We show evidence that a well-socialized companion cat was able to reproduce actions demonstrated by a human model

Did we find a copycat? Do as I Do in a domestic cat (Felis catus). Claudia Fugazza, Andrea Sommese, Ákos Pogány & Ádám Miklósi. Animal Cognition (2020). Sep 18, 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-020-01428-6

N=1

Abstract: This study shows evidence of a domestic cat (Felis catus) being able to successfully learn to reproduce human-demonstrated actions based on the Do as I Do paradigm. The subject was trained to reproduce a small set of familiar actions on command “Do it!” before the study began. To test feature–contingent behavioural similarity and control for stimulus enhancement, our test consisted of a modified version of the two-action procedure, combined with the Do as I Do paradigm. Instead of showing two different actions on an object to different subjects, we applied a within-subject design and showed the two actions to the same subject in separate trials. We show evidence that a well-socialized companion cat was able to reproduce actions demonstrated by a human model by reproducing two different actions that were demonstrated on the same object. Our experiment provides the first evidence that the Do as I Do paradigm can be applied to cats, suggesting that the ability to recognize behavioural similarity may fall within the range of the socio-cognitive skills of this species. The ability of reproducing the actions of a heterospecific human model in well-socialized cats may pave the way for future studies addressing cats’ imitative skills.

Discussion

Our results show the first experimental evidence of the domestic cat’s ability of matching actions to the actions displayed by a heterospecific, human demonstrator in the Do as I Do paradigm. Thereby we provide evidence that the capacity of reproducing actions of a heterospecific model could be considered within the range of cats’ cognitive skills.

Based on the cat’s performance, we argue that she has the ability to map the different body parts and movements of the human demonstrator into her own body parts and movements, at least to some extent. Ebisu’s ability to reproduce the demonstrator’s actions when different actions were shown on the same object allow excluding that behavioural similarity relied only on perceptual factors, such as increased attention to the stimulus. In fact, the cat’s flexibly modified her behaviour based on the different actions that were demonstrated, thereby excluding stimulus enhancement and goal emulation as explanations for the behavioural similarity between demonstrator and observer (Dawson and Foss, 1965; Akins and Zentall 1996; van de Waal et al. 2012).

The two actions chosen as demonstrations were of similar difficulty for the cat and this is confirmed by similar success in reproducing those. One of the two actions—the paw action—was not completely novel for the cat, since she had been trained to touch other objects with her paw. In the case of this action, therefore, the novelty in the test consisted of the object to be touched. However, the face action had not been previously trained, and Ebisu had never been required to perform or imitate this action before the experiment. Her reproduction of the face-rubbing action since the first trial when this action was demonstrated indicates that she was able to generalize the Do as I Do rule to reproduce this action too. This also suggests that cats may have the ability to map the different body parts and movements of the human demonstrator into their own body parts. Face-rubbing is a behaviour that pertains to the natural repertoire of cats (Machado and Genaro 2014; Vitale Shreve and Udell 2017b). However, this action was not included in the Do as I Do training, and Ebisu had never been trained to perform it. Transfer tests of this kind, in which successful performance on one cognitive task is applied to another, ensure that the subjects learned a rule and not a stimulus–response association (Shea and Heyes 2010).

Importantly, in the very first trial when rubbing face on the box was demonstrated (trial 1, Table 3), Ebisu performed both actions: she touched the box with her paw (a body movement that belonged to her training repertoire) and she also rubbed her face on the box. Although this trial was excluded from the action matching analysis due to its ambiguity, we note that the cat performed the demonstrated action after the very first time seeing it and this shows that the cat was already able to use the demonstration as a sample against which to match her behaviour at the start of the experiment. The performance of the cat can be explained by imitation (Whiten and Ham 1992) or, alternatively, by response facilitation (Byrne 1994).

Unexpectedly, Ebisu did not always approach the object used by her owner during the demonstrations and in 4 trials she performed the demonstrated action “on nothing” or on the floor (so-called “vacuum actions”, Huber et al. 2009). This happened in three face action trials and in one paw action trials, suggesting that it was not an action-specific response. Moreover, the cat did not approach the object (and location) where the demonstration was performed more likely than chance level. This may simply be due to fatigue and reduced motivation related to the compromised health of the cat (i.e., it may be due to tiredness or low motivation, making it more likely that the subject would save energy and not move from her starting position).

Ebisu’s health condition did not allow further testing; therefore, some caution should be taken before generalizing the results to other actions, not tested in the present study. However, the results obtained by combining the Do as I Do method and the two-action procedure allow us to exclude that the cat’s performance relied on other processes, such as stimulus enhancement or goal emulation. These findings provide evidence that the cat was able to successfully learn to reproduce human-demonstrated actions with the Do as I Do method. Cats, similar to dogs (e.g. Fugazza and Miklósi 2014), might be able to map the different body parts and movements of the human demonstrator into their own body parts, at least with regard to the tested actions. Ebisu’s motivation for food and training activities made it possible to successfully train her with the Do as I Do method. Our experience about the time investment and difficulty of training cats prevented us from testing other subjects, therefore, the extent to which we can generalize these results to the cat population in general takes further investigation. We suggest that cats possess the cognitive skill to reproduce the actions of conspecific and—if properly socialized—also heterospecific models. Therefore, we think that these results could be replicated, provided that the subjects can be motivated enough by food, toys/play or social reward, to collaborate with a human trainer.

2016 US elections: “Born this way”-type beliefs in the innateness & immutability of sexual orientation did not significantly distinguish respondents’ support for presidential candidates or party affiliation

Grzanka, P. R., Zeiders, K. H., Spengler, E. S., Hoyt, L. T., & Toomey, R. B. (2020). Do beliefs about sexual orientation predict voting behavior? Results from the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 7(3), 241–252. https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000434

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1307025853277253639

Abstract: Research has shown that beliefs about sexual orientation, including the naturalness, discreteness, and informativeness of sexual orientation categories, are associated with varying levels of sexual prejudice. Less is known about how these and other sexual orientation beliefs may correspond with broader social and political attitudes, including party affiliation and voting behavior. The present study explored voting intention and political party affiliation, as well as other constructs not directly associated with sexuality, among a sample of emerging adults (N = 286) immediately prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Using a person-centered statistical approach, we replicated sexual orientation belief profiles found in prior research and observed significant associations between belief profiles and intentions to vote for certain candidates, as well as party affiliation, ambivalent sexist attitudes, and number of reported lesbian, gay, and bisexual friends. Notably, “born this way”-type beliefs in the innateness and immutability of sexual orientation did not significantly distinguish respondents’ support for presidential candidates or political party affiliation. We situate these results within existing research on essentialist beliefs and point to implications of these findings for ongoing research, clinical work, and advocacy for sexual minority rights

Himba women who face greater resource constraints are less discriminating in the number of partners they are open to, & have stronger preferences for resource-related traits; number of dependants was an important predictor

Resource demands reduce partner discrimination in Himba women. Sean P. Prall and Brooke A. Scelza. Evolutionary Human Sciences (2020), 2, e45, doi:10.1017/ehs.2020.43

Abstract: Where autonomy for partner choice is high, partner preferences may be shaped by both social and ecological conditions. In particular, women’s access to resources can influence both the type and number of partnerships she engages in. However, most existing data linking resources and partner choice rely on either priming effects or large demographic databases, rather than preferences for specific individuals. Here we leverage a combination of demographic data, food insecurity scores and trait and partner preference ratings to determine whether resource security modulates partner preferences among Himba pastoralists. We find that while food insecurity alone has a weak effect on women’s openness to new partners, the interaction of food insecurity and number of dependent children strongly predicts women’s openness to potential partners. Further, we show that women who have more dependants have stronger preferences for wealthy and influential men. An alternative hypothesis derived from mating-market dynamics, that female desirability affects female preferences, had no effect. Our data show that women who face greater resource constraints are less discriminating in the number of partners they are open to, and have stronger preferences for resource-related traits. These findings highlight the importance of ecological signals in explaining the plasticity of mate preferences.

Keywords: mate choice; food insecurity; transactional sex

Discussion

Male access to resources is believed to be one of the primary factors in female mate choice, and has
broad empirical support across taxa. Here, we examine how resource scarcity affects women’s openness to new partners, and how the relative importance of resource-related traits changes as resource
scarcity increases. Women with more dependants, and women with more dependants who are
more food insecure, show attenuated discrimination of potential partners, and are more likely to
give any individual male higher preference ratings. We also predicted that other resource related traits,
as rated by women in the study community, should be similarly related to female preference with
higher resource scarcity predicting greater weighting of these traits. Livestock wealth, as reported by
men, was a strong predictor of female preference. However, other male traits which may signal
resource acquisition or sharing potential, including being generous and hardworking, showed no relationship to resource need. In other words, while women with more dependants tended to prefer
wealthier men, the degree to which a man was viewed as being hardworking, generous or attractive
did not differ across women with varyng resource need.
Our data show a positive correlation between resource scarcity and the level of discrimination used
in a partner choice task. While definitively demonstrating a causal relationship between scarcity and
selectivity is not possible with these data, we did test an alternative hypothesis that this relationship
was simply the product of a relationship between resource need and position on the mating market,
Our results indicate that relative mate value, as measured by male desirability ratings of women, has no
impact on female preferences. Women who were viewed as more desirable by men were not more discriminating in their judgments. Given the large and multifaceted literature on assortative mating, this
finding warrants further study. In particular, use of women’s assessments of their own desirability
(self-perceived mate value), instead of male assessed desirability, may show stronger associations
Figure 2. Posterior predictions for interaction effect of number of dependants and status assessments on reported mate preferences. Posterior medians and 95% credible intervals for each rating category shown
with women’s mate choice. Here, we focus on the role that resource scarcity plays in determining preferences, but we recognize that this is just one of many potential pressure points that could be influencing partner choice.

The methods used in this study differ markedly from those that are currently standard in mate
choice studies within evolutionary psychology. We rely on individualized demographics and food
security ratings, rather than primes of resource scarcity. We also collected preference data for members
of the respondents’ own community, people well known to them, rather than standardized images or
priming vignettes. This more individualized approach is believed to increase ecological validity in
these sorts of tasks (Gervais, 2017). Furthermore, the study was conducted in a community where
resource scarcity is particularly salient, as chronic drought and limited access to market goods
mean that food insecurity is a common concern. This study therefore provides an important complement to previous findings, which have largely relied on samples from student populations in countries where resource scarcity is less common.

We found that number of dependants was an important predictor of partner preferences, both on
its own and in conjunction with food insecurity. In the case of shifting trait preferences, number of
dependants was a stronger predictor than food insecurity. It may be because food insecurity is chronically high in this population that food security alone does not produce enough variation to see large effects. Number of dependants represents a longer-term measure of resource stress than food security,
which has seasonal components, and which may fluctuate somewhat depending on conditions like the
number of recent funerals or ceremonies (where food is more abundant), as well as cultural practices
to cope with drought and low food availability (Bollig, 2010).
The results from this study add an interesting complement to the broader literature on transactional
sex and risky sexual behavior. Concurrent and sequential partnerships are common among Himba,
and not stigmatized in the way they are in many places. The majority of married men and women
across age groups have at least one additional partner, and these relationships are often long-lasting,
at times spanning several decades (Scelza et al., 2020b; Scelza & Prall, 2018). The transfer of resources
is commonly cited as an important component of women’s relationships with both their husbands and
their lovers. These can range from expectations about provisioning of cash or food to help with an
emergency to smaller food gifts and trinkets such as bracelets and mobile airtime. We therefore see
the relationship between resource stress and openness to romantic partners to be driven in part by
expectations that men can buffer shortfalls, in much the same way that transactional sex operates
in other sub-Saharan contexts.

Limitations

This study uses a novel trait and partner preference trait rating task, where participants rate individuals
known to them in the community. In most cases, this is preferable to using self-perceived traits, in that
it assesses community perception of individual community members, and as such should be a more
accuate representation of individual characteristics. However, this means that these results are difficult
to compare with many similar studies that use self-perceived mate value (e.g. Fisher, Cox, Bennett, &
Gavric, 2008). Additionally, trait ratings of known individuals may be subject to bias based on personal history, and traits like attractiveness are subject to non-physical influences when assessing
known individuals (Kniffin & Wilson, 2004). However, other ratings including being influential
and hardworking require knowledge of the individual in question, and the statistical methods make
idiosyncratic ratings unlikely to impact results. Complex interactions including marital status of the
rater and ratee, interpersonal dynamics and other unknown effects may be at play in the preference
ratings. Additionally, in our preference task, women were asked about how much they would like
to be in a relationship with a given set of men, but we did not specify whether this would be a marital
or non-marital relationship. Since divorce and remarriage are common, as are poygyny and concurrency, partnership status is not a disqualifer of a potential future partner, or partner interest more
broadly, but future work will seek to clarify how women best utilize different partner types.

There are other potential explanations for the relationship between resource scarcity and partner preferences that were not directly tested in this study. Some practitioners of life history theory predict that
early life stressors (including reduced access to resources) might lead to a faster life history, including
being open to a greater number of sexual partners (Simpson, Griskevicius, Kuo, Sung, & Collins, 2012).
Because of limitations in the data we had available and questions of ecological validity, we did not test
this theory here. Food insecurity in this population is largely a function of access to livestock and maize,
both of which are highly dependent on rainfall. In this drought-prone environment fluctuations in
wealth are not uncommon, so that a family with plentiful resources one year could after a multiyear
drought be suffering greatly. Given this stochasticity, as well as demographic factors like high rates
of divorce, remarriage and fosterage, which influence household composition, we do not have a simple
measure of early life stress that we could use here as a predictor. Furthermore, in our ethnographic
interviews women and men have continually stressed the importance of resource transfers as being
an important facet of both formal (marital) and informal romantic relationships. Therefore, we focused
here on how current measures of need might impact partner choice.

First, Best, Forbidden and Worst Kisses: Memorable Experiences of Intimate Kisses Among U.S. Adults

First, Best, Forbidden and Worst: Memorable Experiences of Intimate Kisses Among Heterosexual and Sexual Minority U.S. Adults. Kendra S. Wasson Simpson et al. Journal of Relationships Research, Volume 112020, e11, September 2020. https://doi.org/10.1017/jrr.2020.7

Abstract: Intimate kissing is often viewed as a preliminary or ancillary behaviour in studies exploring sexual interactions. There is a lack of research that focuses on differentiating the types of intimate kisses, including the contexts in which they occur, and desirable and undesirable features. The current study was designed to assess memories of first, best, forbidden and worst kisses. Participants were 691 U.S. adults (mean age 32.27 years; 55% identified as male) who completed an online survey addressing kissing attitudes and experiences using both structured and open-ended survey tools. Four themes emerged through content analysis: physical components, connection to the partner, context, and emotions evoked; and these are discussed for all four types of kissing memories. Findings are discussed in terms of embodiment that intimate kisses capture, their role as a metric of one's attraction to a partner, and the means by which kissing experiences might solidify a sense of oneself as a sexual person.

The findings suggest that the presence of two parents—or of a male parent—is not essential for children to flourish; family structure seems less influential in children’s adjustment than the quality of family relationships

Golombok, S., Zadeh, S., Freeman, T., Lysons, J., & Foley, S. (2020). Single mothers by choice: Parenting and child adjustment in middle childhood. Journal of Family Psychology, Sep 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000797

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1306970786075475971

Abstract: Findings are presented of the second phase of a longitudinal study of families created by single mothers by choice. Forty-four single heterosexual mothers were compared with 37 partnered heterosexual mothers, all with a donor-conceived child aged around 8–10 years. Standardized interview, observational, and questionnaire measures of maternal wellbeing, mother-child relationships and child adjustment were administered to mothers, children, and teachers. There were no differences in maternal mental health, the quality of mother-child relationships or children’s emotional and behavioral problems between family types. However, higher levels of parenting stress and higher levels of children’s prior adjustment difficulties were each associated with children’s adjustment difficulties in middle childhood irrespective of family type. The findings suggest that the presence of two parents—or of a male parent—is not essential for children to flourish, and add to the growing body of evidence that family structure is less influential in children’s adjustment than the quality of family relationships.

KEYWORDS: solo mothers, single mothers by choice, parenting, child adjustment

Discussion

In line with the findings at Phase 1 of the study when the children were in their preschool or early school years, no differences were identified between the single mother families and the two-parent families in parenting or child adjustment when the children reached middle childhood. With respect to parenting, the family types were similar in terms of the quality of mother-child relationships as assessed by standardized interview, the quality of mother-child interaction as assessed by an observational measure, and parental acceptance as measured by questionnaire. In addition, there were no differences between the single and partnered mothers in anxiety, depression, or stress associated with parenting, and the mothers’ mean scores for anxiety and depression were below the cut-off points of 40 (Grant, McMahon, & Austin, 2008) and 13 (Matthey, Henshaw, Elliott, & Barnett, 2006), respectively, based on normative data. Thus, using multiple methods involving both representational and behavioral measures of parent–child relationships (Imrie, Jadva, Fishel, & Golombok, 2019) with both mothers and children, and standardized measures of mothers’ mental health, it appeared that families formed by single mothers by choice were functioning as well as families with two parents when their children were around nine years old.

There was a similar pattern of findings for child adjustment. The children of single mothers by choice did not differ from children with two parents in terms of their scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire as completed by mothers. It should also be noted that the average scores were in line with the population norms of 8.4 and 6.6 for the parent and teacher SDQ, respectively (Meltzer, Gatward, Goodman, & Ford, 2000). Moreover, the number of children with scores above the cut-off point for psychiatric disorder did not differ by family type (n = 6 and n = 6, respectively). The teachers’ scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire did differ between family types, with the children of single mothers obtaining significantly higher scores than those in two-parent families. However, the teachers’ scores were within the normative range, suggesting that the children in both family types were generally well adjusted. It should also be noted that the significant finding for teachers’ SDQ scores may have resulted from chance, given the large number of group comparisons. In terms of the number of children with teachers’ scores above the cut-off for psychiatric disorder, there was no difference between the children with one and two parents, and the proportion scoring above cut-off in both family types was small (n = 7 and n = 4, respectively), reflecting a smaller percentage in the problematic range compared to general population norms (Meltzer et al., 2000). In addition, the independent psychiatrists’ ratings suggested that the children were functioning well, with only one child in each family type displaying severely problematic behavior. It seems, therefore, that even when donor-conceived children of single mothers reach the age at which they understand the significance of not having a father, they are no more likely to show adjustment difficulties than children who grow up with a father.

Although there was little difference in parenting or child adjustment between family types, in line with a developmental systems conceptual framework (Aldwin, 2014; Overton, 2015), higher levels of parenting stress and higher levels of children’s prior adjustment difficulties were each associated with children’s adjustment difficulties in middle childhood irrespective of family type. The finding for parenting stress replicates that of the first phase of the study (Golombok et al., 2016) and supports the hypothesis that children’s emotional and behavioral problems would be associated with maternal mental health problems. Similarly, the association between children’s adjustment difficulties at Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the study is consistent with the hypothesis that adjustment difficulties in middle childhood would be associated with children’s preexisting emotional and behavioral problems. The lack of association between either maternal anxiety or depression and children’s adjustment difficulties appears to reflect the low levels of anxiety and depression in the sample. For example, only five women’s ratings of depression fell within the problematic range on the Edinburgh Depression Scale. Our findings highlight the value of considering multiple components of parents’ wellbeing, everyday stressors, rather than clinically relevant symptoms of anxiety and depression, contributed to children’s adjustment difficulties.

Interestingly, in contrast to the findings reported at Phase 1 (Golombok et al., 2016), financial difficulties did not appear to contribute to children’s adjustment problems at Phase 2. Time-related characteristics may help explain this null effect, specifically the lack of stability in financial difficulties and the differences in working patterns from Phases 1 to 2, with 16 mothers entering the workforce during this period. The small minority of families who experienced definite financial difficulties at Phase 2 is consistent with previous research showing that single mothers by choice are generally financially secure (Bock, 2000; Graham & Braverman, 2012; Jadva et al., 2009), and may explain why financial difficulties were not associated with children’s adjustment problems.

Studying the adjustment of donor-conceived children born to single mothers by choice is not only of interest in its own right as little is known about the development and wellbeing of children in this new family form, but also is of theoretical interest as it enables the effects of growing up in a single mother family to be investigated without the potentially confounding effects of parental conflict, financial difficulties and maternal mental health problems. The similarities in parenting and child adjustment between children in one-parent and two-parent families in the present study are in direct contrast to the findings of studies of families headed by divorced or unmarried single mothers, which found higher levels of children’s emotional and behavioral problems compared to children in two-parent families. This discrepancy may be attributable to the differing social circumstances of single mothers by choice, who made an active decision to parent alone and planned their lives accordingly, and divorced and unmarried single mothers, who found themselves in this situation unintentionally. The findings of the present study thus add weight to the view that the raised levels of adjustment problems shown by children of divorced and unmarried single mothers result from the adverse circumstances that often accompany single motherhood, rather than single motherhood, in itself.

A limitation of the study is the modest sample size, which may have resulted in differences between the single mother and two-parent families not being detected. The relatively low intraclass correlation coefficients for mother-to-child warmth and child-to-mother warmth are likely to have resulted from the lack of information on nonverbal aspects of warmth, such as facial expressions, that were taken into account in the ratings made by the interviewer, but were unavailable to the second rater who was coding from audio recordings. A further limitation is that participants were originally recruited through a private fertility clinic, and thus the findings may not reflect the experiences of parents and children in families formed by single mothers by choice using other routes, such as sexual intercourse or online connection sites (Jadva, Freeman, Tranfield, & Golombok, 2018), about whose socioeconomic circumstances little is yet known.

An important advantage of the study was that the children in the comparison group of two-parent families had all been conceived by donor insemination thus controlling for the use of donor insemination by the single mothers by choice. In addition, a high retention rate was obtained at Phase 2, and the use of similar measures at both phases of the study enabled the Phase 1 scores to be controlled for in the Phase 2 analysis. A further advantage was that the families were recruited when the children were young, thus avoiding sample bias resulting from children who were distressed about their family declining to join the study.

With the exception of the investigation by Chan, Raboy, and Patterson (1998), which focused primarily on single lesbian mothers and produced similar findings to the present investigation, this is the only study of parenting and child adjustment in families formed by single mothers by choice when the children reach middle childhood. Although, by this age, children have acquired a more sophisticated understanding of what it means to be conceived by donor insemination to a single mother and not know the identity of their biological father, they continued to show positive relationships with their mothers and high levels of psychological adjustment. This suggests that the presence of two parents—or of a male parent—is not essential for children to flourish, thus adding to the growing body of evidence (Golombok, 2015; Lamb, 2012; Patterson, 2009) that family structure is less influential in children’s adjustment than the quality of family relationships.

Our findings are a warning to researchers to use direct measures of biological events in order to measure life-history dynamics

On the Incongruence between Psychometric and Psychosocial-Biodemographic Measures of Life History. Janko Međedović. Human Nature (2020). Sep 12 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-020-09377-2

Abstract: In evolutionary psychology, it is customary to measure life-history via psychometric inventories such as the Arizona Life History Battery (ALHB). The validity of this approach has been questioned: it is argued that these measures are not congruent with biological life history events, such as the number of children, age at first birth, or pubertal timing. However, empirical data to test this critique are lacking. We therefore administered the ALHB to a convenience sample of young adults in Serbia (N = 447). We also collected information on psychosocial-biodemographic life history parameters closely related to biological life history traits: pubertal timing, onset of sexual behavior, short- and long-term mating, number of children, timing of reproduction, parenthood values, and environmental harshness. We found that correlations between these two sets of measures were rare, unsystematic, and mostly low in magnitude. Stable patterns of relations emerged only between the indicators of environmental conditions from both sets of measures. Furthermore, some ALHB indicators were found to be positively related with early fertility, which is incongruent with the conceptual foundation of ALHB. Finally, network analysis and factor analysis within each set of measures revealed different structures and that the hypothesis of unidimensionality, on which the ALHB was founded, cannot be applied to psychosocial-biodemographic life history indicators. Our results support the critique of ALHB as a set of measures lacking validity to capture biodemographic life-history parameters. ALHB measures are indeed relevant for understanding life-history variation, but they cannot be used as a substitute for specific life history characteristics. Our findings are a warning to researchers to use direct measures of biological events in order to measure life-history dynamics.

Are we at all liberal at heart? High-powered tests find no effect of intuitive thinking on moral foundations

Are we at all liberal at heart? High-powered tests find no effect of intuitive thinking on moral foundations. Ozan Isler, Onurcan Yilmaz, Burak Doğruyol. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 92, January 2021, 104050. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104050

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1306826844994404352

Abstract: Two opposing views define the debate on the moral principles underlying human behavior. One side argues a central role for five moral foundations (care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity), while the other argues that two of these (care, fairness) capture the essence of human moral concerns. In an experiment comparing these two views, Wright and Baril (2011) found that conservatives under cognitive load devalue loyalty, authority and sanctity, and become more liberal. Their finding of common intuitive concern with care and fairness supports the two-foundation perspective. In two high-powered preregistered experiments (N = 3275), we used time-pressure to induce intuitive thinking and tested Wright and Baril's finding that “we are all liberals at heart.” Although the manipulations worked as intended, Study 1 failed to identify an effect on the moral foundations questionnaire (MFQ). We conjectured that familiarity with standard survey items may weaken intuition manipulations by eliciting stable opinions. In Study 2, we therefore used not only the MFQ but also novel moral foundations vignettes. Study 2 failed to find an effect of time-pressure on either questionnaire type. An internal Bayesian meta-analysis indicated strong evidence against an effect of intuitive thinking on moral foundations.

Keywords: Moral foundations questionnaireMoral foundations vignettesTime-pressureIntuitive thinkingCore foundations

4. Discussion

Here, in two preregistered large-sample experiments, we failed to find any reliable effect of intuitive thinking on moral foundations. In Experiment 1, answering MFQ items under time-pressure led to no difference compared to the control condition. We argued that familiarity with the MFQ items may make it difficult to elicit spontaneous reactions. Consequently, we also elicited answers to the more novel, contextualized MFV items in Experiment 2. However, the results of Experiment 2 also indicated no effect of time-pressure on either MFQ or MFV. These findings are inconsistent with studies showing that cognitive style affects moral judgments (Van Berkel et al., 2015; Yilmaz & Saribay, 2017a), and in particular, with the claim that conservatives become more liberal when thinking intuitively (Wright & Baril, 2011).

4.1. Implications

The scientific quest for the intuitive foundations of human morality is ongoing. As detailed in our Introduction, there are currently two contrasting perspectives in the literature. On the one hand, Haidt and Kesebir (2010) argue that all humans share five distinct moral foundations. On the other hand, Jost (2012) argues that only two moral foundations are common to us all. In the first direct comparison of these two views, Wright and Baril (2011) tested whether cognitive resource depletion or cognitive load—as compared to a control group—influences moral foundations, but they failed to find a main effect. However, when the two cognitive manipulation conditions were pooled, a decrease in the binding foundation scores was identified on conservatives as compared to liberals. We attempted to replicate this finding in two large-sample experiments but found neither a main effect of intuitive thinking nor its interaction with political ideology.

Another ongoing debate in the literature is whether moral foundations questionnaire items are resistant to experimental manipulations (Deppe et al., 2015; Talhelm, 2018; Talhelm et al., 2015; Yilmaz & Saribay, 2017b). While Deppe et al. (2015) reported no effect of analytic thought manipulations on various moral attitude items, Yilmaz and Saribay (2017b) conceptually and experimentally distinguished between contextualized and stable opinions. Therefore, we here compared the frequently used MFQ items with the less familiar MFV items. Still, we failed to find evidence for our hypothesis that the effect of intuitive thinking on moral foundations depends on whether questionnaire items are novel and contextualized.

4.2. Failure of the hypothesis tests

Null results can have various explanations. First, statistical tests may be inadequately powered. Second, experimental manipulations may be weak. Third, the dependent variable may not be sensitive enough, or it may suffer from floor or ceiling effects. Fourth and finally, the effect under investigation may be spurious. Considering the first possibility, the total sample size in our study (N = 3275) was more than seventeen times the sample size of the original study by Wright and Baril (N = 187). Against the second possibility, our preregistered checks provided evidence that manipulations worked as intended. Allowing us to disregard the third possibility, we failed to find evidence for our hypotheses on two different measures of moral foundations, and we did not encounter any ceiling or floor effects.

Although we cannot conclusively rule out the first three possibilities, the fourth possibility—that the effect may be spurious—seems somewhat more likely than the others for two reasons. First, the claim of Wright and Baril (2011) is based on a single experiment with low statistical power. Similarly, Wright and Baril (2011) rely on the pooling of two otherwise independent experimental manipulations to identify an effect, and it is not clear whether there are meaningful differences between the experimental and control conditions when viewed separately. Second, other findings in the literature conflict with the finding of Wright and Baril (2011)—such as an increase in the authority foundation with cognitive load (Van Berkel et al., 2015), and increase in the care and fairness foundations with analytic thinking but without interaction with political ideology (Yilmaz & Saribay, 2017a). Hence, our results, as well as the findings in the literature, when viewed together, suggest that the underlying effect put forward by the original finding, may be difficult to replicate.

4.3. Limitations and future directions

Even though we used tests powerful enough to detect small effect sizes across multiple dependent variables, our study suffers from various limitations as well. First, our findings may be limited in their generalizability because both experiments recruited participants from the same participant pool (i.e., MTurk). Second and relatedly, despite being a well-established method frequently used in the literature to activate intuitive thinking (e.g., Isler et al., 2018), time-pressure arguably may have had limited effect on participants on MTurk, many of whom are motivated by income and who may therefore routinely complete studies at a fast rate (Mason & Suri, 2012). Our data do not clearly support this interpretation. As compared with the control conditions, average completion times of survey items in the time-pressure conditions were 47.2% faster in Experiment 1 (2.47 vs. 4.68 s), 42.9% faster for MFQ (2.93 vs. 5.13) and 48.5% faster for MFV (3.54 vs. 6.88) in Experiment 2. Even in absolute terms, average response times in the time-pressure conditions were well within the intuitive response duration used in the literature (e.g., within 4 s in Myrseth & Wollbrant, 2017). Nevertheless, it may be the case that the control conditions did not sufficiently promote reliance on deliberation or avoidance of intuitive thinking. Hence, future studies on moral foundations can benefit from forced time-delay conditions in place of control conditions. Alternative experimental methods for activating intuitive and reflective thinking (such as reflection training; e.g., Isler et al., 2020) or designs for comparing them (such as within-subjects comparisons of time-pressured and delayed decisions; e.g., Clifford et al., 2020; Yilmaz & Isler, 2019) should also be considered.

Political identity exerted a strong influence on self-reports of emotional distress, threat perception, discomfort with exposure, support for restrictions, & perception of under/overreaction by individuals & institutions

Collins, Robert N., David R. Mandel, and Sarah S. Schywiola. 2020. “Political Identity over Personal Impact: Early US Reactions to the COVID-19 Pandemic.” PsyArXiv. September 17. doi:10.31234/osf.io/jeq6y

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1306804934873165826

Abstract: Research suggests political identity has strong influence over individuals’ attitudes and beliefs, which in turn can affect their behavior. Likewise, firsthand experience with an issue can also affect attitudes and beliefs. A large (N = 10,362) survey (Pew Research and Ipsos W64) of Americans was analyzed to investigate the effects of both political identity and personal impact on individuals’ reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that political identity (i.e., Democrat or Republican) and personal impact (i.e., personally affected or not) influenced different aspects of the American public’s reaction to COVID-19. Political identity exerted a strong influence on self-reports of emotional distress, threat perception, discomfort with exposure, support for restrictions, and perception of under/overreaction by individuals and institutions. Personal impact exerted a comparatively weaker influence on reported emotional distress and threat perception. Both factors had a weak influence on appraisal of individual and organizational and community responses. The dominating influence of political identity carried over into the bivariate relations among these responses. In particular, the appraisal of organizational response divided along party lines, tied to opposing views of whether there has been over- or under-reaction to the pandemic. The dominance of political identity has important implications for crisis management and reflects the influence of normative value differences between the parties, partisan messaging on the pandemic, and polarization in American politics.

Definitive benefits of breakfast omission or consumption are not supported by the best evidence-based research, & whether skipping breakfast per se is causally associated with cardiovascular outcomes remains unresolved

Association of breakfast skipping with cardiovascular outcomes and cardiometabolic risk factors: an updated review of clinical evidence. Heitor O. Santos et al. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, Sep 16 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2020.1819768

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1306529109724598272

Abstract: “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper” (Adelle Davis, 1904–1974) is a concept that appears to align with some contemporary evidence concerning the appropriate proportioning of daily meals. At the same time, with the popular and scientific dissemination of the concepts of intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding, well-controlled clinical trials have emerged showing the safety or even possible benefits of skipping breakfast. In this comprehensive literature review, we discuss recent evidence regarding breakfast intake, cardiovascular outcomes and cardiovascular risk markers. Overall, breakfast omission appears to be associated with a higher risk for atherosclerotic and adverse cardiovascular outcomes. However, caution should be employed when deciphering these data as many complex, unmeasured confounders may have contributed. Unfortunately, long-term randomized, clinical trials with detailed dietary control that have assessed clinical outcomes are sparse. Notwithstanding the observational findings, current trials conducted so far—albeit apparently smaller number—have shown that breakfast addition in subjects who do not habitually consume this meal may increase body weight, particularly fat mass, through caloric excess, whereas skipping breakfast may be a feasible strategy for some people aiming for calorie restriction. To date, definitive benefits of breakfast omission or consumption are not supported by the best evidence-based research, and the question of whether skipping breakfast per se is causally associated with cardiovascular outcomes remains unresolved.

Keywords: Cardiovascular disease, clinical nutrition, intermittent fasting, skipping breakfast, time-restricted feeding

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.