No significant evidence that people with high trait neuroticism access social media particularly frequently or for long periods of time; also, failed to find a relationship between status update frequency & neuroticism

Understanding neuroticism and social media: A systematic review. Thomas Bowden-Green, Joanne Hinds, Adam Joinson. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 168, 1 January 2021, 110344. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110344

Abstract: Despite people spending nearly 10% of each day on social media platforms, many also now appear to be anxious to limit the intrusion of social media into their everyday lives. Given the known link between mental anguish and trait neuroticism, understanding how personality relates to social media usage has become an important area of study in recent years. As a result, there is an abundance of articles exploring neuroticism and social media across a variety of contexts. This article synthesizes and reviews the existing work, based on a systematic search that identified 159 studies. Our findings highlight that this current research is highly contradictory, for example people with high trait neuroticism report excessive use despite appearing to use social media infrequently. We discuss the key trends across existing studies to date, and we consider the apparent difficulties experienced by people with high trait neuroticism in exploiting the full benefits of ‘social’ media, discussing the importance of considerations for both designers and users of social media platforms.

Keywords: NeuroticismPersonalityBig FiveSocial media

4. Discussion

4.1. Major findings and implications

Our review highlights a number of key trends across the vast amount of research attempting to understand how neuroticism relates to social media. First, there is no significant evidence that people with high trait neuroticism access social media particularly frequently or for long periods of time. Likewise, research has failed to find a relationship between status update frequency and neuroticism. There is also no consistently reported link between reacting to the content of others through commenting or liking and neuroticism. These findings contrast with the perceptions of their own usage.

Our findings also highlight numerous contradictions within the current research. For instance, although there appears to be a clear link between neuroticism and excessive usage of social media, often identified through self-report measures (such as Hawi and Samaha, 2019), this isn't necessarily reflected in duration or frequency of use findings. Some researchers have raised concerns about self-report measures as a valid and reliable means of determining technology addiction (Coyne et al., 2020; Ellis, 2019). Ellis (2019) also hypothesized a potentially causal correlation between ‘anxiety’ and self-reported addiction. A logical conclusion to be therefore drawn from these apparently conflicting findings (excessive yet infrequent use) is that people with high trait neuroticism worry about their usage more than their actual usage warrants, reflecting the anxiety facet associated with trait neuroticism (Tackett & Lahey, 2017). In turn, their anxiety to reduce perceived ‘excessive’ use could lead to lower usage in terms of time (e.g Kuo and Tang, 2014) and/or more ‘passive’ use. Ironically though, even passive use has previously been found to reduce well-being (Verduyn et al., 2015). The concern among people with high trait neuroticism about their social media use, may actually lead to a behaviour that is further contributing to their anxiety.

In respect of the initial goal to understand how personality traits relate to the apparent harmful effects of social media (Waterson, 2019), we find a wealth of evidence to support a link between self-report measures of excessive use and neuroticism as discussed above. Therefore, given that personality traits relate to reports of problematic use, the evidence suggests that responsivity to reduction efforts may also correspond with traits. Modern ‘microtargeting’ methods (Barbu, 2014) for example, especially in this social media environment, provide the potential to tailor specific intervention messages to specific personality traits (Matz et al., 2017).

Another prominent trend is the apparent motivation of those with high trait neuroticism to use social media to socially interact (such as Eşkisu, Hoşoğlu and Rasmussen, 2017). Again, the research we identify indicates that people with high trait neuroticism have a comparatively small online social network (such as Noë, Whitaker and Allen, 2018), appearing at odds with this socialising motivation. Yet, one explanation requiring further research may be a difference in perception regarding the number of friends/contacts required to ‘socialise’. Are those with high trait neuroticism content with a smaller network? Given that trait neuroticism is generally associated with feelings of dissatisfaction towards a social group (such as Dehle & Landers, 2005), people with high trait neuroticism do not seem to particularly value networks or strive to achieve a large online social network. Another explanation could be their usage of social media in terms of content creation and reaction. The design of social media platforms/algorithms requires users to be ‘social’ and to interact through creating and sharing content. Our findings suggest that those with high trait neuroticism generally do not provide significantly high quantities of status updates (such as Cheevasuntorn et al., 2018) or react to others' content through ‘likes’ or ‘comments’ (such as Lee, Ahn and Kim, 2014). Therefore, it is unsurprising that this ‘passive’ use (Ryan and Xenos, 2011) does not attract a large following or friendship base. Furthermore, the valence of the content that is shared by people with high trait neuroticism may well play a part in their experience of social media (and vice-versa – through the virtuous circle discussed below). Previous research indicates that positive content is more attractive to online audiences (Berger & Milkman, 2012), yet the overwhelming evidence is that people with high trait neuroticism share negative valence content (such as Shen, Brdiczka and Liu, 2015). Infrequent posting of ‘positive’ content that might otherwise attract peers is therefore a third potential causal explanation of the small network size.

In some ways, there appears to be an injurious circle or self-fulfilling prophecy, with potential dissatisfaction in a network (such as Dehle & Landers, 2005) leading to a negative experience which is reflected in negative sentiment and emotion (such as Shen, Brdiczka and Liu, 2015), again limiting the extent to which those with high trait neuroticism socialise on social media. A similar pattern may be occurring with the concern for self-presentation leading to extreme caution or anxiety about the posts created and therefore a smaller quantity of posts. It seems likely that this low level of interaction may lead to a smaller network size, which may intensify the concern for self-presentation.

Ultimately, if individuals with high trait neuroticism struggle to present themselves or interact with others properly on social media, they can be left craving social interaction (such as Eşkisu, Hoşoğlu and Rasmussen, 2017) and seeking favourable self-presentation (such as Seidman, 2013), yet limited in their success with either due to facets within their personality. People with high trait neuroticism may be unable to consistently present a positive online persona that would otherwise enable them to socialise successfully. As research on self-disclosure shows, there is perhaps no ‘filter’ (or not enough of a filter) on revealing facts about themselves (such as Peluchette et al., 2015) or presenting their true (i.e. negative) feelings. Therefore, as also demonstrated offline (Lincoln et al., 2003; Russell et al., 1997; Shurgot & Knight, 2005), those with high trait neuroticism do not enjoy interactions with others and are left unsatisfied with their social support network (De Jong et al., 1999; Dehle & Landers, 2005; Suurmeijer et al., 2005; Tong et al., 2004).

In sum, these findings cast considerable doubt on the ability of users with high trait neuroticism to exploit the full benefits of ‘social’ media. This is important given the increasing reliance (or assumed reliance) on social media to disseminate information and gather viewpoints. Thus, developers of social media platforms, businesses and organisations using social media should consider these aspects when designing social media spaces that are inclusive to all types of people.

4.2. Limitations and future directions

This research is not intended to offer quantifiable means of assessing the strength of effect sizes, and instead explores key trends and nuances across these studies. There is therefore an opportunity for future research to present meta-analyses of these trends. This would also explore in greater depth, for example, the differences in outcome when different data collection techniques are employed. Greater statistical analysis might also explore the effect size when traits combine.

In addition, further studies could shed further light on the apparent inconsistency between measures of compulsive, excessive or even addictive use, yet relatively low frequency of use. For example, data could be collected for a single sample on both frequency and some measure of self-reported problematic use, to further investigate this possible difference between perception and reality. Furthermore, a related area for further research is why those with high trait neuroticism self-report ‘problematic’ social media use. Are all participants accurate or does neuroticism affect self-perception? For instance, Davidson and Ellis (2019) have previously hypothesized a causal link to anxiety, a particular facet of the neuroticism trait.

Another important topic is the finding that people with high trait neuroticism appear to have fewer friends/contacts than their counterparts. This appears to contradict motivations for using social media and suggests that they may have a different perception of what it is to be ‘sociable’ online. This is an important topic for research because the nature of ‘social’ media requires users to establish and maintain networks. For example, although all recipients may believe they are participating as required, a social media campaign inviting users to share content is likely to be less effective when targeting people with high trait neuroticism recipients rather than those who are emotionally stable. An important question therefore is whether they realise this difference.

A final, and fundamental, topic for investigation is the relationship between content creation and network size. Our findings demonstrate that people with high trait neuroticism are, on average, less frequent in their posting of status updates i.e. they are ‘passive’ users of social media. In addition, they tend to post content that is negative in valence. Either, or both, variables could offer a causal explanation of the smaller-than-average network size.

Personality traits & the propensity to protest: Higher levels of agreeableness, emotional stability, & openness to experience are significantly associated with a decreased likelihood of protest participation

Personality traits and the propensity to protest: a cross-national analysis. Yi-Bin Chang et al. Asian Journal of Political Science, Sep 1 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/02185377.2020.1814365

Abstract: This study examines the effects of the Big Five personality traits on individual protest behaviour in cross-national context. Past studies on the relationships between personality traits and political participation have mainly focused on a single country and found inconsistent results. Using the most recent wave of the World Values Survey, this study investigates the impact of personality on individual protest participation in 20 countries using the multilevel modelling. This study provides evidence that higher levels of agreeableness, emotional stability, and openness to experience are significantly associated with a decreased likelihood of protest participation. More importantly, this study demonstrates that contextual factors can interact with personality traits to influence individual protest participation. This study suggests that the effects of personality traits on individual protest participation disparate from country to country and each country may attribute the differing results to its particular political context.

KEYWORDS: Personality, Big Five, Protest, Context, Multilevel Modelling

Prosociality: Younger givers had higher levels of well-being other than physical health, older/retired givers reported better physical health only; females had better physical health, eudaimonic well-being, & psychological malfunctioning

Hui, B. P. H., Ng, J. C. K., Berzaghi, E., Cunningham-Amos, L. A., & Kogan, A. (2020). Rewards of kindness? A meta-analysis of the link between prosociality and well-being. Psychological Bulletin, Sep 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000298

Abstract: In recent decades, numerous studies have suggested a positive relationship between prosociality and well-being. What remains less clear are (a) what the magnitude of this relationship is, and (b) what the moderators that influence it are. To address these questions, we conducted a meta-analysis to examine the strength of the prosociality to well-being link under different operationalizations, and how a set of theoretical, demographic, and methodological variables moderate the link. While the results revealed a modest overall mean effect size (r = .13, K = 201, N = 198,213) between prosociality and well-being, this masked the substantial variability in the effect as a function of numerous moderators. In particular, the effect of prosociality on eudaimonic well-being was stronger than that on hedonic well-being. Prosociality was most strongly related to psychological functioning—showing a more modest relationship with psychological malfunctioning and physical health. Using prosociality scales was more strongly associated with well-being than using measures of volunteering/helping frequency or status. In addition, informal helping (vs. formal helping) was linked to more well-being benefits. Demographically, younger givers exhibited higher levels of well-being other than physical health, while older and retired givers reported better physical health only. Female givers showed stronger relationships between prosociality and eudaimonic well-being, psychological malfunctioning, and physical health. Methodologically, the magnitude of the link was stronger in studies using primary (vs. secondary) data and with higher methodological rigor (i.e., measurement reliability and validity). We discussed all of these results and implications and suggested directions for future research.

Low-level physiological differences in sensory processing may shape an individual’s politics: Fungiform papilla density, a proxy for taste bud density, predicts conservatism (association statistically mediated by disgust sensitivity)

Ruisch, B. C., Anderson, R. A., Inbar, Y., & Pizarro, D. A. (2020). A matter of taste: Gustatory sensitivity predicts political ideology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Sep 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000365

Abstract: Previous research has shown that political attitudes are highly heritable, but the proximal physiological mechanisms that shape ideology remain largely unknown. Based on work suggesting possible ideological differences in genes related to low-level sensory processing, we predicted that taste (i.e., gustatory) sensitivity would be associated with political ideology. In 4 studies (combined N = 1,639) we test this hypothesis and find robust support for this association. In Studies 1–3, we find that sensitivity to the chemicals PROP and PTC—2 well established measures of taste sensitivity—are associated with greater political conservatism. In Study 4, we find that fungiform papilla density, a proxy for taste bud density, also predicts greater conservatism, and that this association is partially statistically mediated by disgust sensitivity. This work suggests that low-level physiological differences in sensory processing may shape an individual’s political attitudes.

Bus drivers were twice as willing to let white testers ride free as black testers (72% vs. 36% of the time); signals of wealth and patriotism improve minority testers’ outcomes

The Colour of a Free Ride. Redzo Mujcic, Paul Frijters. The Economic Journal, ueaa090, September 2 2020. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueaa090

Abstract: We use a natural field experiment to estimate the causal effect of race on discretionary favours in the marketplace. Test customers are randomly assigned to board public buses with no money to purchase a fare, leaving the bus driver to voluntarily decide whether to offer them a free ride. Based on 1,552 transactions, we uncover strong evidence of racial bias: bus drivers were twice as willing to let white testers ride free as black testers (72% vs. 36% of the time). Signals of wealth and patriotism improve minority testers’ outcomes. Our results show that white privilege extends to unregulated daily interactions.

JEL C93 - Field ExperimentsJ15 - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

The roles of attractiveness and competitive abilities to understand conditionality in men’s short-term reproductive strategies

Testing strategic pluralism: The roles of attractiveness and competitive abilities to understand conditionality in men’s short-term reproductive strategies. Oriana Figueroa et al. PLoS One, August 31, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237315

Abstract: The decision to allocate time and energy to find multiple sexual partners or raise children is a fundamental reproductive trade-off. The Strategic Pluralism Hypothesis argues that human reproductive strategies are facultatively calibrated towards either investing in mating or parenting (or a mixture), according to the expression of features dependent on the individual's condition. This study seeks to test predictions derived from this hypothesis in a sample of 242 young men (M ± SD = 22.12 ± 3.08) from Chile’s 5th Region (33֯ south latitude). Specifically, two predictions were considered that raise questions about the relationship between traits related to physical and psychological attractiveness (fluctuating facial asymmetry and self-perception of attractiveness) and competitive skills (baseline testosterone and self-perception of fighting ability) with short-term reproductive strategies. Our results indicate that psychological features related to the self-perception of physical attractiveness are related to short-term reproductive strategies. However, no evidence was found that fluctuating facial asymmetry, basal levels of testosterone and self-perception of fighting ability were related to short-term reproductive strategies. These results support the existing evidence of the importance of physical attractiveness in calibrating men’s reproductive strategies but cast doubts about the role of fluctuating facial asymmetry. They also suggest that traits related to physical attractiveness, in comparison to competitive capabilities, play a more important role in calibrating men’s short-term reproductive strategies.

Discussion

The Strategic Pluralism Hypothesis explains the conditionality of human reproductive strategies and the resolution of the trade-off between investment in multiple partners and investment in parental care [1]. This hypothesis considers that there are biological, psychological and anthropometric factors that calibrate reproductive behavior according to the context in which the individual faces the aforementioned trade-off. This study proposes two predictions that were mainly not sustained as only an effect of self-perceived physical attractiveness on short-term sociosexual orientation was found. Our results emphasize the role of physical attractiveness in men on the unfolding of unrestricted reproductive strategies (short-term strategies at the scale of sociosexual orientation). The main result indicates that the traits of attractiveness have an effect on unrestricted reproductive strategies whereas fighting abilities do not.

The first prediction sought to determine if there is a positive relationship between traits associated with physical attractiveness and traits associated with competitive abilities with unrestricted reproductive strategies. Also, we postulated that these effects should be moderated by psychological variables related to self-perception of physical attractiveness and fighting ability, respectively. Our results suggest that only self-perceived attractiveness does affect unrestricted sociosexual orientation when evaluated with the full data set. However, we failed to show the expected effect of fluctuating facial asymmetry on unrestricted reproductive strategy either as a main effect or moderated by self-perception of physical attractiveness. Conversely to our results, some studies found evidence that fluctuating facial asymmetry is associated with the implementation of short-term reproductive strategies [20], with the number of sexual partners over one’s lifetime [50, 51], and with the perception of attractiveness [14]. Several lines of evidence may explain our contrasting results. First, despite that symmetry is associated with attractiveness, this association is weak and other facial features like averageness may play a more important role in perceived attractiveness [52]. Also, facial fluctuating asymmetry is assumed to underlie variation in facial symmetry between individuals being an indirect measure of overall symmetry. This circumstance may lessen its relationships with attractiveness. And more importantly, there exists controversy about the relationship between evolutionary relevant features and levels of fluctuating facial asymmetry [21]. If it is the case that fluctuating asymmetry is not an accurate proxy of developmental instability, the rationale about the importance of fluctuating facial asymmetry as a trait related to short-term mating strategies weakens and other variables as muscularity or strength could be better predictors of an unrestricted sociosexual orientation than fluctuating facial asymmetry [42, 53]. However, this is an unresolved issue as positive evidence about the importance of fluctuating asymmetry as a proxy of health and mating success was also reported [14]. An alternative explanation of our results is that fluctuating facial asymmetry affects unrestricted sociosexual orientation but this effect is mediated rather than moderated by psychological features. In this regard, previous investigations have found that the effects of morphological features on the psychology of unrestricted male sociosexual behavior were mediated by self and third-party perceptions of physical attractiveness [23, 54]. However, our cross-sectional design precluded us to investigated mediation relationships in an accurate way [55].

Self-perception of fighting ability was not related to unrestricted sociosexual orientation. In this regard, other studies have established a relationship between fighting and mate value [43], which is defined as “the complete set of characteristics that an individual has in a given moment and in a particular context that affects his capacity to successfully find, attract and keep a partner” [56]. According to Muñoz-Reyes et al. [43], fighting ability is associated with the mate value of a partner, which implies a positive relationship between this variable and men’s assessments of their chances of finding partners, and therefore of employing intrasexual competition strategies, which implies a high degree of self-confidence in the search for partners. It has been established that the self-perception of fighting ability is also associated with aggressive behavior [25]. These findings indicate that it is plausible to support that fighting ability is a conflict resolution mechanism in situations of intrasexual competition, which is consistent with studies that have found a positive association between traits associated with fighting abilities and reproductive success [23, 43, 57]. Despite the above evidence, our null results may indicate that self-perception of fighting ability when evaluated jointly with self-perception of attractiveness is not an important factor related to unrestricted strategies. That can be explained if we assume that mate choice or indirect competition through showing off attractive features may be more important in industrialized societies rather than the direct competition through fights.

No effect was found for baseline testosterone levels on short-term reproductive strategies. Studies have associated testosterone with the search for social status [58], self-confidence in competitive situation [39] and the adoption of dominant roles in economic environments [29]. Consequently, testosterone can be considered a social hormone associated with status-seeking and not so much with aggression in itself. Status in turn could be related to different reproductive strategies according to the way it is acquired. The relationship between testosterone and reproductive strategies has been explored in other studies and evidence has been found that favors the role of testosterone as a promoter of short-term strategies. For example, Edelstein et al. [32] found an interaction between unrestricted sociosexuality and the relational status of men and established that men in relationships with partners, but that have interest in extramarital relationships, have similar testosterone levels as those of single men, producing a positive attitude about unrestricted strategies. Puts et al. [38] established that there is a negative relationship between the number of sexual partners and baseline testosterone levels, and a positive relationship between high levels of baseline testosterone and unrestricted sociosexual psychology (desire and attitudes). Although this investigation employed a reduced version of the sociosexual orientation questionnaire [59], a relationship was found between baseline testosterone levels and an orientation toward short-term strategies. The reduced sample in the model that assesses the effect of baseline testosterone on reproductive strategies could explain the null result with respect to this variable.

Based on the second prediction, a relationship was expected between attractiveness and competitive abilities on unrestricted strategies. We failed to find that association as the effect of self-perception of attractiveness was not moderated by self-perception of fighting abilities. This result further suggests that fighting abilities do not play a major role in unrestricted sociosexual orientation both directly or moderating the effects of physical attractiveness. In addition, it is important to consider that self-perception of fighting ability may not necessarily be related to the willingness to compete for new mates, but may be also associated with the willingness to protect a current mate and the offspring. In this regard, that feature is expected to be related to more restricted sociosexual orientation reflecting a higher inversion in parental care [6].

Among the limitations of this research is the inclusion of only one anthropometric measurement (fluctuating facial asymmetry), which, although a common measurement to study physical attractiveness, could be complemented with others that are also considered attractive features and, in some cases, more important in explaining facial attractiveness [52]. Another limitation was the loss of data due to the storage of samples and handling of the testosterone kit, despite following protocols tested in other investigations. In addition, our null results of the effect of basal testosterone on sociosexuality do not preclude a potential relationship between testosterone changes elicited on a mating context and sociosexuality. Changes in testosterone levels and additional anthropometric variables associated with unrestricted strategies should be included in future research, such as facial masculinization [35], height [e.g. 60] and body mass [e.g. 42]. Finally, individuals in our study expected to participate in a competitive game and to be paid according to their performance. Despite that these tasks were performed after the measures taken for the current study; they may introduce some noise in the study.

In conclusion, the present study contributes some evidence that supports the Strategic Pluralism Hypothesis as we found that psychological features of attractiveness are related to unrestricted reproductive strategies among men. However, our results are not conclusive about the potential role of competitive skills (measured by basal levels of testosterone and self-perception of fighting ability) and the role of fluctuating facial asymmetry in explaining unrestricted reproductive strategies. These findings encourage further research on traits that may be affecting the cost-benefits balance in the reproductive trade-off that men have between maximizing the number of sexual partners and investing in parental care, and designs that allowed to investigate mediation relationships considering the importance of the relationship among anthropometric features on the self-perception (that is, psychological features) of subjects when the reproductive trade-off is solved.

The immoral behavior of poor guys was attributed to situational factors and was discounted, whereas wealthy guys’ behavior was perceived as less excusable & was attributed primarily to bad moral character

Weiner, D. S., & Laurent, S. M. (2020). The (income-adjusted) price of good behavior: Documenting the counter-intuitive, wealth-based moral judgment gap. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Sept 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000952

Abstract: Poor people are punished more frequently and more severely than are wealthy people for their transgressions, suggesting that an agent’s wealth affects how they are morally evaluated. To our knowledge, this has not been tested empirically. An initial study found that people expect the poor to be judged more harshly than the wealthy. Several other experiments consistently found that the reverse was true: Poor targets were judged as less immoral than wealthy targets for the same moral violations. Explanations of this wealth-based moral judgment gap were explored, including differences in descriptive/prescriptive expectations, global anti-wealthy or pro-poor biases, and differences in how people understand and explain the behavior of wealthy and poor moral transgressors. Although the moral judgment gap is likely multiply determined, poor targets were consistently viewed as having better reasons than the wealthy to act badly. Thus, the immoral behavior of poor targets was attributed to situational factors and was discounted, whereas wealthy targets’ behavior was perceived as less excusable and was attributed primarily to bad moral character. A final study extended our findings to the domain of prosocial behavior. Consistent with a reasons-based explanation, poor targets were viewed as having better moral character than wealthy targets when their behavior benefitted others, and wealthy targets were viewed as having more extrinsic reasons to behave prosocially.

Sex differences in the use of competitive tactics have been well documented & may reflect evolved predispositions; some say these differences may be eliminated in single-sex environments; paper says the differences persist

Deaner, R. O., McClellan, A., Zeigler-Hill, V., & Benenson, J. F. (2020). Sex differences in exclusion and aggression on single-sex sports teams. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, Aug 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000247

Abstract: Sex differences in the use of competitive tactics have been well documented and may reflect evolved predispositions. Recent research, however, suggests these differences may be eliminated in single-sex environments. We addressed this possibility by surveying men and women about their recent experiences as members of college (n = 376) and high school (n = 485) single-sex sports teams. We focused on participants’ recollections of being targets of exclusion or overt aggression by their teammates. In both samples, women were significantly more likely than men to recall being excluded (college Odds Ratio [OR] = 2.88; high school OR = 1.67) and receiving overt verbal aggression (ORs = 9.15, 3.30). By contrast, women were significantly less likely than men to recall receiving overt physical aggression (ORs = 0.18, 0.14). Furthermore, as predicted by the male warrior hypothesis, compared with men, women were more likely to be excluded by (ORs = 4.2, 3.36) or to receive aggression from (ORs = 13.69, 3.61) teammates in a competitive context (i.e., game) compared with other contexts. This pattern was significant for aggression in both samples and for exclusion in the high school sample. Collectively, these results indicate that differences in the behavior of men and women persist in single-sex settings where groups must cooperate against opponents.

Check also On The Evolution of The Sex Differences in Throwing: Throwing is a Male Adaptation in Humans. Michael P. Lombardo, Robert O. Deaner. The Quarterly Review of Biology, Volume 93, Number 2, June 2018. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/05/on-evolution-of-sex-differences-in.html

Justice is (not so) blind: Effects of facial masculinity and agreeableness on perceptions of criminal guilt

Justice is (not so) blind: Effects of facial masculinity and agreeableness on perceptions of criminal guilt. Ford, K. D., Penton-Voak, I. S., & Pound, N. (2020). Justice is (not so) blind: Effects of facial masculinity and agreeableness on perceptions of criminal guilt. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, Aug 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000246

Abstract: People have a tendency to make rapid judgments about the personality of others based on their facial appearance, a tendency which could have adaptive value if it helps facilitate the avoidance of individuals disposed to exploit and/or harm the perceiver. These rapid judgments, accurate or not, have the potential to influence how individuals are treated in many areas of life, including within the criminal justice system. Previous research investigating effects of appearance on judicial proceedings has suggested that a masculine facial appearance might activate criminal stereotypes, and therefore increase the likelihood of being judged guilty of a crime. To examine how masculinity might interact with other appearance dimensions, we investigated how facial morphological masculinity and perceived agreeableness influence perceptions of criminal guilt. In an online study, 369 participants (167 men, 200 women, 2 did not say) aged 18 to 82, read 12 short fictional vignettes each describing a crime (assault, burglary, or rape) with each accompanied by the face of a man “charged” with the crime. Faces were manipulated using morphing techniques to increase or decrease levels of (a) morphological masculinity and (b) perceived agreeableness (i.e., 2 × 2 manipulations for each target face). Participants were asked to indicate in each case whether they thought the “accused” was guilty or not. Overall, facial appearance had a significant effect on the probability of being judged guilty. For each crime type, manipulations of perceived agreeableness had large effects on the probability of being judged guilty, whereas manipulations of morphological masculinity did not.

Public Significance Statement—This study investigated how facial appearance can affect whether people are perceived as likely to have committed a crime. Computer graphics techniques were used to manipulate aspects of male facial shape and the facial images were presented to volunteer participants in an online study. Manipulations of perceived agreeableness in faces had large effects on the probability of an individual being judged guilty of a hypothetical crime. However, changes to the shape of the face to make it more or less masculine did not.

Keeping an intimate relationship is challenging; common reasons are “Fading away enthusiasm,” followed by “Long work hours” and “Lack of personal time and space”

The Challenges of Keeping an Intimate Relationship: An Evolutionary Examination. Menelaos Apostolou, Yan Wang. Evolutionary Psychology, September 4, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704920953526

Abstract: Keeping an intimate relationship is challenging, and many people face difficulties in doing so. In the current research, we have attempted to identify these difficulties, within the context of an evolutionary theoretical framework. More specifically, by using a combination of qualitative research methods in a sample of 163 Greek-speaking participants, we identified 78 such difficulties. By employing maximum likelihood analysis on the scores of 1,099 Greek-speaking participants, we classified these difficulties in 12 broader factors. The most important factor was “Fading away enthusiasm,” followed by “Long work hours” and “Lack of personal time and space.” Almost 70% of the participants indicated that at least one factor, and 41% indicated that three or more factors caused them difficulties. Significant sex effects were found for most factors, indicating that men and women differed in the importance they ascribed to these difficulties. Moreover, significant age, marital status and number of children effects were found for several factors.

Keywords: difficulties in keeping an intimate relationship, keeping an intimate relationship, mating, mismatch problem, intimate relationships

Discussion

In the current research, we have identified 78 difficulties in keeping and intimate relationship, and we have classified them in 12 broader factors. We have also found that enthusiasm and romantic feelings fading away quickly, along with long work hours and lack of personal time and space, were considered as the most important factors causing difficulties to people in keeping an intimate relationship. In addition, almost 70% of the participants indicated that at least one factor, and 41% indicated that three or more factors, caused them difficulties. Significant sex, age marital status and number of children effects were found for most of the factors.

The mismatch between ancestral and modern conditions is likely to account for many of the factors that have emerged here. In more detail, in the ancestral context, enthusiasm and intense romantic feelings would motivate people to start a relationship, and they are expected to reside as the relationship progresses. In a pre-industrial context, the support, protection and subsistence benefits would take over, providing the incentive to people to keep the relationship. The absence of these factors in the post-industrial context, makes the fading away of enthusiasm and romantic feelings impairing for keeping a relationship, as people lose the incentive to do so.

In the same vein, because in the ancestral context the benefits from having a family largely outweighed the costs of having unpleasant personality traits, positive selection forces would be relatively weak on personality traits that make an individual more pleasant as a partner. Thus, in the context of romantic relationships, several people today, are not easygoing, are selfish, insecure, clingy and aggressive, traits, which impair their capacity to keep an intimate relationship since their partners are not very willing to overlook them. For instance, being physically aggressive is not tolerated in the contemporary context where individual rights are well-protected and women are not dependent on their partners, having thus the opposite effect: Women would most likely walk away from an abusive partner. Furthermore, in ancestral human societies, people lived in extended families, meaning that they had many people around which could help them with raising their children (Hrdy, 2008). In post-industrial societies, people usually live on their own, away from their families, and they have to bear themselves the bulk of the demands for raising their children. Thus, selection forces may not have adequately prepared them to do so and keeping at the same time an intimate relationship.

The factors that we have identified in the present study, reflect also conflict between the sexes. People adopt a mixed mating strategy that involves extra-pair relationships in order to increase their own at the expense of their partners’ fitness. Accordingly, as it can be seen in the “Infidelity and abuse” factor, a partner’s adoption of such strategy makes keeping the relationship difficult. Although conceptually distinct, being physically abusive loaded to the same factor as infidelity. One possible explanation is that, a male extra-pair infidelity may be coupled with physical aggression, a strategy which, in an ancestral context, could have prevented women from walking away from their unfaithful partners. The conflict between the sexes is also reflected in factors such as “Long work hours”: Being more wealthy and successful could enable individuals, especially men, to attract higher mate value long-term partners or a higher number of casual ones. In effect, people may overemphasize on their careers in order to achieve status and wealth, neglecting their current partner.

The extracted factors reflect also the adoption of a short-term mating strategy. This is more obvious in the “Not monogamous” factor, where people indicated that they were not monogamous, and as a consequence, they tended to have unsatisfactory sexual lives when they stay long in a relationship, and for this reason tend to break up easily. This factor is also reflected in the “Fading away enthusiasm”: In order to be able to adopt a short-term mating strategy, people’s romantic feelings are expected to be intense when they meet a new partner, but to reside quickly, motivating them to look for other partners. Such calibration of behavioral mechanisms would prevent people from keeping an intimate relationship.

Sex-differences were found in almost all factors, suggesting that men and women differed in how important they considered the various difficulties. As it was originally predicted, men would be more likely to adopt a short-term and a mixed mating strategy, which would cause them difficulties in keeping an intimate relationship. These difficulties were reflected in the “Not monogamous” and the “Infidelity and abuse” factors. They were also reflected in the “Fading away enthusiasm” and the “Lack of personal time and space” factors, where men gave significantly higher scores than women. For instance, as discussed in the introduction, men’s enthusiasm may fade away quickly, so that they could move on to the next partner. Also, in order to be able to have multiple partners, men would prefer to have more freedom of movement, and less control by a partner, and these preferences reflect on the “Lack of personal time and space.” As indicated by the effect size, the largest sex-difference was found for the “Lack of effort,” which also reflects this issue as items such as “My sexual interest for my partner soon fades away” loaded there. This factor may also reflect the different evolutionary histories of men and women: During most of evolutionary time, men monopolized women by force, so they may not have evolved to have high empathy and understanding of their partners’ needs.

Significant age effects were found for several factors. As indicated by the effect size, the largest difference was for the “Bad sex” and the “Long work hours” factors. Starting from the former, older participants gave higher scores than younger ones. One possible explanation is that, the more time people spend in a relationship, the more likely it is for them to get bored having sex with the same partner. Age in this case probably acts as a proxy of the length of the relationship, with older participants being more likely to be longer in an intimate relationship than younger participants. With respect to the “Long work hours” factor, we found that older participants spent more time working and less time allocating to the partners than younger participants. One possible explanation is that, as people get older, they are more likely to advance in their careers, and have then to spend more hours working and fewer hours being with their partners.

We also found that participants who had more children gave higher scores for difficulties such as their children absorbing most of their time and energy than participants with fewer or no children. This is expected, as people would allocate less resources in child-rearing and would be less likely to disagree with their partners on how to raise their daughters and sons, if they had few or no children than if they had several children. We also found that, participants who were single and divorced, gave significantly higher scores in most factors than participants who were married and in a relationship. One possible interpretation of this finding is that, individuals who experienced more difficulties, were more likely not to be in a relationship than individuals who experienced fewer difficulties. For instance, people who did not make considerable effort to keep a relationship, were not monogamous, and they felt that a relationship constrained them, were less likely to keep an intimate relationship than people who made considerable effort, were monogamous and they did not feel that a relationship constrained them. Future research needs to investigate this finding further.

The means for all factors were below the middle of the scale (i.e., “3”), suggesting that each one on its own was not causing people considerable difficulties in keeping a relationship. Yet, each mean was accompanied by a relatively large standard deviation, indicating that there was considerable variation in these difficulties, with some people finding them very constraining and others not constraining at all. On the basis of these findings, we can argue that people will experience severe difficulties in keeping a relationship when more than one factors is present. For instance, if people are quirky, have a taste for sexual variation, and lose their enthusiasm quickly, they will face severe difficulties in keeping a relationship, but people who are say only quirky, may manage to do so more smoothly. Of course, the outcome depends also on the severity of the problem; if people are for instance extremely quirky, they will face severe difficulties in keeping a relationship even in the absence of other difficulties.

As discussed above, the difficulties that people face in keeping an intimate relationship could lead to divorce. Such difficulties could cause the termination of the relationship long before it reaches the point of marriage, leading people to remain single. They may also prolong the spells of singlehood, because people who face such difficulties may had bad experiences from being in a relationship, which could demotivate them from looking to establish new ones. Actually, one study asked participants to indicate the reasons why they were single, and found that bad experiences from previous relationships was a common reason (Apostolou, 2017b). Accordingly, studying the difficulties in keeping intimate relationships is necessary for developing interventions that could enable people to maintain an intimate relationship. A proper theoretical framework for understanding these difficulties is key for this endeavor to succeed. For instance, the evolutionary theoretical framework, developed in the current paper, indicates that most of these difficulties arise from behavioral mechanisms not being well-adapted to the modern conditions rather than from behavioral mechanisms being broken. That is, in most cases of people facing difficulties in keeping an intimate relationship, there is not an underlying pathology. In turn, possible interventions should not aim to identify and “cure” a pathology, but to enable instead people to address the limitations of their behavioral adaptations, and function better in the contemporary environment.

Our research is not without limitations. To begin with, our results were based on self-report data that are subject to several biases. In particular, people may not have an accurate perception of what causes them difficulties in keeping an intimate relationship. For instance, people may fail to recognize that they are clingy, which in turn, makes keeping a relationship difficult. Furthermore, we employed a non-probability sample, so our findings cannot be readily generalized to the population. Also, although we have employed a combination of qualitative research methods in order to identify the reasons which caused people difficulties in keeping an intimate relationship, we may not have captured all of them. Moreover, the importance ascribed to these reasons may vary with the cultural context, which indicates that cross-cultural research is required for examining cultural variation. In addition, our study is explorative and was based one sample. Consequently, the next step in this research should be to employ these results and systematically develop a theoretically-driven measure, with carefully generated items, a good and a priori specified factor structure, and good measurement properties. Finally yet importantly, we did not control for sexual orientation. Given the relatively low prevalence of homosexuality and bisexuality (LeVay, 2010), we expect that our sample was predominantly heterosexual. Accordingly, our findings may not generalize to non-heterosexual individuals.

The plethora of reasons and factors that we have identified in the current research, testify to the complexity of the phenomenon. Such complexity suggests that our work is insufficient for fully understanding the difficulties that people face in keeping an intimate relationship. It should be considered thus, as the first of the many studies which are required to understand this fascinating phenomenon.

We investigate the findings that liberals and conservatives rely on different moral foundations; the foundations seem different, but results in popular sites are inflated, probably by self-selection

Kivikangas, J Matias, Belén Fernández, Simo Järvelä, Niklas Ravaja, and Jan-Erik Lönnqvist. 2020. “Moral Foundations and Political Orientation: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.” PsyArXiv. September 4. doi:10.1037/bul0000308

Abstract: We investigate the findings that liberals and conservatives rely on different moral foundations. We conducted a comprehensive literature search from major databases and other sources for primary studies that used the Moral Foundations Questionnaire and a typical measure of political orientation, a political self-placement item. We used a predefined process for independent extraction of effect sizes by two authors and ran both study-level and individual-level analyses. With 89 samples, 605 effect sizes, and 33,804 independent participants, in addition to 192,870 participants from the widely used YourMorals.org website, the basic differences about conservatives and liberals are supported. However, heterogeneity is moderate, and the results may be less generalizable than previously thought. The effect sizes obtained from the YourMorals.org data appear inflated compared to independent samples, which is partly related political interest and may be due to self-selection. The association of moral foundations to political orientation varies culturally (between regions and countries) and subculturally (between White and Black respondents an in response to political interest, but not in relation to other demographics). The associations also differ depending on the choice of the social or economic dimension and its labeling, supporting both the bidimensional model of political orientation and the findings that the dimensions are often strongly correlated. Oue findings have implications for interpreting published studies, as well as designing new ones where the political aspect of morality is relevant. The results are primarily limited by the homogeneity of the measures and included studies in terms of sample origins.

Identifying a Facial Expression of Flirtation and Its Effect on Men: Flirtatious expressions receiving low recognition by men differed in morphology from the highly recognized flirting expressions

Identifying a Facial Expression of Flirtation and Its Effect on Men. Parnia Haj-Mohamadi Omri Gillath & Erika L. Rosenberg. The Journal of Sex Research, Sep 3 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2020.1805583

Abstract: Internal states may be conveyed to others nonverbally through facial expression. We investigated the existence of a particular facial cue that may be effectively used by women to indicate interest in a man. Across six studies, men generally recognized a female facial expression as representing flirting. Flirtatious expressions receiving low recognition by men differed in morphology from the highly recognized flirting expressions. The discrepancies are indicative of individual differences among women in effectively conveying a flirtatious facial cue and among men in recognizing this cue. The morphology of the highly recognized flirtatious facial expressions, coded using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), included: a head turned to one side and tilted down slightly, a slight smile, and eyes turned forward (toward the implied target). Results from experimental studies showed that flirtatious facial expressions, as compared with happy or neutral expressions, led to faster identification of sex words by men. These findings support the role of flirtatious expression in communication and mating initiation.

Not only do women suffer the adverse consequences of being sexually objectified, but when they are objectified, they can also experience the added negative effects associated with being partially ostracized

Dvir, M., Kelly, J. R., Tyler, J. M., & Williams, K. D. (2020). I’m up here! Sexual objectification leads to feeling ostracized. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Aug 13 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000328

Abstract: Theory and research demonstrate that women are frequently the targets of sexually objectifying behavior, viewed and treated by others as mere objects for pleasure and use. When sexually objectified, attention is principally focused on scrutinizing and valuing their physical features, whereas their internal attributes (e.g., thoughts, feelings, personhood) may be largely ignored (Bartky, 1990). Although the processes and negative effects associated with sexual objectification have been examined extensively, no work has examined the “ignoring” component of sexual objectification. We reasoned that sexually objectifying a woman by ignoring and devaluing some of her personal attributes or features is akin to partial ostracism. Although sexual objectification and partial ostracism may seem to comprise opposite characteristics (i.e., attention vs. ignoring), we posit that sexually objectifying a woman, much like partial ostracism, involves ignoring some of her internal attributes (e.g., thoughts, feelings, voice). Across 4 studies, we expected and found evidence that a sexual objectification experience (vs. control conditions) resulted in women feeling sexually objectified, which led to increased feelings of ostracism, which, in turn, threatened and lowered women’s fundamental need satisfaction (i.e., belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence). Our findings suggest that not only do women suffer the adverse consequences of being sexually objectified, but when they are objectified, they can also experience the added negative effects associated with being partially ostracized, a novel finding that contributes to both the sexual objectification and ostracism literature.

Wildfire Exposure Increases Pro-Environment Voting within Democratic but Not Republican Areas

Wildfire Exposure Increases Pro-Environment Voting within Democratic but Not Republican Areas. Chad Hazlett & Matto Mildenberger. American Political Science Review, Jul 15 2020. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/wildfire-exposure-increases-proenvironment-voting-within-democratic-but-not-republican-areas/8F483913E13A44DCB975CE90024C0931

Abstract: One political barrier to climate reforms is the temporal mismatch between short-term policy costs and long-term policy benefits. Will public support for climate reforms increase as climate-related disasters make the short-term costs of inaction more salient? Leveraging variation in the timing of Californian wildfires, we evaluate how exposure to a climate-related hazard influences political behavior rather than self-reported attitudes or behavioral intentions. We show that wildfires increased support for costly, climate-related ballot measures by 5 to 6 percentage points for those living within 5 kilometers of a recent wildfire, decaying to near zero beyond a distance of 15 kilometers. This effect is concentrated in Democratic-voting areas, and it is nearly zero in Republican-dominated areas. We conclude that experienced climate threats can enhance willingness-to-act but largely in places where voters are known to believe in climate change.

Major Principles of Attachment Theory: Overview, Hypotheses, and Research Ideas. Chapter 12 of new book

Major Principles of Attachment Theory: Overview, Hypotheses, and Research Ideas. Jeffry A. Simpson, W. Steven Rholes, Jami Eller, Ramona L. Paetzold. Chp 12 in Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles, Third Edition. Edited by Paul A. M. Van Lange, E. Tory Higgins, and Arie W. Kruglanski, Nov 2020. https://www.guilford.com/books/Social-Psychology/Lange-Higgins-Kruglanski/9781462543984/contents

During the past five decades, few theories in psychology have generated as much interest, research, and debate as attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969/1982, 1973, 1980, 1988) and its recent extensions (see Cassidy & Shaver, 2016). Attachment theory is an extensive, inclusive theory of personality and social development “from the cradle to the grave” (Bowlby, 1979, p. 129). Being a lifespan theory, it is relevant to several areas in psychology, including developmental, personality, social, cognitive, neuroscience, and clinical.

Because attachment theory covers the entire life course, it has several fundamental principles and core hypotheses, most of which address how and why people think, feel, and behave in particular ways within relationships at different points of their lives. Given the focus of this volume, our primary goal in this chapter is to provide a brief, representative overview of the key principles and central hypotheses that underlie attachment theory, both as originally articulated by Bowlby and his contemporaries (e.g., Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) and as expanded upon in recent theory and research (Cassidy & Shaver, 2016).

Attachment theory has two major components: (1) a normative component, which explains modal (species-typical) attachment processes and patterns of behavior in humans, and (2) an individual-difference component, which explains individual deviations from modal processes and behavioral patterns. Most of the major principles and hypotheses we discuss in this chapter are normative ones, but we also highlight principles associated with well-established individual differences in attachment patterns (in children) and attachment orientations (in adults), including how they are related to a host of personal and relational processes and outcomes.

We began our work on this chapter by surveying the theoretical and empirical literature on attachment processes across the lifespan and generated an initial list of potential principles and hypotheses. We then asked several leading attachment scholars working in different areas of psychology (e.g., clinical, developmental, personality, social) to indicate what they thought were the most important principles/hypotheses.1

Men and women reported higher desirability for heroic targets for long-term compared with short-term relationships, although this pattern was more prominent in women

Bhogal, M. S., & Bartlett, J. E. (2020). Further support for the role of heroism in human mate choice. Evolutionary Behavioral, Sep 2020.  https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000230

Abstract: Although evidence suggests that altruistic behavior can act as a mating signal, little research has explored the role of heroism in mate choice. Previous research has focused on women only, ignoring the role of heroism in male mate choice. Here we extended and replicated previous research on the role of heroism in human mate choice. Participants (N = 276) rated how desirable targets were for a short-term and long-term relationship, which varied in heroism. The findings showed men and women reported higher desirability for heroic targets for long-term compared with short-term relationships, although this pattern was more prominent in women. These findings add support to the role of heroism in mate choice by exploring the role of heroism in male and female mate choice.

Check also The role of altruistic costs in human mate choice. Manpal Singh Bhogal et al. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 160, 1 July 2020, 109939. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/02/human-mate-choice-individuals.html

And The role of prosocial behaviors in mate choice: A critical review of the literature. Manpal Singh Bhogal, Daniel Farrelly, Niall Galbraith. Current Psychology, May 27 2019. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/05/most-research-has-found-that-people.html

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Discussion The aim of this study was to 1) further explore and extend the role of heroism and mate choice and 2) to explore the role of heroism in men and women’s mate choice. Hypothesis one was supported, as high heroic targets were rated as more desirable than low-heroic targets. Control scenarios were included to anchor the results, as desirability ratings for high heroic targets were higher than desirability ratings for the control condition, and desirability ratings for low heroic targets were lower than desirability ratings for the control condition. Hypothesis two was supported, as women rated heroic targets as more desirable than men. Hypothesis three was explored in two stages. Part (a) was supported as both men and women reported higher desirability ratings for high heroic targets in long-term than short-term relationships. 10 Part (b) was also supported as this effect interacted with the participants’ sex. Women reported higher desirability ratings for high heroic targets than men for both short-term and long-term relationships. The effect sizes were larger in the comparison between men and women than the within-subject comparisons between short-term and longterm relationships. As a result, the findings of this study lend support for the role of mutual mate choice in the desirability of heroism, but the effect is more pronounced in women than men. The findings of this paper provide support for the hypothesis that heroism plays a role in mate choice, consistent with limited research in the area (Margana et al. 2019; Kelly & Dunbar, 2001). The findings of this paper are also consistent with previous research finding that women find prosocial targets (in the form of altruism) to be more desirable compared to non-altruistic targets (Bhogal et al. 2019; Farrelly, 2011). In addition, our finding that men also find high heroic targets as desirable compared to those displaying low heroism is consistent with research showing both men and women find prosociality (again, in the form of altruism) targets desirable, even though desirability ratings tend to be higher for women, particularly when seeking long-term relationships (Bhogal et al. 2019). When looking at the theoretical foundation of this study, this study provides support that heroism could have evolved through mutual mate choice, as higher heroism was desirable to our participants. The fact that participants rated heroic targets as more desirable for long-term relationships compared to short-term relationships is consistent with previous research exploring other forms of prosociality (Bhogal et al. 2019; Farrelly, 2011) due to prosociality signalling good parent/partner quality. Therefore, when examining longterm relationships, heroism (as with other forms of prosociality) could be signalling good parent and partner qualities, for men and women. As the data here are supportive 11 of previous literature exploring altruism and mate choice, it could be argued that heroism is a riskier form of altruism (benefit-provision with added personal risk). Due to the importance of replication in psychology (Earp & Trafimow, 2015), we believe the findings of this study are important in the field, as this paper provides evidence that heroism is important in mate choice, whereby we have replicated and extended the limited research in the area on heroism and mate choice.

Limitations and future research
Although there are strengths to this study, there are also some limitations to note. The scenarios used from Margana et al. (2019) included targets who are displaying extreme forms of heroism, as opposed to subtle forms of heroism. For example, one scenario displaying high heroism related to the climbing Mount Everest, and one of the scenarios depicting low heroism was related to the Ebola outbreak with both scenarios involving an extreme risk of personal injury. Future research could include more subtle, realistic scenarios which we may encounter in our day to day lives. Furthermore, while we know that altruism increases mating success (Arnocky, Piché, Albert, Ouellette, & Barclay, 2017), we do not yet know whether behaving heroically actually increases ones mating success, which could be an avenue for future research.

A Bright Side of Sadness: The Depolarizing Role of Sadness in Intergroup Intractable Conflicts

A Bright Side of Sadness: The Depolarizing Role of Sadness in Intergroup Conflicts. Tamar Gur  Shahar Ayal  Eran Halperin. European Journal of Social Psychology, September 3 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2715

Abstract: Intractable conflicts constitute violent and threatening environments that lead to intense emotions and polarized attitudes. Sadness is one emotion frequently elicited by the price of such conflicts. This investigation characterized the effects of sadness on conflict‐related information processing and attitudes in the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict. Findings from four experimental studies suggest that both incidental and integral sadness can induce a depolarization of political attitudes. In Study 1 (N = 163), sadness reduced the effect of political ideology on conflict‐related decisions. Sadness reduced the effect of political ideology on ingroup bias in resource allocation in Studies 2 (N = 213) and 4 (N = 274), willingness to negotiate in Studies 1 and 3 (N = 174), and openness to information supporting the outgroup's perspective (Study 4). Overall, in addition to its more negative implications, these results suggest that sadness (compared to both the non‐emotional and anger conditions) may have a bright side, since it may induce depolarization of political attitudes in intractable conflicts.

Our findings lend partial support to the prediction that the quality of parenting in gay father families would be higher than in heterosexual parent families

Adoptive Gay Father Families: A Longitudinal Study of Children’s Adjustment at Early Adolescence. Anja L. McConnachie  Nadia Ayed  Sarah Foley  Michael E. Lamb  Vasanti Jadva  Fiona Tasker  Susan Golombok. Child Development, September 3 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13442

Abstract: Findings are presented from the second phase of a UK longitudinal study of 33 gay father, 35 lesbian mother, and 43 heterosexual parent families when their adopted children reached early adolescence. Participants predominantly lived in urban/suburban areas and were mostly white and well‐educated. Standardized interviews, observations, and questionnaires of parental mental health, parent–child relationships, and adolescent adjustment were administered to parents, children, and teachers between 2016 and 2018. There were few differences between family types. However, adjustment problems had increased in all family types, with better parenting quality and parental mental health associated with fewer adjustment problems. The findings contribute to adoption policy and practice, and to theoretical understanding of the role of parental gender in child development.

Discussion

Our findings lend partial support to the prediction that the quality of parenting in gay father families would be higher than in heterosexual parent families. The only variable that differed between the two family types was reciprocal interaction on the observational measure, with greater levels of reciprocity observed between gay fathers and their children than between heterosexual parents and their children. However, there were no differences between the gay father and heterosexual parent families for the other variables derived from the observational, interview or questionnaire assessment of parenting quality. Moreover, the hypothesis that gay fathers would show more positive mental health than heterosexual parents was not supported by the findings. As predicted, there were no significant differences between the gay father and lesbian mother families for any of the measures of parenting quality or parental mental health.

It seems, therefore, that gay fathers show a similar quality of parenting to both lesbian mothers and heterosexual parents when their adopted children reached adolescence. This finding is consistent with studies of adoptive gay father families with younger children (Farr, 2017; Farr & Patterson, 2013; Farr et al., 2010a, 2010b; Goldberg & Smith, 2013). Contrary to the view that fathers are less suited to child rearing than are mothers, the only difference in parenting that emerged reflected more positive parenting by gay fathers than by heterosexual parents. Thus, our findings suggest that gay father families continue to provide a positive family environment for their adopted children as they reach early adolescence.

With respect to adolescent adjustment, the hypothesis that adolescents in gay father families would show higher levels of adjustment than adolescents in heterosexual parent families was not supported; there were no differences in externalizing or internalizing problems as measured by the SDQ between adolescents in the two family types. In addition, the proportion of adolescents with total SDQ scores above the cut‐off for psychiatric disorder did not differ between the gay father and heterosexual parent families, irrespective of whether the questionnaire was completed by parents, teachers, or the adolescents themselves, although there was a nonsignificant trend toward a lower proportion of adolescents in the gay father than in the heterosexual parent families obtaining scores above the clinical cut‐off. There was also no difference between adolescents from gay father and heterosexual parent families in the child psychiatrist’s ratings of severity of psychiatric disorder. As expected, the gay father families did not differ from the lesbian mother families for any of the measures of adolescent adjustment.

A large number of adolescents in all family types showed evidence of psychiatric disorder. Around one‐third of children had parent‐rated SDQ scores above the clinical cut‐off point, a proportion that is approximately three times greater than the 10% who obtain SDQ scores in the clinical range according to UK general population norms (Goodman & Goodman, 2012). Moreover, 53.8% of the adolescents was rated as having a psychiatric disorder by a child psychiatrist who was unaware of their family background, and one‐third showed multiple disorders, which illustrates the complexity of adjustment problems that many of the adoptees were experiencing.

These findings are not surprising given the high rates of mental health problems shown by children adopted from the care system (Dozier, & Rutter, 2008; Pinderhughes & Brodzinksy, 2019). Although detailed information on the children’s preadoption histories was not available for the entire sample, the children had all been removed from their birth families because of maltreatment, including neglect, emotional or physical abuse, parental drug or alcohol misuse, and domestic violence, all of which are associated with adolescent mental health problems (Cicchetti & Toth, 2015).

As predicted, both externalizing and internalizing problems increased from Phase 1 to Phase 2 of the study in all family types. Whilst externalizing problems remained higher than internalizing problems at adolescence, which is consistent with the literature on the psychological adjustment of adopted children (Juffer & van IJzendoorn, 2005), there was a greater increase in internalizing than externalizing problems over time. These findings are consistent with Brodzinsky’s psychosocial theory of adjustment to adoption which predicts an increase in psychological difficulties among adopted children at adolescence (Brodzinsky, Radice, Huffman, & Merkler, 1987) and with previous research which has documented an increase in adopted children’s adjustment problems in middle childhood (Brodzinsky, 1993).

As adopted children develop, they become more aware of the complexities associated with adoption, often leading to confusion and uncertainty (Brodzinsky, 1987). Brodzinsky (1987) posits that children’s confusion represents the beginning of the adaptive grieving process, whereby children begin to process the loss of their birth families. Since loss typically involves shock, denial, protest, despair, and eventually recovery and reintegration, Brodzinsky (1987) suggests that the increase in adopted children’s behavior problems is often a reflection of the normal process of adaptive grieving. This adaptive grieving process extends into adolescence where adoptees do not only grieve their birth families, but also the part of themselves they feel is lost (Brodzinsky, 1987, 2011). Adoptees often lack knowledge about their birth family and the reasons for their relinquishment which can make it more difficult to form a complete sense of self. Moreover, for adoptees with adverse early life experiences, such as maltreatment and neglect, making sense of this information can be painful and difficult to integrate into their sense of self (Neil, 2000).

Regarding predictors of adolescent adjustment, we found that, over and above the stability in externalizing problems, lower levels of parental mental health problems at Phase 2, and higher levels of parenting quality at Phase 2, were associated with lower levels of adolescent externalizing problems. Additionally, over and above the stability in internalizing problems, lower levels of parental mental health problems at Phase 2 were associated with lower levels of adolescent internalizing problems. Thus, in line with developmental systems theory (Overton, 2015), parents who develop positive relationships with their children, and who themselves had low levels of mental health problems, were more likely to have adolescents with lower levels of psychological disorder. The cross‐sectional nature of this association precludes any conclusion about the direction of effects; the higher levels of problem behaviors in the children may have contributed toward poorer parental mental health. This finding is in line with the clinical and research literature on predictors of psychological problems in children adopted from the care system, which points to more positive outcomes for families in which adoptive parents are able to cope with their children’s difficult behavior, have realistic expectations of their children’s functioning and behavior, and show high levels of warmth and low levels of hostility toward their children (Ji et al., 2010; Rushton & Dance, 2006).

Parenting quality and parental mental health problems at Phase 1 were not predictive of externalizing and internalizing problems at adolescence. Nevertheless, the measures of positive parenting at Phase 1 and Phase 2 were correlated with each other, as were the measures of parental mental health, indicating that positive parenting and parental mental health problems when the children were young contributed indirectly to the associations between these variables and adolescent adjustment.

The study had a number of limitations. First, differences between family types may not have been detected due to the modest samples sizes. However, to the extent that significant differences between family types were not identified due to insufficient power, these differences would have been small. In addition, we found partial measurement invariance (i.e., configural and metric but not intercept invariance) for our latent factor of positive parenting as rated from the interview at each phase of the study. However, while the lack of strict factorial invariance limited our ability to examine changes in positive parenting over time, it should be noted that studies explicitly testing measurement invariance of parenting typically rely upon questionnaire ratings (Widaman, Ferrer, & Conger, 2010), and, consistent with our findings, those who have examined observational ratings have also demonstrated partial measurement invariance (e.g., Hughes, Lindberg, & Devine, 2018). Although the inter‐rater reliability of the parental responsiveness scale of the observational measure was low, rather than being unreliable in detecting low parental responsiveness, inspection of the data showed that this was due to ceiling effects in these highly functioning families, as most obtained scores at the top of the scale.

Advantages of the study include its longitudinal design, and the use of a multimethod (interview, observation, and questionnaire) and multi‐informant (both parents, child, teacher and child psychiatrist) approach. Because stigmatized groups such as gay fathers may tend to present their families in the best possible light, the use of an observational measure in which it is more difficult to “fake good” (Kerig & Lindahl, 2000), and the collection of data from teachers and the adolescents, provided validation for the parents’ reports, as did the ratings of children’s adjustment by an independent child psychiatrist. A further advantage is the use of analytical techniques that accounted for the lack of independence of data from family members.

Overall, the adolescents in the study showed high levels of adjustment difficulties, irrespective of whether they were being raised by gay fathers, lesbian mothers or heterosexual parents, and in all family types, higher levels of family functioning were associated with lower levels of adolescent adjustment difficulties. Taken together, these findings indicate that adoptive parents and children need to continue to receive support, especially from middle childhood to early adolescence, when identity issues and associated adjustment problems are likely to arise. Furthermore, the association between parent mental health and child adjustment indicates that adoptive parents would benefit from the availability of support services for their own mental health as well as their children’s adjustment problems. As parents and children exert reciprocal influences on each other, supporting adoptive parents’ mental health would be beneficial not only for adoptive parents, but also for adopted children. In line with the growing evidence that family processes are more influential in children’s psychological adjustment than family structure (Golombok, 2015; Lamb, 2012; Patterson, 2009), the findings show that men can be just as competent at parenting as women. Indeed, the only group difference in parenting quality identified between the gay father and heterosexual parent families, reflected more positive functioning in the gay father families. Given the large number of children in need of adoptive families, adoption agencies should give greater consideration to gay couples as prospective adoptive parents.

Is consciousness a continuous stream of percepts or is it discrete, occurring only at certain moments in time? We favor a two-stage discrete model, in which substantial periods of continuous unconscious processing precede discrete conscious percepts

All in Good Time: Long-Lasting Postdictive Effects Reveal Discrete Perception. Michael H. Herzog, Leila Drissi-Daoudi, Adrien Doerig. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, September 3 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.07.001

Highlights
. Conscious perception seems to be a continuous stream of percepts. Is this true? Recent research sheds new light on this age-old debate.
. In long-lasting postdictive effects, later events can determine the perception of events that occurred several hundreds of milliseconds earlier.
. Long-lasting postdiction requires high capacity buffers, which store information unconsciously for substantial periods of time. This favors a two-stage model, in which continuous unconscious processing precedes discrete conscious percepts.
. Such a two-stage model solves the problems of both traditional continuous and discrete models.

Abstract: Is consciousness a continuous stream of percepts or is it discrete, occurring only at certain moments in time? This question has puzzled philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists for centuries. Both hypotheses have fallen repeatedly in and out of favor. Here, we review recent studies exploring long-lasting postdictive effects and show that the results favor a two-stage discrete model, in which substantial periods of continuous unconscious processing precede discrete conscious percepts. We propose that such a model marries the advantages of both continuous and discrete models and resolves centuries old debates about perception and consciousness.

Keywords: consciousnessdiscrete versus continuous perceptiontwo-stage modelspostdictionvisual processing