In this population-based cohort study of 2583 children with neuroimaging data, smaller hippocampal volumes were found in preadolescents exposed to prenatal maternal-reported poor family functioning

Association of Poor Family Functioning From Pregnancy Onward With Preadolescent Behavior and Subcortical Brain Development. Yllza Xerxa et al. JAMA Psychiatry, September 16, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.2862

Key Points
Question  To what extent is the persistent association of poor prenatal family functioning with preadolescent problem behavior mediated by subcortical brain development?

Findings  In this population-based cohort study of 2583 children with neuroimaging data, smaller hippocampal volumes were found in preadolescents exposed to prenatal maternal-reported poor family functioning. Smaller hippocampal volumes partially mediated the association of prenatal maternal-reported poor family functioning with preadolescent problem behavior.

Meaning  Subcortical brain characteristics found after more than 10 years of follow-up may help clinicians understand why poor family functioning is associated with child neurodevelopment and well-being.

Abstract
Importance  The association of poor family functioning, a potent stressor, with child behavior is potentially long term and relevant for a person’s well-being later in life. Whether changes in brain development underlie the associations with preadolescent behavior and help identify periods of vulnerability is unclear.

Objective  To assess the associations of poor family functioning from pregnancy onward with cortical, white matter, and subcortical volumes, and to examine the extent to which, in particular, hippocampal volume mediates the association of prenatal parental environmental exposures with child problem behavior in preadolescence.

Design, Setting, and Participants  This population-based cohort study, conducted from April 2002 to January 2006, was embedded in Generation R, a multiethnic population-based cohort from fetal life onward. All pregnant women living in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with an expected delivery date between April 2002 and January 2006 were invited to participate. Of the 8879 pregnant women enrolled during pregnancy, 1266 mothers with no partner data and 490 with missing family functioning data were excluded, as well as 1 sibling of 32 twin pairs. After excluding an additional 657 children with poor imaging data quality or incidental findings, the final sample consisted of 2583 mother-child pairs. Data analysis was performed from March 1, 2019, to June 28, 2019.

Exposures  Mother- and father-rated poor family functioning was repeatedly measured by the General Functioning subscale of the Family Assessment Device.

Main Outcomes and Measures  Our primary hypothesis, formulated after data collection but before analysis, was that poor prenatal family functioning would be associated with smaller hippocampal and amygdala volumes in late childhood. High-resolution structural neuroimaging data of children aged 10 years were collected with a single 3-T magnetic resonance imaging system. Child emotional and behavioral problems were assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist.

Results  Data were available for 2583 children (mean [SD] age, 10.1 [0.6] years; 1315 girls [50.9%]). Data for parents included 2583 mothers (mean [SD] age, 31.1 [4.7] years; 1617 Dutch race/ethnicity [62.6%]) and 1788 fathers (mean [SD] age, 33.5 [5.3] years; 1239 Dutch race/ethnicity [69.3%]). Children exposed to prenatal maternal-reported poor family functioning had smaller hippocampal (B = −0.08; 95% CI, −0.13 to −0.02) and occipital lobe (B = −0.70; 95% CI, −1.19 to −0.21) volumes in preadolescence. There was no evidence for an association of exposure to poor family functioning at mid- or late childhood with brain morphology. Hippocampal volumes partially mediated the association of prenatal maternal-reported poor family functioning with preadolescent problem behavior (B = 0.08; 95% CI, 0.03-0.13), even after adjusting for prior child problems at age 1.5 years. Analyses of combined maternal and paternal family functioning ratings showed similar results, but associations were largely driven by maternal family functioning reports.

Conclusions and Relevance  In this population-based cohort study, prenatal maternal-reported poor family functioning was associated with a smaller hippocampus in preadolescents. This difference in brain structure may underlie behavioral problems and is a possible neurodevelopmental manifestation of the long-term consequences of poor family functioning for the child.

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Discussion

This cohort study of children from fetal life onward suggests that poor maternal-reported prenatal family functioning is associated with brain development in late childhood. In particular, we observed smaller hippocampal volumes in children exposed to poor family functioning occurring prenatally but not in mid- or late childhood. The association remained when we accounted for parental psychopathology and harsh parenting, indicating a unique association of poor prenatal family functioning with differences in preadolescent brain development. The contribution of prenatal maternal-reported poor family functioning to preadolescent problem behavior was partially mediated by hippocampal volumes. Interestingly, prenatal maternal-reported poor family functioning was associated with smaller occipital lobe volumes. Associations between poor family functioning and brain outcomes did not differ by child sex.

The vulnerability of the hippocampus to prenatal family functioning is consistent with previous studies reporting that the hippocampus matures rapidly and is functional very early in childhood.^41,42 That the association between poor family functioning and hippocampal volumes was observed only from prenatal maternal-reported family functioning and not from mid- or late-childhood family functioning may reflect a sensitive period, which occurs early in life.⁴³ Other research supports this inference. For example, higher levels of early-life maternal support have been linked to increased volume of the hippocampus.^44,45 Our key finding, namely the interaction of poor family functioning with child age, suggests that pregnancy is a vulnerable period when development in response to parental care disruptions is maximally dynamic.⁴⁶

In contrast to our hypothesis, we were not able to demonstrate an association between poor family functioning and amygdala volumes. The lack of a discernible sensitive period to family functioning for amygdala development is consistent with previous studies of children exposed to adversity, which have found no difference in amygdala volume in adults.⁴⁷

The present findings provide evidence for a smaller occipital lobe in children exposed to prenatal maternal-reported poor family functioning. This observation, which was not expected a priori, should be interpreted with caution until it is replicated. However, the face-processing systems relating to occipital regions, in particular the lateral occipital lobe, were found to be particularly vulnerable to early-life adversities.^48-50

Furthermore, we found that the association between prenatal maternal-reported poor family functioning and preadolescent problem behavior was partially mediated by hippocampal volumes. This may suggest that brain morphologic changes precede or may even contribute to behavioral changes. Our results are consistent with the extant literature, showing that smaller hippocampal volumes partially mediated the contribution of early-life stress to higher levels of behavioral problems.²¹ However, it is likely that the associations in the mediation model are more complex, and they may well be bidirectional. A sample with multiple repeated measures of imaging data starting early in childhood would be necessary to test the directionality between behavior and brain development. Indeed, a twin study in veterans with PTSD showed that a smaller hippocampus may reflect a preexisting vulnerability to stress and thus reverse causality.²⁰ Alternatively, the difference in hippocampal volume could be explained by genetic variation. Recently, a genome-wide association meta-analysis identified a few genetic loci associated with hippocampal volume,⁵¹ which could be (indirectly) associated with poor family functioning.

In addition, associations between paternal-reported family functioning and brain structural measures did not remain after adjustment for sociodemographic factors and paternal psychopathology. Although prenatal parental family functioning factors reflect a common variance across mother- and father-reported family functioning, their association with brain structural measures was largely driven by the maternal report. Thus, the clear association found using maternal-reported functioning during pregnancy suggests that direct maternal physiological changes may underlie the findings. This is consistent with the developmental origins hypothesis that the prenatal or early postnatal environment can be associated with negative health outcomes later in life. Maternal psychological distress may lead to a suboptimal intrauterine environment with long-term consequences for the growth and health of the child.^52-54 Intrauterine stress exposure may affect child development via dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, but it may also affect brain development through inflammatory responses and changes in the balance of the autonomic nervous system.⁵⁵ Another potential mechanism is dietary behavior and poor nutrition by which a variation in maternal nutrition (either a surplus or paucity of maternal nutrition) plays multiple roles in the health outcomes of children.⁵⁶ However, postnatal experiences cannot be ruled out as a mechanism underlying our findings, because the prenatal period could be a marker of exposures in the early postnatal period, such as poor parenting.⁵⁷ Thus, children of parents with poor family functioning may be more likely to experience a less optimal environment, which underlies the relation with brain developmental differences.

Parental psychopathology remains another important mechanism potentially underlying our observations. However, when we adjusted for parental psychopathology, we found that the association between poor prenatal family functioning and hippocampal volumes was, if anything, stronger. Thus, our results suggest that poor family functioning and parental psychopathology are closely associated and may predispose each other,¹³ but higher levels of parental psychopathology did not account for the association of poor family functioning with hippocampal volume.

Limitations and Strengths

The current study has several limitations. First, this study has a population-based design, but the relative homogeneity of the population limits its generalizability. Second, we found an association between poor prenatal family functioning and preadolescent brain morphology among children aged 10 years. Although we assessed prenatal family functioning, we cannot establish whether these associations result from strictly prenatal exposures or whether our measure indexes childhood exposure during the period up to age 6 years when parents were reassessed. Third, because poor family functioning was associated with brain findings in children aged 10 years, it is possible that the associations of family functioning reported prenatally had their effects in utero. However, because no scans were obtained before age 10, this cannot be determined. Furthermore, we were unable to examine whether the parental hippocampus is a marker of vulnerability that increases the likelihood of poor family adjustment and whether this propensity is transmitted genetically to the children. Strengths of the present study are the large number of participants and broad spectrum of measured covariates, which enabled us to adjust for multiple confounders. Because of our longitudinal design, we were able to look at possible sensitive periods by leveraging baseline and repeated assessments of poor family functioning reported by both mothers and fathers.

But it is no longer reasonable, contra some predictions, to expect that advances in human genomics will reveal that the heritability of psychological phenotypes is entirely illusory

“Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated”: Behavior Genetics in the Postgenomic Era. K. Paige Harden. Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 72, January 2021, online September 8, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-052220-103822

Abstract: Behavior genetics studies how genetic differences among people contribute to differences in their psychology and behavior. Here, I describe how the conclusions and methods of behavior genetics have evolved in the postgenomic era in which the human genome can be directly measured. First, I revisit the first law of behavioral genetics stating that everything is heritable, and I describe results from large-scale meta-analyses of twin data and new methods for estimating heritability using measured DNA. Second, I describe new methods in statistical genetics, including genome-wide association studies and polygenic score analyses. Third, I describe the next generation of work on gene environment interaction, with a particular focus on how genetic influences vary across sociopolitical contexts and exogenous environments. Genomic technology has ushered in a golden age of new tools to address enduring questions about how genes and environments combine to create unique human lives.

Keywords: behavior genetics, twin studies, heritability, gene–environment interaction,
genome-wide association study, polygenic scores

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An early study using a DNA-based method estimated the heritability of height to be ∼80%,and it noted that this result was “consistent with results from independent twin and family studies but using an entirely separate source of information” (Visscher et al. 2006). However, although the results from DNA-based method of estimating heritability scale with the estimates from twin and family studies, the former are typically smaller (Young et al. 2019). This discrepancy between heritability as estimated from classical twin and family studies and heritability as accounted for by measured DNA was labeled the missing heritability problem (Manolio et al. 2009). Recent work has suggested that some of the missing heritability is actually “hiding” in rare variants that are not typically measured and in the heterogeneity of genetic effects across populations (Tropfet al. 2017, Wainschtein et al. 2019, Young 2019). Whether missing or hiding, the continued gap between DNA-based estimates of heritability and estimates from twin/family studies means that the latter might still be overestimating heritability due to faulty assumptions. But it is no longer reasonable, contra some predictions, to expect that advances in human genomics will reveal that the heritability of psychological phenotypes is entirely illusory.

[...]

In contrast to what is seen for educational attainment, most studies find a minimal effect of shared environmental factors on cognitive abilities, particularly when measured in adulthood. It has been suggested,however,that this near-zero main effect of the family-level environment masks the heterogeneity of the effects of the shared environment across the SES spectrum.An early paper by Turkheimer et al. (2003) analyzed data from a sample of twins with an unusual overrepresentation of children in poverty and found substantial effects of the shared environment on cognitive ability at age 7. Subsequent research on the genotype×SES interaction effect yielded mixed results, with several studies finding null effects or even effects in the opposite direction. However, a meta-analysis of this literature (Tucker-Drob & Bates 2016) found evidence of a significant interaction effect (albeit with a smaller effect size than estimated by Turkheimer and colleagues, an example of the winner’s curse), particularly in the United States.

The importance of the shared environment for cognitive ability has also been demonstrated using adoption studies. In particular, population-wide data from Sweden allowed researchers to estimate the impact of the family environment using a unique sample of male-male sibling pairs where one brother was adopted while the other brother was raised by his biological parents (Kendler et al.2015). The IQ score of the adopted brother was, on average, ∼4 points higher, an increase that varied with the education level of the adopting parents.

COVID-19: Openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism all predicted higher rates of sheltering-in-place, whereas extraversion was negatively related to staying at home

Götz, Friedrich M., Andrés Gvirtz, adam galinsky, and Jon Jachimowicz. 2020. “How Personality and Policy Predict Pandemic Behavior: Understanding Sheltering-in-place in 55 Countries at the Onset of COVID-19.” PsyArXiv. September 10. doi:10.1037/amp0000740

Abstract: The spread of COVID-19 within any given country or community at the onset of the pandemic depended in part on the sheltering-in-place rate of its citizens. The pandemic led us to revisit one of psychology’s most fundamental and most basic questions in a high-stakes context: What determines human behavior? Adopting a Lewinian interactionist lens, we investigate the independent and joint effects of macro-level government policies and micro-level psychological factors—i.e., personality—on whether individuals sheltered-in-place. We analyzed data collected in late March and early April 2020 from 101,005 participants in 55 countries, a time period that coincided with the early and accelerating stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. This time period also contained substantial variation in the stringency of governmental policy towards sheltering-in-place, both between countries and within each country over time. Analyses revealed that personality and the stringency of governmental policies independently predicted sheltering-in-place rates. Policy stringency was positively related to sheltering-in-place. For the personality dimensions, openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism all predicted higher rates of sheltering-in-place, whereas extraversion was negatively related to staying at home. In addition, two personality traits—openness to experience and neuroticism—interacted with governmental policy to predict whether individuals sheltered-in-place; openness and neuroticism each had weaker effects on sheltering-in-place as governmental policies became stricter. Theoretically, the findings demonstrate that individual differences predict behavior (i.e., sheltering-in-place) even when governments take strong action targeting that behavior. Practically, they suggest that even if governments lift their shelter-in-place restrictions, some individuals will shelter-in-place less than others.

Men have an advantage in concurrent multitasking, and that may be a result of the individual differences in cognitive abilities

Gender Differences in Multitasking Experience and Performance. Kelvin F. H. Lui, Ken H. M. Yip, Alan C.-N. Wong. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, September 16, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021820960707

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1306478689375248385

Abstract: There is a widespread stereotype that women are better at multitasking. Previous studies examining gender difference in multitasking used either a concurrent or sequential multitasking paradigm and offered mixed results. The present study examined a possibility that men were better at concurrent multitasking while women were better at task switching. In addition, men and women were also compared in terms of multitasking experience, measured by a computer monitoring software, a self-reported Media Use Questionnaire, a lab task switching paradigm, and a self-reported Multitasking Prevalence Inventory. Results showed a smaller concurrent multitasking (dual-task) cost for men than women and no gender difference in sequential multitasking (task switching) cost. Men had more experience in multitasking involving video games while women were more experienced in multitasking involving music, instant messaging, and web surfing. The gender difference in dual-task performance, however, was not mediated by the gender differences in multitasking experience but completely explained by difference in the processing speed. The findings suggest that men have an advantage in concurrent multitasking, and that may be a result of the individual differences in cognitive abilities.

Keywords gender difference, multitasking, dual-task performance, task switching, experience

Check also Moderate amounts of media multitasking are associated with optimal task performance and minimal mind wandering. Myoungju Shin, Astrid Linke, Eva Kemps. Computers in Human. Behavior, Volume 111, October 2020, 106422. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/05/moderate-amounts-of-media-multitasking.html

Anger increases susceptibility to misinformation: Anger did not affect either recognition or source accuracy for true details about the initial event, but suggestibility for false details increased with anger

Greenstein, M., & Franklin, N. (2020). Anger increases susceptibility to misinformation. Experimental Psychology, 67(3), 202–209. https://doi.org/10.1027/1618-3169/a000489

Abstract: The effect of anger on acceptance of false details was examined using a three-phase misinformation paradigm. Participants viewed an event, were presented with schema-consistent and schema-irrelevant misinformation about it, and were given a surprise source monitoring test to examine the acceptance of the suggested material. Between each phase of the experiment, they performed a task that either induced anger or maintained a neutral mood. Participants showed greater susceptibility to schema-consistent than schema-irrelevant misinformation. Anger did not affect either recognition or source accuracy for true details about the initial event, but suggestibility for false details increased with anger. In spite of this increase in source errors (i.e., misinformation acceptance), both confidence in the accuracy of source attributions and decision speed for incorrect judgments also increased with anger. Implications are discussed with respect to both the general effects of anger and real-world applications such as eyewitness memory.

Discussion

Anger is an approach-oriented emotion adapted to guide
behavior under circumstances that involve time pressure
and consequences for safety. Because rapid cognition and
disinhibition would support effective action under these
circumstances, we made three predictions for how anger
would impact outcomes in a misinformation paradigm as
follows:
1. Reduced skepticism would increase susceptibility to postevent misinformation.
2. Disinhibition would be manifested as increased confidence.
3. More streamlined cognition would lead to faster responding.

We found evidence for all three of these outcomes.
When time is of the essence, there is value in suppressing
self-doubt to act quickly and decisively. While the experiment
did not call for urgent action, the cognitive adaptations
associated with anger should, as observed,
impact cognition pervasively, suggesting that these findings
reflect a broad cognitive style associated with anger.
Furthermore, anger increased suggestibility for schemairrelevant
and schema-consistent details, demonstrating
its broad impact on cognition.
Interestingly, anger did not seem to impair memory for
events that actually did occur as it affected neither recognition
memory nor source accuracy for details actually
present in the original event. Instead, anger impaired the
ability to dismiss errors that were subsequently suggested.
This is consistent with the characterization of anger as
streamlining cognition in support of action rather than
additional reflection. Coupled with the observed rapid and
confident memory decisions, this points to a constellation
of risks associated with anger’s impact on memory.
Because anger affected confidence and accuracy in
opposite directions, it affected the confidence–accuracy
relationship. The two are traditionally moderately correlated,
as observed in the neutral condition. Anger, however,
led to the opposite pattern where increased
confidence was associated with decreased accuracy. To
the extent that people use expressed confidence to judge
the reliability of other people’s memory (Wells et al., 1979),
this may be problematic. Because anger did not impair
participants’ source accuracy for events that actually had
occurred in the Film, outside observers with corroborating
evidence of those film details would have a basis for accepting
the participants’ confident additional claims. This
is precisely the sort of situation that jurors are exposed to
in a courtroom.
The current work has clear implications for witness
memory. Crimes can induce anger (Matsumoto & Hwang,
2015) and are associated with a risk of highly consequential
memory impairment (Deffenbacher et al., 2004).
Following an incident, witness memory is subject to
postevent input, such as cowitness accounts or leading
questions, which can distort memory (e.g., Roediger et al.,
2001; Wade et al., 2002). With each discussion or interview
comes renewed opportunity for misinformation effects,
which our results suggest will disproportionately
impact angry witnesses. To the extent that an angry witness
becomes more prone to errors of action (incorporating
postevent information into memory) rather than
inaction (rejecting new information), their memory reports
may become particularly unreliable.
Indeed, for at least three reasons, the observed effects
may underpredict those that would occur following a
crime. First, criminal cases may involve more repetition of
and elaboration upon postevent misinformation than occurred
in this experiment. For instance, criminal cases that
lead to prosecution generally involve multiple interviews
of the same eyewitness (e.g., by police officers, detectives,
and prosecutors). Separate from these, witnesses often
also relate details of the incident to cowitnesses, family,
and friends and potentially receive incorrectly suggested
details from these sources as well. Second, the anger
experienced in a criminal case is likely directed at the
source of the memory (the perpetrator) rather than at an
incidental target (the experimenter). Although this work
demonstrates that anger affects processing of content
unrelated to the source of the anger, it is possible that the
effects increase for related content. Third, the anger experienced
by many victims and witnesses would likely
exceed that of our laboratory participants. Inasmuch as the
degree of anger that affects the tendency to fall prey to
these biases, the potentially angrier victims and other
witnesses may be impacted more than our participants
were. It is also possible for the above factors to interact
with one another, further increasing risk in real-world
situations.
With regard to schematicity, participants in both
emotion induction conditions accepted more schemaconsistent
than schema-irrelevant misinformation. The
streamlined cognitive processing style associated with
anger did not increase preexisting tendencies to incorporate
this type of information into memory (Kleider
et al., 2008), although this may also reflect the high
plausibility of both schematic and schema-irrelevant
items. While this work intentionally sought to use only
highly plausible misinformation, future research should
continue to explore this question using less plausible
misinformation.
The current findings, coupled with the frequency with
which anger is experienced (Matsumoto & Hwang, 2015),
call for a greater understanding of its effects on memory.
Much is already known about memory’s vulnerability to
misinformation, and the current work finds that anger can
increase the frequency of these errors as well as one’s
confidence in them. Applied to criminal contexts, a richly
detailed witness report, combined with high confidence in
the associated memory, can contribute to heightened
perception of credibility in the eyes of cowitnesses, investigators,
judges, and jurors (Wells et al., 1979). Thus,
the dangers of anger, particularly in the justice system,
where the errors have real consequences, appear to be
more serious than previously understood.

Replication and Extension of Alicke (1985) Better-Than-Average Effect for Desirable and Controllable Traits

Replication and Extension of Alicke (1985) Better-Than-Average Effect for Desirable and Controllable Traits. Ignazio Ziano, Pui Yan (Cora) Mok, Gilad Feldman. Social Psychological and Personality Science, September 16, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620948973

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1306294580925607937

Abstract: People tend to regard themselves as better than average. We conducted a replication and extension of Alicke’s classic study on trait dimensions in evaluations of self versus others with U.S. American Mechanical Turk workers in two waves (total N = 1,573; 149 total traits). We successfully replicated the trait desirability effect, such that participants rated more desirable traits as being more descriptive of themselves than of others (original: η2p = .78, 95% confidence interval [CI] [.73, .81]; replication: sr 2 = .54, 95% CI [.43, .65]). The effect of desirability was stronger for more controllable traits (effect of Desirability × Controllability interaction on self–other-ratings difference; original: η2p = .21, 95% CI [.12, .28]; replication: sr 2 = .07, 95% CI [.02, .12]). In an extension, we found that desirable traits were rated as more common for others, but not for the self. Thirty-five years later, the better-than-average effect appears to remain robust. All materials, data, and code are available at https://osf.io/2y6wj/.

Keywords: better-than-average effect, self-evaluation, comparative judgment, replication

Mortality risk halves during the period of incarceration, with large declines in murders, overdoses, and better diet

Norris, Samuel and Pecenco, Matthew and Weaver, Jeffrey, The Effect of Incarceration on Mortality (July 2, 2020). SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3644719

Abstract: This paper analyzes the effect of incarceration on mortality using administrative data from Ohio between 1992 and 2017. Using event study and difference-in-differences approaches, we compare mortality risk across incarcerated and non-incarcerated individuals before and after pre-scheduled releases from prison. Mortality risk halves during the period of incarceration, with large declines in murders, overdoses, and medical causes of death. However, there is no detectable effect on post-release mortality risk, meaning that incarceration increases overall longevity. We estimate that incarceration averts nearly two thousand deaths annually in the US, comparable to the 2014 Medicaid expansion.

Keywords: Incarceration, health, mortality, crime

2.2 Direct effects of incarceration on mortality

The first column of Panel A of Table 1 estimates the DiD specification from Equation 3 on

mortality risk, measured in deaths per hundred thousand individuals annually. The coefficient

on “Incarcerated in quarter,” corresponding to β in the previous section, measures the direct

effect of incarceration. We estimate that incarceration reduces mortality risk by 365 deaths per

hundred thousand (p < 0.001) relative to the post-release mean of 622.4. This is a nearly sixty

percent reduction in mortality risk and is approximately equal to the difference in mortality

between smokers and non-smokers aged 45-54 (Banks et al., 2015).

We use detailed cause of death information to understand the factors underlying this effect.

The most common non-medical cause of death in our sample is overdose (29% of post-release

deaths), which approximately halves during the period of incarceration, declining by 99.8

deaths per hundred thousand (column 2).10 This reduction may reflect addiction treatment

or more difficulty obtaining narcotics while incarcerated.11

Contrary to popular portrayals of correctional facilities, murder and suicide are greatly

reduced during the period of incarceration, though not completely eliminated (columns 3 and

6).12 Murder is particularly important since it is the third most common risk-factor in this

sample (19.4% of deaths post-release), highlighting the dangerous environment faced by the

criminally-involved outside of correctional facilities. The presence of correctional officers and

lack of access to firearms while incarcerated both likely play a significant role; firearms are

involved in 85% of homicides and 38% of suicides in our sample.

Inmates are constitutionally guaranteed medical care, and there may be changes to diet

or lifestyle that affect mortality risk. We find a large reduction in deaths (55 per hundred

thousand) due to medical causes during the period of incarceration (column (4) of Table 1).

Panel B of Table 1 finds the gains mostly come from reductions in heart disease, infection, and

non-classified causes. Even if the quality of prison medical care is suboptimal, many inmates

receive better care than they would otherwise. For example, 79.9% of inmates with persistent

medical problems reported being examined by a medical professional upon intake and twice

as many inmates with serious mental health conditions receive psychiatric medication during

incarceration as compared to prior to arrest (Wilper et al., 2009).

In summary, we find that incarceration dramatically reduces mortality.

We were more likely to later claim that we knew the answers all along after having the opportunity to cheat to find the correct answers – relative to exposure to the correct answers without the opportunity to cheat

Cheaters claim they knew the answers all along. Matthew L. Stanley, Alexandria R. Stone & Elizabeth J. Marsh. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (2020). Sep 15 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-020-01812-w

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1306097666816909312

Abstract: Cheating has become commonplace in academia and beyond. Yet, almost everyone views themselves favorably, believing that they are honest, trustworthy, and of high integrity. We investigate one possible explanation for this apparent discrepancy between people’s actions and their favorable self-concepts: People who cheat on tests believe that they knew the answers all along. We found consistent correlational evidence across three studies that, for those particular cases in which participants likely cheated, they were more likely to report that they knew the answers all along. Experimentally, we then found that participants were more likely to later claim that they knew the answers all along after having the opportunity to cheat to find the correct answers – relative to exposure to the correct answers without the opportunity to cheat. These findings provide new insights into relationships between memory, metacognition, and the self-concept.

Exposure to a seemingly unhealthy consumer increases others' visual attention towards products perceived to be healthy; effect was stronger for products that managed to convey the impression of being healthy

Cereal Deal: How the Physical Appearance of Others Affects Attention to Healthy Foods. Tobias Otterbring, Kerstin Gidlöf, Kristian Rolschau & Poja Shams. Perspectives on Behavior Science volume 43, pages451–468(2020). Feb 19 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40614-020-00242-2

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1305871898107142147

Abstract: This eye-tracking study investigated whether the physical appearance of another consumer can influence people’s visual attention and choice behavior in a grocery shopping context. Participants (N = 96) took part in a lab-based experiment and watched a brief video recording featuring a female consumer standing in front of a supermarket shelf. The appearance and body type of the consumer was manipulated between conditions, such that she was perceived as 1) healthy and of normal weight, 2) unhealthy by means of overweight, or 3) unhealthy through visual signs associated with a potentially unhealthy lifestyle, but not by means of overweight. Next, participants were exposed to a supermarket shelf with cereals and were asked to choose one alternative they could consider buying. Prior exposure to a seemingly unhealthy (vs. healthy) consumer resulted in a relative increase in participants’ visual attention towards products perceived to be healthy (vs. unhealthy), which prompted cereal choices deemed to be healthier. This effect was stronger for products that holistically, through their design features, managed to convey the impression that they are healthy rather than products with explicit cues linked to healthiness (i.e., the keyhole label). These results offer important implications regarding packaging design for marketers, brand owners, and policy makers. Moreover, the findings highlight the value of technological tools, such as eye-tracking methodology, for capturing consumers’ entire decision-making processes instead of focusing solely on outcome-based metrics, such as choice data or purchase behavior.

Bias Blind Spot (BBS) is the phenomenon that people tend to perceive themselves as less ‎susceptible to biases than others; these authors could replicate the original findings

Free-will and self-other asymmetries in perceived bias and shortcomings: Replications of the Bias Blind Spot and extensions linking to free will beliefs. Prasad Chandrashekar et al. April 2020. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19878.16961/2

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1305866994122731520

Description: Bias Blind Spot (BBS) is the phenomenon that people tend to perceive themselves as less ‎susceptible to biases than others. In three pre-registered experiments (overall N = 969), we ‎replicated two experiments of the first demonstration of the phenomenon by Pronin, Lin, and ‎Ross (2002). We found support of the BBS hypotheses, with effects in line with findings in the ‎original study: Participants rated themselves as less susceptible to biases than others (d = -1.00 ‎‎[-1.33, -0.67]) and as having fewer shortcomings (d = - 0.34 [-0.46, -0.23] with differences ‎between effects: d = -0.43 [-0.56, -0.29]). Extending the replications, we found that beliefs in ‎own free will were positively associated with BBS (r ~ 0.17-0.22) and that beliefs in both self ‎and general free will were positively associated with self-other asymmetry related to personal ‎shortcomings (r ~ 0.16-0.24). Materials, datasets, and code are available on https://osf.io/3df5s/

Relationship satisfaction mediates the association between perceived partner mate retention strategies and relationship commitment

Relationship satisfaction mediates the association between perceived partner mate retention strategies and relationship commitment. Bruna Nascimento & Anthony Little. Current Psychology (2020). Sep 12 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-020-01045-z

Abstract: This study investigated whether relationship satisfaction mediates the association between own and perceived partner mate-retention strategies and commitment. One hundred and fifty individuals (Mage = 23.87, SDage = 7.28; 78.7% women) in a committed relationship participated in this study. We found an association between perceived partner mate-retention strategies and commitment and that relationship satisfaction mediated this link. Similarly, we found that relationship satisfaction also mediated the association between individuals’ own cost-inflicting strategies and commitment. Specifically, perceived partner benefit-provisioning strategies are positively associated with commitment through increased relationship satisfaction and, conversely, both perceived partner and own cost-inflicting strategies are negatively associated with commitment through decreased relationship satisfaction. Additionally, we observed that relationship satisfaction moderated the association between perceived partner cost-inflicting strategies and participants’ own frequency of cost-inflicting strategies. That is, participants’ cost inflicting strategies are associated with their partner’s cost inflicting strategies, such that this association is stronger among individuals with higher relationship satisfaction. The current research extends previous findings by demonstrating that the association between perceived partner and own mate-retention strategies and commitment is mediated by relationship satisfaction. Additionally, we showed that an individual’s expression of mate retention is associated with their perception of the strategies displayed by their partner, which also depends on relationship satisfaction.

Discussion

This study examined the association between own and perceived partner mate retention, relationship satisfaction, and commitment. Based on the Investment Model (Rusbult 1983) and on the game-theoretic model (Conroy-Beam et al. 2015) and on previous literature (Shackelford and Buss 2000; Dainton 2015), we tested four hypotheses in this study. We anticipated that perceived partner mate-retention strategies were associated with commitment (Hypothesis 1a) and that relationship satisfaction would mediate this association (Hypothesis 1b). Similarly, we anticipated that relationship satisfaction would mediate the association between own mate retention and commitment (Hypothesis 2). We also predicted that relationship satisfaction would moderate the association between perceived partner mate-retention strategies and an individual’s own mate-retention strategies (Hypothesis 3).

Consistent with the first two Hypotheses, perceived partner mate-retention strategies were associated with individual’s commitment to the relationship (Hypothesis 1a), and relationship satisfaction mediated this association (Hypothesis 1b) as suggested by a previous study (Dainton 2015). Consistent with previous literature (Albert and Arnocky 2016; Shackelford and Buss 2000), our study found that benefit-provisioning strategies, such as appearance enhancement and expression of affection, enhance commitment to the relationship by improving relationship satisfaction. In contrast, cost-inflicting strategies, which include monopolising the partner’s time and violence and threats directed to rivals, are detrimental to relationship satisfaction, which in turn, reduces commitment (Dandurand and Lafontaine 2014).

Similarly, we found that relationship satisfaction mediates the association between individuals’ own mate-retention strategies and commitment, but only for cost-inflicting strategies (Hypothesis 2). As suggested by previous literature, we found that individuals who display positive inducements more often tend to be more committed to their relationships (Buss et al. 2008; Dainton 2015), but this association was not explained by relationship satisfaction. On the other hand, our results suggest that individuals who engage in cost-inflicting strategies more frequently tend to experience lower relationship satisfaction, which is in turn associated with lower committed to the relationship (Miguel and Buss 2010). These findings reinforce the idea that cost-inflicting strategies, either performed by the individual or the partner are linked to poorer relationship satisfaction and low commitment.

As demonstrated in this study and supported by previous research, because relationship satisfaction and commitment are strong predictors of relationship dissolution (Le et al. 2010; Rhoades et al. 2010), these findings suggest that the usage of cost-inflicting strategies may negatively influence an individual’s likelihood to stay in the relationship. Although such strategies may be useful to some extent to keep mate poachers away, for example, they may have a negative influence on the quality of the relationship, and if used too often, they may lead to relationship dissolution. On the other hand, benefit-provisioning strategies seem to be the most useful strategies to preserve a relationship by maintaining higher relationship quality, which is associated with increased commitment to the relationship.

In the current study, relationship satisfaction was also associated with individuals’ own reporting of mate-retention strategies. Specifically, those individuals who are satisfied with their relationships tend to engage more often in benefit-provisioning strategies. On the other hand, lower relationship satisfaction is associated with higher frequency of cost-inflicting strategies. These findings are consistent with evolutionary theory, supporting the idea that relationship satisfaction works as a monitor of relationship quality (Conroy-Beam et al. 2015). As shown here, individuals who are happy in their relationships are more committed to the relationship and tend to engage more often in positive mate-retention strategies.

To test our third hypothesis, we examined whether relationship satisfaction moderates the relation between participants’ reporting of their partners’ mate-retention strategies and their own use of mate retention. We found that when individuals perceive their partners to engage more often in benefit-provisioning strategies, they tended to respond by engaging in similar positive strategies too. However, this association does not vary according to the level of relationship satisfaction. Thus, regardless of how happy individuals are with their relationships, if their partners treat them well, they will reciprocate, consistent with previous findings (Shackelford et al. 2005; Welling et al. 2012). It may also be the case that, consistent with homogamy, individuals tend to mate with individuals that perform similar mate-retention strategies to theirs.

Similarly, those participants who perceived their partners to conceal them and monopolise their time, for example, were more likely to engage in such cost-inflicting strategies themselves. However, relationship satisfaction altered this association, such that this association was stronger among individuals with higher relationship satisfaction. Thus, if individuals perceive that their partners are investing more in the relationship even if they do this by using cost-inflicting strategies, they tend to respond in a similar way by increasing their mate-retention efforts, especially if they perceive the quality of the relationship to be high. These findings also give partial support to the assumption that relationship satisfaction monitors relationship quality and as such, results in higher investment in the relationship (Conroy-Beam et al. 2016; Shackelford and Buss 1997). Therefore, Hypothesis 3 was confirmed only for cost-inflicting strategies, but not for benefit-provisioning strategies.

One limitation of this study is that the sex-imbalanced sample that did not allow for comparisons across sexes. Future research could investigate how the patterns found here vary across sexes because men and women use mate-retention strategies differently, such that men tend to engage more often in strategies such as resource display than women do, whereas women tend to engage more often in strategies such as appearance enhancement in comparison to men (Albert and Arnocky 2016). A second limitation is the non-probability and convenience nature (i.e., non-random internet recruitment so participants are self-selected) of the sample, which can limit the generalisability of our findings. Another limitation of note is that we relied on people’s report of their partners’ behaviour, and we have no way of identifying the extent to which their perception corresponds to reality. However, previous literature has demonstrated that individuals’ self-reports of their mate-retention behaviours are congruent with their partners’ reports of their mate-retention behaviours, demonstrating that individuals can provide reliable accounts of their partners’ mate-retention strategies (Shackelford et al. 2005). Moreover, people’s perceptions of their partners’ behaviour may be more important than their actual behaviour in predicting relationship satisfaction and commitment (see Montoya et al. 2008). This is another potential area for future research, where studies could obtain reports from both partners to address this. Finally, the current study only explored mate-retention strategies among heterosexual individuals. Given that sexual orientation influences the performance of mate-retention strategies (Brewer and Hamilton 2014), future studies should address homosexual relationship dynamics.

Despite these limitations, the current research extends previous findings on the association between mate retention, relationship satisfaction and commitment. Additionally, partners’ mate-retention strategies appear to be mutually related, such that partners respond to each other’s strategies, which also depends on relationship satisfaction. Our findings suggest that different mate-retention strategies have different levels of effectiveness, by demonstrating that whereas benefit-provisioning strategies are associated with high relationship satisfaction, which, in turn, is associated with high commitment, cost-inflicting strategies do so negatively. Although our findings suggest that cost-inflicting strategies are damaging for the relationship, individuals may still find them useful in specific situations under the threat of imminent infidelity, for example, otherwise individuals would not rely on them. Despite the existence of cost-inflicting strategies, however, benefit-provisioning strategies appear to be more effective in maintaining stable and satisfying relationships.

For the 2020-2021 graduate admissions cycle, the University of Chicago English Department is accepting only applicants interested in working in and with Black Studies

Department of English Language and Literature, The University of Chicago. Jul 2020. https://english.uchicago.edu/?fbclid=IwAR1vW5HOB42Rf6q5ETmvR9k2iWRFnLtJOKXU7y_BUnBb0GxwIqrdSsMTmck

[...]

Faculty Statement (July 2020)

The English department at the University of Chicago believes that Black Lives Matter, and that the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Rayshard Brooks matter, as do thousands of others named and unnamed who have been subject to police violence. As literary scholars, we attend to the histories, atmospheres, and scenes of anti-Black racism and racial violence in the United States and across the world. We are committed to the struggle of Black and Indigenous people, and all racialized and dispossessed people, against inequality and brutality.

For the 2020-2021 graduate admissions cycle, the University of Chicago English Department is accepting only applicants interested in working in and with Black Studies. We understand Black Studies to be a capacious intellectual project that spans a variety of methodological approaches, fields, geographical areas, languages, and time periods. For more information on faculty and current graduate students in this area, please visit our Black Studies page. 

The department is invested in the study of African American, African, and African diaspora literature and media, as well as in the histories of political struggle, collective action, and protest that Black, Indigenous and other racialized peoples have pursued, both here in the United States and in solidarity with international movements. Together with students, we attend both to literature’s capacity to normalize violence and derive pleasure from its aesthetic expression, and ways to use the representation of that violence to reorganize how we address making and breaking life. Our commitment is not just to ideas in the abstract, but also to activating histories of engaged art, debate, struggle, collective action, and counterrevolution as contexts for the emergence of ideas and narratives.

English as a discipline has a long history of providing aesthetic rationalizations for colonization, exploitation, extraction, and anti-Blackness. Our discipline is responsible for developing hierarchies of cultural production that have contributed directly to social and systemic determinations of whose lives matter and why. And while inroads have been made in terms of acknowledging the centrality of both individual literary works and collective histories of racialized and colonized people, there is still much to do as a discipline and as a department to build a more inclusive and equitable field for describing, studying, and teaching the relationship between aesthetics, representation, inequality, and power.

In light of this historical reality, we believe that undoing persistent, recalcitrant anti-Blackness in our discipline and in our institutions must be the collective responsibility of all faculty, here and elsewhere. In support of this aim, we have been expanding our range of research and teaching through recent hiring, mentorship, and admissions initiatives that have enriched our department with a number of Black scholars and scholars of color who are innovating in the study of the global contours of anti-Blackness and in the equally global project of Black freedom. Our collective enrichment is also a collective debt; this department reaffirms the urgency of ensuring institutional and intellectual support for colleagues and students working in the Black studies tradition, alongside whom we continue to deepen our intellectual commitments to this tradition. As such, we believe all scholars have a responsibility to know the literatures of African American, African diasporic, and colonized peoples, regardless of area of specialization, as a core competence of the profession.

We acknowledge the university's and our field's complicated history with the South Side. While we draw intellectual inspiration from the work of writers deeply connected to Chicago's south side, including Ida B. Wells, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lorraine Hansberry, and Richard Wright, we are also attuned to the way that the university has been a vehicle of intellectual and economic opportunity for some in the community, and a site of exclusion and violence for others. Part of our commitment to the struggle for Black lives entails vigorous participation in university-wide conversations and activism about the university's past and present role in the historically Black neighborhood that houses it.


Division of the Humanities, The University of Chicago

Egypt: Employed women report more coital frequency, more occurrence of spontaneous desire and being more able to obtain orgasm than unemployed women

Does Employment Affect Female Sexuality? Enas H. Abdallah, IhabYounis, Hala M. Elhady. Benha University Medical Journal, Sep 2020. DOI: 10.21608/bmfj.2020.18498.1119

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1305786559690571777

Abstract:
Introduction: Female sexual dysfunction (FSD) is a multifactorial condition that has anatomical, physiological, medical, psychological and social components. With increasing trend in the participation of women in the work force and due to the competing demands between work and family, the metaphor of work family conflict (WFC) as an increasing pressure in professional life has emerged. WFC seems to be more in women than men due to more overload and stress.

Aim of the work: to compare female sexuality between employed women and unemployed ones. Subjects and methods: The current study was a cross sectional study. The subjects of this study were sexually active married women. The tool of the study was a selfreport questionnaire.

Results: Employed women were higher in coital frequency than unemployed ones (60.2% & 39.4% respectively). Spontaneous desire was reported by 41% of employed women to occur once per week compared to 34.7% of unemployed ones. Among the employed women, 38.2% could reach orgasm in almost all their sexual encounters compared to 12.7% of unemployed ones. Among unemployed women, 10.4% reported sexual pain compared to 3.6% among employed ones.

Conclusion: Employed women have better sexual functioning than unemployed ones. Employed women have more coital frequency, more occurrence of spontaneous desire and are more able to obtain orgasm than unemployed women.

Keywords: employment, sexual dysfunction, women.

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In the present study, among unemployed group, 10.4% reported sexual pain compared to 3.6% among employed ones. This is consistent with a study which found that unemployment was a significant risk factor in reporting sexual problems, desire 60%, and pain problems 36.8% [24]. This result disagrees with another study[4] who reported sexual pain in working women to be 26.7% and suggested that there was a strong relation between job stress, anxiety and sexual dysfunction.

In our study, 7.2% of employed women experienced sexual harassment several times at work place. This finding is consistent Cochran and co-workers, [25] who revealed a reporting rate as low as 2%. In contrast, a study based on more than 86,000 respondents in the US, 58% of women reported having experienced potentially harassing behavior and 24% reported having experienced sexual harassment at work [26].

Creative individuals are better than their peers at identifying uncreative products; expert ratings of the quality of a creative product are driven more by the ability to identify low quality work as opposed to high quality work

Are Creative People Better than Others at Recognizing Creative Work? Steven E.Stemler, James C. Kaufman. Thinking Skills and Creativity, September 15 2020, 100727. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2020.100727

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1305757801172684800

Highlights
• Rating paradigms often focus on identifying the “Best” candidate, product, or solution
• Highly creative individuals are better than their peers at identifying uncreative products
• Rater creativity was not related to the ability to recognizing highly creative products
• Expert ratings of the quality of a creative product are driven more by the ability to identify low quality work as opposed to high quality work
• Ruling out the least creative candidate, product, or solution may be more important – or at least require more creative expertise – than identifying the “Best” of the bunch.

Abstract: It is often assumed that people with high ability in a domain will be excellent raters of quality within that same domain. This assumption is an underlying principle of using raters for creativity tasks, as in the Consensual Assessment Technique. While several prior studies have examined expert-novice differences in ratings, none have examined whether experts’ ability to identify the quality of a creative product is being driven more by their ability to identify high quality work, low quality work, or both. To address this question, a sample of 142 participants completed individual difference measures and rated the quality of several sets of creative captions. Unbeknownst to the participants, the captions had been identified a prior by expert raters as being of particularly high or low quality. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that after controlling for participants’ background and personality, those who scored significantly higher on any of three external measures of creativity also rated low-quality captions significantly lower than their peers; however, they did not rate the high-quality captions significantly higher. These findings support research in other domains suggesting that ratings of quality may be driven more by the lower end of the quality spectrum than the high end.

Keywords: CreativityAssessmentRatingsExpertise

Intelligence, alcohol consumption, and adverse consequences in young Norwegian men: Intelligence was not associated with intoxication frequency at any age

Intelligence, alcohol consumption, and adverse consequences. A study of young Norwegian men. Adrian F. Rogne, Willy Pedersen, Tilmann Von Soest. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, September 11, 2020.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1403494820944719

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1305755292236484609

Abstract
Aims: Research suggests that intelligence is positively related to alcohol consumption. However, some studies of people born around 1950, particularly from Sweden, have reported that higher intelligence is associated with lower consumption and fewer alcohol-related problems. We investigated the relationships between intelligence, alcohol consumption, and adverse consequences of drinking in young men from Norway (a neighboring Scandinavian country) born in the late 1970s.

Methods: This analysis was based on the population-based Young in Norway Longitudinal Study. Our sample included young men who had been followed from their mid-teens until their late 20s (n = 1126). Measures included self-reported alcohol consumption/intoxication, alcohol use disorders (AUDIT), and a scale measuring adverse consequences of drinking. Controls included family background, parental bonding, and parents’ and peers’ drinking. Intelligence test scores—scaled in 9 “stanines” (population mean of 5 and standard deviation of 2)—were taken from conscription assessment.

Results: Men with higher intelligence scores reported average drinking frequency and slightly fewer adverse consequences in their early 20s. In their late 20s, they reported more frequent drinking than men with lower intelligence scores (0.30 more occasions per week, per stanine, age adjusted; 95% CI: 0.12 to 0. 49). Intelligence was not associated with intoxication frequency at any age and did not moderate the relationships between drinking frequency and adverse consequences.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that the relationship between intelligence and drinking frequency is age dependent. Discrepancies with earlier findings from Sweden may be driven by changes in drinking patterns.

Keywords: Intelligence, alcohol, intoxication, Norway, consequences, young adults

Discussion and conclusions

In our sample of Norwegian men born in the 1970s, there was no association between intelligence and frequency of alcohol use when participants were in their early 20s. In their late 20s, we observed a positive association. However, we found no significant link between intelligence and intoxication frequency. Our findings are not consistent with findings from neighboring Sweden, which were based on cohorts born in the 1950s. Rather, our findings resemble those from other recent studies showing a positive association between intelligence and alcohol use, but this association is age-dependent and not very strong. One possible explanation may be that alcohol use in Norway changed considerably in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the so-called weekend binge drinking culture was supplemented by more frequent alcohol consumption. If intelligence is more positively associated with alcohol consumption in cultures with more frequent but less intensive drinking, such changes may have led to an emerging positive (or less negative) association between intelligence and drinking frequency. However, to disentangle these relationships, more research into changes in drinking patterns over time in relation to intelligence is necessary.

The positive association between intelligence and drinking frequency in the late 20s, when most men have entered the labor market, is also consistent with the notion that selection into longer educational programs or high-status jobs may be relevant to this association. Our findings also indicated a small, negative association between intelligence and alcohol related problems at around 22 years of age. While one possible interpretation of this finding is that high intelligence may protect against adverse consequences from drinking, additional analyses (not shown) indicate that the negative association is driven solely by higher adverse consequences scores in the two lowest stanines. Finally, our results do not support the notion that intelligence moderates the relationship between drinking frequency and adverse consequences of drinking.

Our study has several limitations. We cannot rule out the importance of selective attrition, measurement error, and similar survey-related issues. If people with greater cognitive abilities are more reflexive of, and concerned with, potentially adverse consequences of their drinking, they may be more likely to report alcohol use and related problems accurately in surveys [6], which may result in systematic measurement error. The group of nondrinkers may be highly diverse, possibly including both former heavy drinkers and lifetime abstainers [15]. Several of the included control variables in models 3 and 4 may also be affected by intelligence, drinking habits, or adverse consequences, and controlling for these may have introduced overcontrol bias. Our results may also be affected by reverse causation, since heavy alcohol consumption in adolescence may adversely affect cognitive ability [32]. Moreover, our data did not enable us to study women.

In conclusion, studying young Norwegian men born in the 1970s, our findings suggest that the association between intelligence and alcohol consumption is only positive when they are in their late 20s, not when they are in their early 20s. In other words, the association appears to be age dependent. This finding also contrasts with Swedish findings from older cohorts, suggesting that the relationship may also be context-dependent. Our results also suggest that intelligence does not moderate the relationship between frequent drinking and adverse consequences.

Seasonality of mood and affect in a large general population sample: Only participants higher on neuroticism showing seasonality

Seasonality of mood and affect in a large general population sample. Wim H. Winthorst ,Elisabeth H. Bos,Annelieke M. Roest,Peter de Jonge. PLoS, September 14, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239033

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1305747281346519041

Abstract: Mood and behaviour are thought to be under considerable influence of the seasons, but evidence is not unequivocal. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether mood and affect are related to the seasons, and what is the role of neuroticism in this association. In a national internet-based crowdsourcing project in the Dutch general population, individuals were invited to assess themselves on several domains of mental health. ANCOVA was used to test for differences between the seasons in mean scores on the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (QIDS). Within-subject seasonal differences were tested as well, in a subgroup that completed the PANAS twice. The role of neuroticism as a potential moderator of seasonality was examined. Participants (n = 5,282) scored significantly higher on positive affect (PANAS) and lower on depressive symptoms (QIDS) in spring compared to summer, autumn and winter. They also scored significantly lower on negative affect in spring compared to autumn. Effect sizes were small or very small. Neuroticism moderated the effect of the seasons, with only participants higher on neuroticism showing seasonality. There was no within-subject seasonal effect for participants who completed the questionnaires twice (n = 503), nor was neuroticism a significant moderator of this within-subjects effect. The findings of this study in a general population sample participating in an online crowdsourcing study do not support the widespread belief that seasons influence mood to a great extent. For, as far as the seasons did influence mood, this only applied to highly neurotic participants and not to low-neurotic participants. The underlying mechanism of cognitive attribution may explain the perceived relation between seasonality and neuroticism.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether mood and affect are related to the seasons. Secondly, we examined the role of neuroticism as a potential moderator of seasonality. The main findings of this study were: on a population level, participants scored higher on positive affect in spring compared to the other seasons, lower on negative affect in spring compared to autumn, and lower on QIDS depressive symptoms in spring compared to the other seasons. The same pattern was visible in the separate “seasonality-related” questions of the QIDS (except for weight change and increased appetite): participants felt less sad, slept less, had more energy, more general interest in spring compared to the other seasons, mainly autumn and winter. In summary, this study shows that participants, in general, feel better in spring compared to the other seasons, but effect sizes were small or very small. The personality factor neuroticism moderated the effect of the season in all three outcomes. There were no within-subject seasonal differences in the scores of positive and negative affect, as shown in the repeated measures analysis in participants who filled out the questionnaires twice. The power of these analyses may have been insufficient to detect significant seasonal differences, due to smaller numbers and the fact that effect sizes were already very small or small in the first group. This may also explain that neuroticism did not moderate within-subject seasonal differences.

The finding that seasonal differences were only seen in the group of high-neurotic participants is in line with our previous study, in which we hypothesised that subjects who score high on neuroticism tend to attribute their symptoms and unhappiness to the seasons [26]. This finding is also in line with the findings of Rosellini and Nooteboom that the symptoms of depression are related to the personality trait neuroticism [58, 59].

In the crowdsourcing study HND procedure, the general public volunteered to assist in scientific research. In return, participants received feedback on their scores and were able to follow the results of the research on the internet [31]. Brabham described the internet crowdsourcing procedure as a relatively new model for application in public health [60]. Possible advantages mentioned by Bevelander are that by this sampling methodology already existing hypotheses can be reproduced but also that this methodology can generate ideas that are less well-documented or otherwise tend to be overlooked [61]. In previous crowdsourcing studies, the participants recruited were more diverse than in other means of recruitment [62]. Possible disadvantages of this method are selection bias and the impossibility to calculate non-response percentages, as it is not possible to know how many people have heard of the project or visited the website but did not enter the study [63, 64]. In order to find a group of participants for HND that could be representative for the general population (and thereby attempting to reduce the limitation of selection bias), publicity for HND was sought using several newspaper articles, magazine articles, public lectures, radio interviews, and other media. In order to examine possible selection effects, Van der Krieke et al. [31] compared the HND sample with the governmental data of the general Dutch population (Central Bureau of Statistics) and two large population studies: the Netherlands Mental Health Survey (NEMESIS-2) and the Lifelines population study [32,33]. They confirmed a certain selection bias. Compared to the general Dutch population, the HND participants were more often women (65.2% versus 50.5%; NEMESIS = 55.2%, Lifelines = 57,9%), on average 6 years older (45 versus 39 years; NEMESIS = 44, Lifelines = 42), more often with a partner (74% versus 58%;), more often living together (61 versus 47%; NEMESIS = 68%) and had higher education levels (> 20 years 76% versus 35%; NEMESIS = 35%) [31].

This selection bias clearly is a limitation of the present research. Moreover, in our study, a majority of the participants completed the questionnaires in spring. Although we adjusted for the differences between the seasons due to this selective inclusion by using the demographic variables as covariates, we cannot rule out the possibility that the results were still partly due to some unmeasured confounder. Since our sample was a general population sample, another potential limitation is that the proportion of participants suffering from SAD can be expected to be low (ranging from 3%–10%), implying that the contribution of SAD patients to our study results will be limited[11].

Depressive disorders and anxiety disorders show a high comorbidity [65, 66]. For this reason, it would have been interesting to include a measure of anxiety. However, in a previous article, we showed that the administered depression scale (QIDS) and the BAI (Becks Anxiety Inventory) showed a correlation of 0.80 [27]. In the HND study, the Anxiety subscale of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) was used to assess anxiety over the previous week. In our data, there was a correlation of 0.70 between the QIDS and the anxiety scale of the DASS (S1 Table). Since our main objective was to investigate the seasonality of depression and positive and negative affect, we did not include this measure of anxiety as a confounder because it could have masked the seasonal effect on depression.

A strength of this study is its large sample size for the analyses in the entire group and the spring–winter group in the repeated measures analyses. Other strengths are the use of validated instruments, comparability with other Dutch population studies, the use of questionnaires covering a short period guaranteeing a relative absence of memory bias, and the inclusion of a personality factor in the analyses.

The mechanism of cognitive attribution may underlie the relation between (perceived) seasonality and neuroticism [27, 67, 68]. For future studies on seasonality of mood and behaviour, we recommend including the personality measure neuroticism and a measure to establish the attribution style. Other confounding factors like presence or absence of pre-existing physical or mental health conditions, treatment and stressful life events should be measured as well. The objective then is to further disentangle the relationship between neuroticism, attribution style and (perceived) seasonality of mood and behaviour.