pursuit and Its Relevance for Well-Being. Katharina Bernecker, Daniela Becker. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, July 26, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220941998

Abstract: Self-control helps to align behavior with long-term goals (e.g., exercising to stay fit) and shield it from conflicting hedonic goals (e.g., relaxing). Decades of research have shown that self-control is associated with numerous positive outcomes, such as well-being. In the present article, we argue that hedonic goal pursuit is equally important for well-being, and that conflicting long-term goals can undermine it in the form of intrusive thoughts. In Study 1, we developed a measure of trait hedonic capacity, which captures people’s success in hedonic goal pursuit and the occurrence of intrusive thoughts. In Studies 2A and 2B, people’s trait hedonic capacity relates positively to well-being. Study 3 confirms intrusive thoughts as major impeding mechanism of hedonic success. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrate that trait hedonic capacity predicts successful hedonic goal pursuit in everyday life. We conclude that hedonic goal pursuit represents a largely neglected but adaptive aspect of self-regulation.

Keywords: hedonic goals, self-control, self-regulation, well-being

Popular version: Hedonism Leads to Happiness. Zurich Univ. Press Release, Jul 27 2020. https://www.media.uzh.ch/en/Press-Releases/2020/Hedonism.html

The inherent difficulty in accurately appreciating the engaging aspect of thinking activity could explain why people prefer keeping themselves busy, rather than taking a moment for reflection & imagination

Hatano, Aya, Cansu Ogulmus, Hiroaki Shigemasu, and Kou Murayama. 2020. “Thinking About Thinking: People Underestimate Intrinsically Motivating Experiences of Waiting.” PsyArXiv. July 29. doi:10.31234/osf.io/n2ctk

Abstract: The ability to engage in internal thoughts without external stimulation is one of the hallmarks of unique characteristics in humans. The current research tested the hypothesis that people metacognitively underestimate their capability to positively engage in just thinking. Participants were asked to sit and wait in a quiet room without doing anything for a certain amount of time (e.g., 20 min). Before the waiting task, they made a prediction about how intrinsically motivating the task would be at the end of the task; they also rated their experienced intrinsic motivation after the task. Across six experiments we consistently found that participants’ predicted intrinsic motivation for the waiting task was significantly less than experienced intrinsic motivation. This underestimation effect was robustly observed regardless of the independence of predictive rating, the amount of sensory input, duration of the waiting task, timing of assessment, and cultural contexts of participants. This underappreciation of just thinking also led participants to proactively avoid the waiting task when there was an alternative task (i.e. internet news checking), despite that their experienced intrinsic motivation was actually not statistically different. These results suggest the inherent difficulty in accurately appreciating the engaging aspect of thinking activity, and could explain why people prefer keeping themselves busy, rather than taking a moment for reflection and imagination, in our daily life.

Gender differences in the trade-off between objective equality and efficiency: The results show that females prefer objective equality over efficiency to a greater extent than males do

Gender differences in the trade-off between objective equality and efficiency. Valerio Capraro. Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 15, No. 4, July 2020, pp. 534–544. http://journal.sjdm.org/19/190510/jdm190510.pdf

Abstract: Generations of social scientists have explored whether males and females act differently in domains involving competition, risk taking, cooperation, altruism, honesty, as well as many others. Yet, little is known about gender differences in the trade-off between objective equality (i.e., equality of outcomes) and efficiency. It has been suggested that females are more equal than males, but the empirical evidence is relatively weak. This gap is particularly important, because people in power of redistributing resources often face a conflict between equality and efficiency. The recently introduced Trade-Off Game (TOG) – in which a decision-maker has to unilaterally choose between being equal or being efficient – offers a unique opportunity to fill this gap. To this end, I analyse gender differences on a large dataset including N=6,955 TOG decisions. The results show that females prefer objective equality over efficiency to a greater extent than males do. The effect turns out to be particularly strong when the TOG available options are “morally” framed in such a way to suggest that choosing the equal option is the right thing to do.

Keywords: trade-off game, gender, equality, efficiency

Some charities are much more cost-effective than others, which means that they can do more with the same amount of money; yet most donations do not go to the most effective charities. Why is that?

Donors vastly underestimate differences in charities’ effectiveness. Lucius Caviola et al. Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 15, No. 4, July 2020, pp. 509–516. http://journal.sjdm.org/20/200504/jdm200504.pdf

Abstract: Some charities are much more cost-effective than other charities, which means that they can save many more lives with the same amount of money. Yet most donations do not go to the most effective charities. Why is that? We hypothesized that part of the reason is that people underestimate how much more effective the most effective charities are compared with the average charity. Thus, they do not know how much more good they could do if they donated to the most effective charities. We studied this hypothesis using samples of the general population, students, experts, and effective altruists in six studies. We found that lay people estimated that among charities helping the global poor, the most effective charities are 1.5 times more effective than the average charity (Studies 1 and 2). Effective altruists, in contrast, estimated the difference to be factor 30 (Study 3) and experts estimated the factor to be 100 (Study 4). We found that participants donated more to the most effective charity, and less to an average charity, when informed about the large difference in cost-effectiveness (Study 5). In conclusion, misconceptions about the difference in effectiveness between charities is thus likely one reason, among many, why people donate ineffectively.

Keywords: cost-effectiveness, charitable giving, effective altruism, prosocial behavior, helping

Action and inaction are perceived and evaluated differently; these asymmetries have been shown to have real impact on choice behavior in both personal & interpersonal contexts

Omission and commission in judgment and decision making: Understanding and linking action‐inaction effects using the concept of normality. Gilad Feldman  Lucas Kutscher  Tijen Yay. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, July 27 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12557

Abstract: Research on action and inaction in judgment and decision making now spans over 35 years, with ever‐growing interest. Accumulating evidence suggests that action and inaction are perceived and evaluated differently, affecting a wide array of psychological factors from emotions to morality. These asymmetries have been shown to have real impact on choice behavior in both personal and interpersonal contexts, with implications for individuals and society. We review impactful action‐inaction related phenomena, with a summary and comparison of key findings and insights, reinterpreting these effects and mapping links between effects using norm theory's (Kahneman & Miller, 1986) concept of normality. Together, these aim to contribute towards an integrated understanding of the human psyche regarding action and inaction.

Why Do Leaders Express Humility and How Does This Matter: A Rational Choice Perspective

Why Do Leaders Express Humility and How Does This Matter: A Rational Choice Perspective. JianChun Yang, Wei Zhang and Xiao Chen. Front. Psychol., August 21 2019. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01925

Abstract: The utility of leader humility expressing behavior has been examined by several studies across multiple levels. However, our knowledge about why leaders express humility continues to be sparse. Drawing on rational choice theory, this paper proposes a model examining whether followers’ capability triggers leader’s humility expressing behavior and how followers’ interpretations of it influence its effectiveness. Results from 278 leader-follower dyads from a time-lagged research design showed that followers’ capability as perceived by the leader is positively related to leader-expressed humility and, in turn, this behavior would conditionally enhance follower trust, that is, followers will trust the humble leader less when they attribute leader’s expressed humility more to serving impression management motives. Several theoretical and practical implications of this observation are discussed in this study.

Discussion

The present study has investigated why leaders often express humility and how this matters to followers based on rational choice theory. We have found that when the leader perceives that his/her followers possess capabilities of a high order, the leader would be more likely to express humility. We have also found that leader humility could promote trusting relationships among the followers toward the leader. Finally, we have presented the total process underpinning dyadic level leader-follower interactions. By making their abilities more visible to their leader, followers can enhance leader-expressed humility, and, in turn, through leaders’ humility expressions, followers can develop greater trust in their leaders. This interaction hinges on followers’ positive inferences about the motives behind the leader’s expressions of humility, that is, when followers interpret leader humility as serving impression management motives, it is less likely that such leader behavior will increase follower trust.

However, as for inferring leader humility, with regard to performance enhancement motives in the relationship between leader humility and follower trust, we did not find a moderation role of inferred leader humility motives. Initially, we thought that this result was beyond expectation, but reasonable. Drawing from rational choice theory (Lewicki et al., 2006), we found that the attribution of behavior motives is more to do with identifying a mismatch between behavior and intention. Such a matching process will help individuals avoid trusting the wrong person (Elangovan et al., 2007). However, the actual source of increase or decrease of trust is usually more related to the characteristics of the trustees (Mayer et al., 1995). Thus, compared to leaders’ humility characteristics, followers’ attribution of leader humility motives may have less impact on followers’ trust building toward the leader. Additionally, individuals are more sensitive about negative information and events (“negative bias”, Rozin and Royzman, 2001), which may serve as an explanation for the untested hypothesis. We strongly suggest future research to dig further into this issue.

Theoretical Implications

The present research has contributed to leadership and leader humility literature in several ways. Firstly, our study is the first to examine situational predictors of leader humility. By treating humility expression targets as possible antecedents of leader humility, the present study has provided a novel understanding of why leaders express humility. Most previous studies on leader humility have focused on its positive outcomes (Owens et al., 2013; Ou et al., 2014b, 2017; Owens and Hekman, 2016); few examined the antecedents of leader humility. Moreover, the few research scholars who had evaluated individual differences such as personal traits or life experience as the antecedents of humility, have treated humble leadership as a trait-relevant leadership style (Morris et al., 2005; Owens, 2009). Although many scholars have proposed that contextual factors such as safe climate could trigger greater leader-expressed humility (Owens, 2009), empirical research examining the situational predictors of leader humility is scarce. Drawing from rational choice theory, this research has found that follower capability would trigger leaders to express humility. Thus, this research has been able to explain leaders’ expressions of humility.

Secondly, our study has contributed to leadership literature by emphasizing the follower-centric view which values followers as a critical factor that could shape leaders’ behavior and influence effectiveness of leadership. Our review of the leadership literature has noted that most previous leadership studies had endorsed the leader-centric view (i.e., followers are only considered as recipients or moderators of leadership) while ignoring the follower-centric view (i.e., followers can be seen as “constructors” of leadership) (Howell and Shamir, 2005; Uhl-Bien et al., 2014). The present study is the first to empirically test the followers’ role in affecting the processes underlying humble leadership. Firstly, followers play an important role in shaping expressions of humility on the part of the leader; specifically, followers could have the power to trigger more leader humility when their abilities become salient to their leaders. Secondly, followers’ interpretations play a key role in affecting the outcomes of humble leadership. Like many other studies related to positive leadership, e.g., transformational leadership (Dasborough and Ashkanasy, 2002), positive outcomes could not be guaranteed if followers interpret leaders’ behavior as being distorted in some way. Similarly, we found that leader humility cannot lead to greater follower trust if it gets interpreted as serving impression management motives.

Thirdly, the present study has furthered the understanding of leader humility by integrating rational choice theory and leadership theory. Just as the Confucian proverb says “haughtiness invites loss while humility brings benefits,” humility has been credited with bringing intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits (Cai et al., 2010). Consistent with rational choice theory, the present research has found that leaders’ perception of followers’ capabilities positively influences the leader’s humility expressing behavior since the leader can benefit more by being humble with capable followers. This is in consonance with the opinion that leaders would exhibit more positive behaviors to outstandingly good followers (Uhl-Bien et al., 2014). Furthermore, we have proposed and found that followers’ rational attribution about leader humility would influence the relationship between leader humility and follower trust. Therefore, by integrating rational choice theory with the construct of leader humility, we have been able to obtain a deeper understanding of the interaction between humble leaders and their followers.

Practical Implications

For managerial practice, we hope both leaders and followers would pick up some insights during the daily workplace interactions. For followers, they should realize the malleability of leader-expressed humility. This might provide two pieces of advice for promoting better interactions between followers and leaders. Firstly, followers should realize that they have a role in stimulating positive behavior on the part of the leader. By actively performing better at their respective jobs, followers could be appreciated by others at the workplace (including leaders). They should also realize that leaders exhibit certain behaviors based on some instrumental calculation, suggesting that followers should seek to inform themselves more assiduously before arriving at a final evaluation of their leader (Tepper et al., 2011).

As for leaders, although they may expect positive outcomes when they constantly express humility toward their followers, they should reflect upon the sincerity of their own humility expressions, in case the outcomes fail to meet expectations. Leaders should be aware of the importance of being more in service of the followers and the group rather than about themselves. However, if leaders constantly put up an act but in reality look after their own interests, their true intentions behind their behaviors would soon become apparent to their followers and, in time, erode existing trust. By sending feelers that their intentions and behavior have been consistent (Simons, 2002), leaders can protect themselves from being perceived as hypocritical.

What is also worth noting is that one limitation of this study is that we reported small effect sizes of follower competence on leader humility expression, which raises the question of whether these effects have meaningful implications for practice in management. The answer to this question is “yes.” Firstly, our small effect sizes are comparable to some previous studies of leader humility (Qian et al., 2018). Secondly, despite the small sizes, we obtain such effects after ruling out the influence of leaders’ humility trait. These results are practically meaningful because it indicates that we can cultivate humble leadership (e.g., humility-expressing behavior) through shaping the situational factors. Different from previous studies that only valued individual differences as antecedents of leader humility, our study indicates that organizations can create a better environment to trigger positive humble leader behaviors rather than cultivating humble leadership largely depending on the selection of leaders (e.g., selecting leaders with a high level of humility).

Limitations and Future Research

Firstly, although we utilized matching data analysis and multi-wave data collection as a method to verify our hypotheses, the sampling data could not offer causal inferences about our hypotheses. We recommend a longitudinal study to evaluate the actual causal relationship. Secondly, our study was conducted in China, where acting humbly is among the cultural norms and so individuals are suggested not to show off (Hwang, 1982; Kurman and Sriram, 1997). It is possible that people in such situations might be acting humbly against one’s true will and feelings. Further, the Chinese might be having varying interpretations of others’ humility. It is therefore not clear to what extent our results can be generalized or if our findings can be applicable to the Western context. We advocate further research to explore whether and how cultural differences influence the model proposed in this research—for example, whether a leader with higher dependent self-construal who values more harmonious interpersonal relationship will express more humble behaviors. Thirdly, the present study has left a hypothesis implicit in multiple empirical studies, namely, followers with higher capability would be perceived as having high utility by leaders. However, as many researchers have argued, there could be the possibility that when followers have high capability, leaders would sense both utility and be personally threatened at the same time (Khan et al., 2018). Finally, we acknowledge that rational consideration is one possible angle to understand the situational predictors of leaders’ humility expression. Beyond that, we think leaders’ less rational emotional perception can also be situational predictors of leader humility. These limitations also point to possible future directions for humble leadership studies.

Repetition increases belief in false statements; this illusory truth effect occurs with many different types of statements & prior knowledge does not protect against the illusory truth effect

Fazio, L. K. (2020). Repetition Increases Perceived Truth Even for Known Falsehoods. Collabra: Psychology, 6(1), 38. Jul 2020. http://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.347

Abstract: Repetition increases belief in false statements. This illusory truth effect occurs with many different types of statements (e.g., trivia facts, news headlines, advertisements), and even occurs when the false statement contradicts participants’ prior knowledge. However, existing studies of the effect of prior knowledge on the illusory truth effect share a common flaw; they measure participants’ knowledge after the experimental manipulation and thus conditionalize responses on posttreatment variables. In the current study, we measure prior knowledge prior to the experimental manipulation and thus provide a cleaner measurement of the causal effect of repetition on belief. We again find that prior knowledge does not protect against the illusory truth effect. Repeated false statements were given higher truth ratings than novel statements, even when they contradicted participants’ prior knowledge.

Keywords: illusory truth , truth judgments , knowledge , truth , misinformation

Conservatives perceive greater ingroup similarity than do liberals, & overestimate ingroup similarity; liberals possess more actual ingroup similarity than do conservatives on a national level

Ideological differences in attitude and belief similarity: distinguishing perception and reality. Chadly Stern. European Review of Social Psychology , Volume 31, 2020 - Issue 1, Pages 319-349, Jul 27 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2020.1798059

ABSTRACT: Attitude and belief similarity have long stood as topics of inquiry for social psychology. Recent research suggests that there might be meaningful differences across people in the extent to which they perceive and actually share others’ attitudes and beliefs. I outline research examining the relationship between political ideology and the perception and reality of attitude similarity. Specifically, I review research documenting that (a) conservatives perceive greater ingroup similarity than do liberals, (b) conservatives overestimate and liberals underestimate ingroup similarity, (c) liberals and conservatives both underestimate similarity to outgroup members, and (d) liberals possess more actual ingroup similarity than do conservatives on a national level. Collectively, this review contributes to understanding how political ideology relates to (perceived) attitude similarity.

KEYWORDS: Political ideology, perceived similarity, actual similarity

This would suggest that people with strong Aesthetic Motivation would be unhappy and unproductive in many jobs, even some artistic jobs

Demographic, Personality Trait and Personality Disorder Correlates of Aesthetic Motivation. Adrian Furnham. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, July 28, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0276236620942917

Abstract: This study looked at personality and sub-clinical personality disorder correlates of self-rated motives for aesthetic motivation (AM). Two groups, totalling over 4000 adult British managers, completed three tests including a personality trait measure (HPI); a personality disorders measure (HDS), and a measure of their Motives and Values (MVPI) for Aestheticism and Culture. The two different groups had similar results, showing that for personality traits Inquisitiveness (Openness-to-Experience) and Sociability (Extraversion) were positively, and Adjustment (low Neuroticism) and Prudence (Conscientiousness) were negatively, related to AM. For personality disorder traits Imaginativeness (Schizotypy) and Colourful (Histrionic) were positively correlated with AM. Factor analysis confirmed the higher order classification of both traits and disorders. Regressions at the higher factor level suggested personality traits were more related to AM than disorder traits. Implications for the selection and management of aesthetic people are considered. Limitations and future directions are also noted.

Keywords: aestheticism, personality traits, personality disorders, Schizotypy

---
This would suggest that people with strong Aesthetic Motivation would be unhappy and unproductive in many jobs, even some artistic jobs.

Clarifying the Structure and Nature of Left-wing Authoritarianism

Costello, Thomas H., Shauna Bowes, Sean T. Stevens, Irwin Waldman, and Scott O. Lilienfeld. 2020. “Clarifying the Structure and Nature of Left-wing Authoritarianism.” PsyArXiv. May 11. doi:10.31234/osf.io/3nprq

Abstract: Left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) is one of the more controversial and poorly understood major constructs in political psychology. In this series of studies, we investigate LWA’s nature, structure, correlates, and psychological implications. Beginning with a broad preliminary conceptualization of LWA, we use exploratory and empirical strategies of test construction across five community samples (N = 6,292) to iteratively construct a measure of LWA with promising content validity; refine our conceptualization based on the measure’s structural and nomological validity; and update the measure to reflect these changes. We conduct quantitative tests of LWA’s relations with a host of authoritarianism-related variables, based on a priori hypotheses derived in part from right-wing authoritarianism’s well-established nomological network, and use a behavioral paradigm to show that LWA and social dominance orientation (but not right-wing authoritarianism) predict aggression towards threatening ideological opponents over and above political ideology. We conclude that a shared psychological “core” underlies authoritarianism across the political left and right.

Check also Right-wing Authoritarianism, Left-wing Authoritarianism, and pandemic-mitigation authoritarianism. Joseph H. Manson. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 167, December 1 2020, 110251. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/07/right-wing-authoritarianism-left-wing.html

Right-wing Authoritarianism, Left-wing Authoritarianism, and pandemic-mitigation authoritarianism

Right-wing Authoritarianism, Left-wing Authoritarianism, and pandemic-mitigation authoritarianism. Joseph H. Manson. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 167, 1 December 2020, 110251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110251

Highlights
• Recent work supports the validity of the construct of Left-wing Authoritarianism.
• LWA shares some features with Right-wing Authoritarianism (RWA).
• The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted implementation of authoritarian policies.
• Both RWA and LWA predicted support for authoritarian pandemic-mitigation policies.

Abstract: Recent research suggests the validity of the construct of Left-wing Authoritarianism (LWA). Like its well-studied parallel construct Right-wing Authoritarianism, LWA is characterized by dogmatism, punitive attitudes toward dissenters, and desire for strong authority figures. In contrast to RWA, LWA mobilizes these traits on behalf of left-wing values (e.g. anti-racism, anti-sexism, and wealth redistribution). I inductively examined the extent to which RWA and LWA predicted, in April 2020, Americans' endorsement of 19 authoritarian policies and practices intended to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. For 11 of these policies (e.g. abrogating the right to trial by jury for pandemic-related crimes), both RWA and LWA independently positively predicted endorsement. These findings are consistent with recent work showing psychological similarities between the two constructs.

Keywords: Right-wing AuthoritarianismLeft-wing AuthoritarianismCOVID-19


5. Discussion

Reacting to the severe public health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020, many citizens of liberal democratic nations have tolerated, or even demanded, actions from their governments that they would view as unacceptably heavy-handed under normal conditions. The current study used this situation to extend the nomological networks of the well-established construct of Right-wing Authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1981; Duckitt et al., 2010), and the promising, but so far little-explored, construct of Left-wing Authoritarianism (Conway III et al., 2017; Costello, Bowes, et al., 2020). Both traits predicted endorsement of a range of putatively pandemic-mitigating policies and practices that many would regard as authoritarian. A few of these results were unremarkable, or even slightly circular, e.g. one of the ACT items condemns abortion, and one of the policies endorsed more by people higher in RWA was closing abortion clinics. However, most of the results illuminated, some of them rather surprisingly, how people with authoritarian attitudes respond when, due to a crisis, a menu of normally taboo authoritarian policies appears on the table of mainstream public debate in a liberal democracy. For example, RWA is positively related to conservatism (Crowson, Thoma, & Hestevold, 2005), and one component of American conservatism is advocacy of free markets, and yet RWA was positively associated with endorsement of the government running the economy.

Although I did not measure perception of the danger posed by COVID-19, it is unlikely that variation in objective risk of death or serious illness drove the observed associations between RWA or LWA and increased endorsement of putatively authoritarian policies. None of the three covariates chosen because of their association with COVID-19 mortality risk (county COVID-19 rate, age, or African-American identity) was consistently positively related to endorsement of these policies.

This study builds on recent work (Costello, Bowes, et al., 2020) that has demonstrated the existence of authoritarian attitudes on both ends of the political spectrum, and has documented numerous psychological similarities between RWA and LWA. Two such similarities are belief in a dangerous world, and preference for state control. Consistent with these findings, I found that in response to the danger posed by a deadly pandemic, people high in RWA and people high in LWA agreed on the need for enhanced state control in several domains, including restrictions on the right to protest, punishment without the right to trial by jury, and surveillance via a mandatory tracking app. The policies on which people high in RWA and people high in LWA disagreed tended to be those most directly tied to American right-wing vs. left-wing values, e.g. religion, abortion, and immigration.

5.1. Limitations

This study had three major limitations. First, no other political attitudes, besides RWA and LWA, were measured. Controlling for other attitudes would have changed the observed statistical associations between authoritarianism and policy endorsements. As just one example, RWA is distinct from, but positively correlated with, Social Dominance Orientation (SDO: Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994; Roccato & Ricolfi, 2005), defined as degree of preference for inequality among social groups. Controlling for SDO might have reduced the association between RWA and endorsement of ban foreigners from entering. Second, as a cross-sectional study, this work cannot address the possibility of reversed causality, i.e. that the COVID-19 pandemic, as a perceived threat, has increased levels of authoritarianism (see Duckitt, 2001). Finally, my study population consisted exclusively of U.S. residents, so its findings do not generalize to other countries. Exploring this general topic internationally would require compiling country-specific lists of putatively authoritarian pandemic-mitigation policies. Furthermore, the validity of the LWA construct outside the U.S. has not been demonstrated.

5.2. Conclusions

LWA holds considerable promise as an explanatory construct in political psychology (Conway III et al., 2017; Costello, Bowes, et al., 2020). Both the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the general U.S. political scene, have changed considerably since the data for this study were collected. Therefore, replicating it exactly might be impossible. In general, however, the relationship of LWA to policy preferences comprises a fruitful topic for future research.

Appendix (Conway, L. G., Houck, S. C., Gornick, L. J. and Repke, M. A. (2017), Finding the Loch Ness Monster: Left-Wing Authoritarianism in the United States. Political Psychology. http://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2017/12/left-wing-authoritarianism-in-united.html)

Left‐Wing Authoritarianism (LWA) Scale

For the following questions, please answer on a 1–7 scale, where 1 = “I disagree completely,” 4 = “neutral/undecided,” and 7 = “I completely agree.”

• _______1. Our country desperately needs a mighty and liberal leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical traditional ways of doing things that are ruining us.
• _______2. Christian fundamentalists are just as healthy and moral as anybody else.
• _______3. It's always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in science with respect to issues like global warming and evolution than to listen to the noisy rabble‐rousers in our society who are trying to create doubts in people's minds.
• _______4. Christian Fundamentalists and others who have rebelled against the established sciences are no doubt every bit as good and virtuous as those who agree with the best scientific minds.
• _______5. The only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get rid of our “traditional” values, put some tough leaders in power who oppose those values, and silence the troublemakers spreading bad (and so‐called “traditional”) ideas.
• _______6. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Christian Fundamentalist camps designed to create a new generation of Fundamentalists.
• _______7. Our country needs traditional thinkers who will have the courage to defy modern progressive movements, even if this upsets many people.
• _______8. Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the traditional beliefs eating away at our national fiber and growing progressive beliefs.
• _______9. With respect to environmental issues, everyone should have their own personality, even if it makes them different from everyone else.
• _______10. Progressive ways and liberal values show the best way of life.
• _______11. You have to admire those who challenged the law and the majority's view by
• protesting against abortion rights or in favor of reinstating school prayer.
• _______12. What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush the evil of pushy Christian religious people, and take us forward to our true path.
• _______13. Some of the best people in our country are those who are challenging our government, supporting religion, and ignoring the “normal way” things are supposed to be done.
• _______14. We should strongly punish those who try to uphold what they claim are “God's laws” about abortion, pornography, and marriage, when they break the actual laws of the country in order to do so.
• _______15. There are many radical, immoral Christian people in our country today, who are trying to ruin it for their religious purposes, whom the authorities should put out of action.
• _______16. A Christian's place should be wherever he or she wants to be. The days when
• Christians are submissive to the conventions of this country belong strictly in the past.
• _______17. Our country will be great if we honor the ways of progressive thinking, do what the best liberal authorities tell us to do, and get rid of the religious and conservative “rotten apples” who are ruining everything.
• _______18. With respect to environmental issues, there is no “ONE right way” to live life; everybody has to create their own way.
• _______19. Christian Fundamentalists should be praised for being brave enough to defy the
• current societal and legal norms.
• _______20. This country would work a lot better if certain groups of Christian troublemakers would just shut up and accept their group's proper place in society.

Every time I would call someone racist or sexist, I would get a rush ... reaffirmed and sustained by the stars, hearts, and thumbs-up that constitute the nickels and dimes of social media validation

I Was the Mob Until the Mob Came for Me. Barrett Wilson (pen name). Quillette, July 14, 2018. https://quillette.com/2018/07/14/i-was-the-mob-until-the-mob-came-for-me/

[...]

In my previous life, I was a self-righteous social justice crusader. I would use my mid-sized Twitter and Facebook platforms to signal my wokeness on topics such as LGBT rights, rape culture, and racial injustice. Many of the opinions I held then are still opinions that I hold today. But I now realize that my social-media hyperactivity was, in reality, doing more harm than good.

Within the world created by the various apps I used, I got plenty of shares and retweets. But this masked how ineffective I had become outside, in the real world. The only causes I was actually contributing to were the causes of mobbing and public shaming. Real change does not stem from these tactics. They only cause division, alienation, and bitterness.

How did I become that person? It happened because it was exhilarating. Every time I would call someone racist or sexist, I would get a rush. That rush would then be reaffirmed and sustained by the stars, hearts, and thumbs-up that constitute the nickels and dimes of social media validation. The people giving me these stars, hearts, and thumbs-up were engaging in their own cynical game: A fear of being targeted by the mob induces us to signal publicly that we are part of it.

[...]

When my callouts were met with approval and admiration, I was lavished with praise: “Thank you so much for speaking out!” “You’re so brave!” “We need more men like you!”

Then one day, suddenly, I was accused of some of the very transgressions I’d called out in others. I was guilty, of course: There’s no such thing as due process in this world. And once judgment has been rendered against you, the mob starts combing through your past, looking for similar transgressions that might have been missed at the time. I was now told that I’d been creating a toxic environment for years at my workplace; that I’d been making the space around me unsafe through microaggressions and macroaggressions alike.

Social justice is a surveillance culture, a snitch culture. The constant vigilance on the part of my colleagues and friends did me in. That’s why I’m delivering sushi and pizza. Not that I’m complaining. It’s honest work, and it’s led me to rediscover how to interact with people in the real world. I am a kinder and more respectful person now that I’m not regularly on social media attacking people for not being “kind” and “respectful.”

I mobbed and shamed people for incidents that became front page news. But when they were vindicated or exonerated by some real-world investigation, it was treated as a footnote by my online community. If someone survives a social justice callout, it simply means that the mob has moved on to someone new. No one ever apologizes for a false accusation, and everyone has a selective memory regarding what they’ve done.

[...]

The social justice vigilantism I was living on Twitter and Facebook was like the app in my dream. Aggressive online virtue signaling is a fundamentally two-dimensional act. It has no human depth. It’s only when we snap out of it, see the world as it really is, and people as they really are, that we appreciate the destruction and human suffering we caused when we were trapped inside.

---
The anecdote is taken from Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk, by Justin Tosi & Brandon Warmke, https://www.amazon.com/Grandstanding-Use-Abuse-Moral-Talk-ebook/dp/B0851PR3DB/

Teaching Physics and having success at it: Millikan

Teaching Physics and having success at it:

At the close of my sophomore year [...] my Greek professor [...] asked me to teach the course in elementary physics in the preparatory department during the next year. To my reply that I did not know any physics at all, his answer was, "Anyone who can do well in my Greek can teach physics." "All right," said I, "you will have to take the consequences, but I will try and see what I can do with it." I at once purchased an Avery's Elements of Physics, and spent the greater part of my summer vacation of 1889 at home – trying to master the subject. [...] I doubt if I have ever taught better in my life than in my first course in physics in 1889. I was so intensely interested in keeping my knowledge ahead of that of the class that they may have caught some of my own interest and enthusiasm.

(Wikipedia page on Millikan, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Andrews_Millikan, retrieved Jul 27 2020)

The expanding class divide in happiness in the United States, 1972–2016

The expanding class divide in happiness in the United States, 1972–2016. Twenge, J. M., & Cooper, A. B. Emotion, Jul 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000774

Is there a growing class divide in happiness? Among U.S. adults ages 30 and over in the nationally representative General Social Survey (N = 44,198), the positive correlation between socioeconomic status (SES; including income, education, and occupational prestige) and happiness grew steadily stronger between the 1970s and 2010s. Associations between income and happiness were linear, with no tapering off at higher levels of income. Between 1972 and 2016, the happiness of high-SES White adults was fairly stable, whereas the happiness of low-SES White adults steadily declined. Among Black adults, the happiness of low-SES adults was fairly stable, whereas the happiness of high-SES adults increased. Thus, the happiness advantage favoring high-SES adults has expanded over the decades. Age–period–cohort analyses based on hierarchical linear modeling demonstrate that this effect is primarily caused by time period rather than by birth cohort or age.


General Discussion
Between the early 1970s and the mid-2010s, socioeconomic status (SES) indicators such as income, education, and occupational prestige became stronger predictors of happiness among American adults over age 30. The happiness of low-SES White adults declined between 1972 and 2016 while the happiness of high-SES White adults stayed steady or declined less steeply; the happiness of low-SES Black adults generally stayed steady, while the happiness of high-SES Black adults generally increased. The result is a growing class divide in happiness, with the happiness advantage of high-SES individuals growing steadily larger over the decades.

Contrary to some previous studies, we did not find SES to be a weak or non-existent correlate of happiness (Diener, Ng, Harter, & Arora, 2010; Lykken & Tellegen, 1996; StewartBrown et al., 2015), especially in recent years. Instead, we found robust associations, particularly for income (with d = .59 between the 1st and 5th quintiles of income, and correlations as high as r = .26). The median effect for actual observed effect sizes in psychology is r = .19, and r = .29 is in the top 25% (Gignac & Szodorai, 2016); thus, the association between income and happiness is moderate to large. The difference in happiness between the lowest and highest deciles of income is also large (d = .71). Nor did we find a satiation point or a tapering off at higher levels of income as some have found using other datasets (Jebb et al., 2018; Kahneman et al., 2010); in the GSS sample, associations between income and happiness were steady and linear. Thus, at least in this sample, money and prestige do appear to buy happiness, and more is continuously better, especially in recent years.

This study was limited by several factors. First, the measure of happiness was a single item rather than a more psychometrically vetted multiple-item scale of well-being or mental health symptoms. Although we were able to use four measures of SES, all were self-reported rather than objectively verified. In some cases, n’s were too low for Black Americans to perform certain analyses. Our analysis was restricted to the U.S.; thus, we do not know if these findings extend to other nations (such as the UK) also rumored to have a growing class divide in wellbeing and other factors.

Finally, we were unable to definitively determine the causes of the growing class divide in happiness. However, the analyses controlling for marital status suggest the trend may be partially rooted in the growing class divide in rates of marriage. Although we did not directly examine marriage as a determinant of happiness, the reduced correlations with year when marital status was controlled are consistent with the general conclusion that marriage exerts a positive influence on happiness (Grover & Helliwell, 2019). However, controlling for religious service attendance did not substantially alter the correlations with year, suggesting that the increasing class divide in religious commitment is not the cause of the growing class divide in happiness.

Another possibility is that SES has become more salient as income inequality has grown; we were not able to address this possibility with this dataset, but this may be an avenue for future research. We found that the reasons for the growing class divide differed by race, with declines in happiness among low-SES Whites but little change for low-SES Blacks, and a rise in happiness among high-SES Blacks but little change for high-SES Whites. Although we can only speculate, it is possible that the increase in Black Americans’ educational attainment may play a role; increases in high school graduation rates likely lifted the prospects of non-college-educated Blacks, and increases in college graduation rates may have created a larger critical mass of college-educated Blacks, which may have had benefits for happiness. Declines in explicitly stated racial prejudice may also play a role (Marsden, 2012), especially if these declines primarily benefited high-SES Blacks.

The idea of a growing class divide was a common point of discussion after the 2016 U.S.  Presidential election (e.g., Galston & Hendrickson, 2016), and will likely continue to occupy the national conversation for years to come. If Americans without a college degree – who remain the majority of the population – are increasingly unhappy, politicians who promise change may be more attractive, and there will be growing class polarization in views of political candidates.  Growing dissatisfaction among those with less income may also make political systems such as socialism and government policies such as universal basic income more popular. Although happiness among Black Americans instead increased over time, the increases were limited to high-SES individuals, which may also prompt discussion of a class divides among Black Americans.

In a follow-up study to their findings on the growing mortality gap by social class in the U.S. (Case & Deaton, 2015), Case and Deaton (2017) concluded that much of the excess mortality among less educated White Americans was due to “deaths of despair” from drugs, alcohol, and suicide. The current results suggest that the growing class divide extends to broader measures of well-being such as general happiness. Between the 1970s and the 2010s, many of the “have nots” of the economy became increasingly unhappy, with potential downstream consequences for mental health, physical health, and the political climate of the nation.

From 2018... The Ideological Origins of the Rule of Law

From 2018... Hill, Peter J., The Ideological Origins of the Rule of Law (April 20, 2018). Presented at The Life and Legacy of Douglass North Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of North’s Nobel Prize in Economics, March 2018, SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3166294

Abstract: The background conditions for the emergence of the rule of law are important but underdeveloped. This paper traces more fully the relationship between the concept of human equality and the development of the rule of law. It presents evidence that the Jewish and Christian concept of all human beings as God’s image bearers is an important contributor to the rule of law in Western civilization. The formulation of universal human equality was not, however, a sufficient condition for the emergence of the rule of law. It took centuries of articulation in different institutions and social settings. It only reached full fruition when it was joined with an understanding of appropriate political systems as expressed by political theorists such as Locke, Montesquieu, and Madison.

Keywords: rule of law, religion

Strategically influencing an uncertain future: Recent developments in strategic decision-making suggest that individuals (or a small group of them), can unilaterally influence the collective outcome of complex social dilemmas

Strategically influencing an uncertain future. Alain Govaert & Ming Cao. Scientific Reports volume 10, Article number: 12169. July 22 2020. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-69006-x

Abstract: Many of today’s most pressing societal concerns require decisions which take into account a distant and uncertain future. Recent developments in strategic decision-making suggest that individuals, or a small group of individuals, can unilaterally influence the collective outcome of such complex social dilemmas. However, these results do not account for the extent to which decisions are moderated by uncertainty in the probability or timing of future outcomes that characterise the valuation of a (distant) uncertain future. Here we develop a general framework that captures interactions among uncertainty, the resulting time-inconsistent discounting, and their consequences for decision-making processes. In deterministic limits, existing theories can be recovered. More importantly, new insights are obtained into the possibilities for strategic influence when the valuation of the future is uncertain. We show that in order to unilaterally promote and sustain cooperation in social dilemmas, decisions of generous and extortionate strategies should be adjusted to the level of uncertainty. In particular, generous payoff relations cannot be enforced during periods of greater risk (which we term the “generosity gap”), unless the strategic enforcer orients their strategy towards a more distant future by consistently choosing “selfless” cooperative decisions; likewise, the possibilities for extortion are directly limited by the level of uncertainty. Our results have implications for policies that aim to solve societal concerns with consequences for a distant future and provides a theoretical starting point for investigating how collaborative decision-making can help solve long-standing societal dilemmas.

Discussion

Classic theories of strategic decision-making rely on how one’s actions can affect their future. If one would consider to defect by choosing selfishly at some point in time, how large will the consequences of retaliation be? And is the fear of retaliation from others enough to sustain cooperation even when the immediate benefit of defection is large? These strategic trade-offs are commonly referred to as “the shadow of the future” and provide an elegant theoretical explanation for the emergence of cooperative behaviour of rational players in repeated social dilemmas8. However, even with moderate discount factors, the exponential discounting functions used in these theories attribute meaningless significance to the distant future23 and do not take into account empirically observed time-inconsistent valuations, making them less suitable for modelling strategic decisions that affect a distant future. More recently, strategic behaviour has been studied from an alternative perspective by identifying decision-making strategies that can unilaterally exert strategic influence on the long-run collective behaviour. Because they require minimal assumptions on the behaviour of others, such strategies are of particularly interest to human decision-making7. However, also these theories are built upon valuations of future scenarios that, in reality, are riddled with uncertainties in the probability or timing of payoffs that are likely to influence strategic decisions27,42.

Here we have modelled these uncertainties with a discounting method that exhibits the characteristic features of empirically validated delay, probability and social discounting methods1,5. Using the proposed framework, existing theories of strategic decision-making can be recovered in deterministic limits and new insights are obtained into the interaction between uncertainty, discounting and the possibilities for strategic influence. Namely, in social dilemmas, uncertainty leads to generosity gaps that require generous strategic influence to be adjusted to the longer term. These potentially long periods of time in which no generous payoff relation can be enforced may also contribute to the empirically observed inconsistencies in strategic influence and cooperation levels over time25,26. On the other hand, our results indicate that the slower discounting becomes, the more certain an extortioner needs to be about an increasingly distant future: sufficient patience thus requires sufficient certainty. These findings illustrate the difficulties one can expect when attempting to exert strategic influence in the real world and provide new insights for decision-making experiments in more controlled environments. From a more technical point of view, our extension to time-varying strategies that is found in the Supplementary Information section 2, provides a novel perspective for the study of reciprocity in changing environments43.

In this paper, we interpreted the beta distribution as a common uncertain belief in the discount factor or continuation probability which is a rather restricting assumption. However, we believe arguments can be made for interpreting the beta distribution as an approximation of the distribution of discount factors in a large group of individuals21,44. In this case, (1) can be seen as a weighted average discounting function used in collaborative decisions45,46. In this context, our framework can be used to theoretically study the strategic behaviour of groups making collective decisions and how the group composition can affect their cooperative behaviour.

Regardless of the interpretation, our work shows that strategic efforts to solve social dilemmas must be adjusted to the uncertainty in the valuation of the future, because only then can strategic influence help to solve today’s societal concerns.