Physical attractiveness: Not all implicit biases are negative, some traits foster positive unfairness, advantaging some candidates over others; mask wearing is appropriate may play some role in mitigating attractiveness bias

Guarding Against Implicit Bias: Attractiveness. Harrison L. Love, Richard B. Gunderman. Journal of the American College of Radiology, October 29, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacr.2020.10.004

Abstract: Most of the literature on implicit bias naturally focuses on negative stereotypes: categories such as race and gender that lead to discrimination against some candidates in job interview invitations, offers of employment, and promotions. Examples of implicit bias abound; for example, girls are often assumed to be less capable than boys in engineering and math, and parents rate these abilities in their daughters lower than in their sons, even when they perform equally in school [ 1 ].

Yet not all implicit biases are negative, and in fact some traits foster positive unfairness, advantaging some candidates over others. One such trait is physical attractiveness. Recognizing and compensating for this form of bias is equally important for members of the radiology profession.

ATTRACTIVENESS

Some traits tend to be viewed as attractive across all cultures. Amongthese are facial symmetry, clear complexion, and a narrow waistline [2].Other features tend to apply to particular genders. For example, men tend to be attracted to women who appear young and have full breasts and lips. Women tend to be attracted tomen who are taller than they are andwho have broad shoulders. Viewers appraise such features at a subliminallevel, gauging attractiveness afterviewing a photograph for only 1/100thof a second [2].There is evidence that the prefer-ence for attractiveness is innate [3]. Forexample, 1-year-old infants play longerand more intensely, experience lessdistress, and even appear to exhibitmore pleasure when playing withattractive people. Even infants asyoung as 2 months old gaze longer atattractive faces than unattractive ones.The corollary of attractiveness bias is abias against the unattractive [4].Hence it is no surprise that mostpeople take care of how they appear toothers, relying to some degree on attire,cosmetics, and grooming to create a morefavorable impression. Very few peoplewould willingly show up for a job inter-view appearing as they do the momentthey climb out of bed in the morning.That attractiveness should beappealing is a bit tautological, but manytheorists have speculated that it mayserve as an indicator of geneticfitness [5].For example, body build may offer cluesabout health, and general appearancemay serve as an indicator ofsocioeconomic status, both which maybe desirable to prospective mates.Somehaveargued,forexample,thatthe male preference for youth reflects aconcern with reproductivefitness, whilethe traits preferred by women serve asindicators of the capacity to offer protec-tion and provide resources. Even at theneurologic level, viewing the faces ofattractive people has been shown to acti-vate areas of the brain associated withreward [6].

ATTRACTIVENESS BIAS

As this bias toward attractiveness appliesacross genders, ages, and sexual orientations [6], there is ample evidence that it manifests in the workplace [7]. For example, such individuals are morelikely to be interviewed and hired, andthey tend to earn higher wages than individuals judged to be unattractive. Attractive wait staff in restaurants havebeen shown to receive higher tips,regardless of the quality of service theyprovide.And such effects appear not to beaccounted for by other traits; forexample, even when self-confidence istaken into account, attractive individualsretain an advantage in compensation.Likewise, studies in the legal professionhave shown that physically attractive defendants tend to receive more favor-able judgments. Such effects are likely toredound to the detriment of the biased.The underlying reasons for such bia-ses are complex, but it appears thatattractive people are, on balance, perceived by others to be friendlier, healthier, more intelligent, more competent, more generous, and more trustworthy than unattractive people, who tend to beperceived as duller, more introverted, and less generous and trustworthy. There is also reason to think that thebias toward physical attractiveness is at least somewhat unfair. Forexample, some studies suggest that the skill andproductivity of workers is not correlated with their attractiveness [6]. Likewise, here is little evidencethata ttractivepeople are more likely than others to becooperative, generous, or trustworthy.

ATTRACTIVENESS BIAS INRADIOLOGY

The association between attractivenessand academic performance is especiallygermane to radiologists who are select-ing candidates for residency, fellowship,and post-training employment oppor-tunities. There appear to be strongpositive correlations between attractive-ness and such characteristics as perceivedintelligence, perceived academic perfor-mance, and perceived conscientiousness.However, there is no strong positivecorrelation between attractiveness andactual academic performance [4].Attractiveness influences what actu-ally happens in contexts such as schoolsand workplaces. Attractive students aremore likely to get into university becausethey are deemed more intelligent andconscientious. They are also likely toreceive better grades. Likewise, moreattractive people are more likely to gethired and be retained. And salariesappear to be 10% to 15% higher forindividuals deemed to be attractive,which is similar to wage differentialsassociated with gender and race.In some contexts, the implicit biastoward attractiveness may not even beunfair. Consider, for example, lines ofwork such as modeling and acting, inwhich the attractiveness of workers is likelyto enhance sales of products and tickets.

COUNTERACTINGATTRACTIVENESS BIAS

How should radiologists and otherradiology personnel who seek to eval-uate candidates, learners, and colleaguesfairly approach the problem of the pos-itive bias toward physical attractiveness?One part of the solution may be simplyto recognize that such biases exist.Knowing that they are biased to-ward attractive candidates, committeescharged with residency and fellowshipselection, searching and screening forjob candidates, and promotion andtenure can consciously question thedegree to which their deliberations arebiased by attractiveness. Where suchbiases are identified, attempts can bemade to compensate for them.Another way to reduce the effects ofattractiveness bias is to take the physicalappearance of those being evaluated outof the equation. In some cases, candi-date photographs can be excluded fromassessment. During interviews, evalua-tors can be blinded, for example byproviding one or more members of aselection committee with only the audiocomponent of an interview.It is worth noting that the currentcoronavirus pandemic and other situations in which mask wearing is appropriate may play some role in mitigating attractiveness bias. If part of a candi-date’s face is covered when a photo-graph is taken or during a remote or in-person interview, the potential for facialattractiveness is diminished.Some have even suggested that arti-ficial intelligence might play a role inmitigating attractiveness bias. As suchbias is to some degree subjective, perhapscomputers could provide a more objec-tive assessment of candidates. Yet therecent travails of facial recognition tech-nology serve as an important reminderthat even seemingly objective computers may harborbiases based on theirpro-gramming and the data sets they havebeen tasked to learn from.In thefinal analysis, the challenge of implicit bias toward physical <attractiveness is not one that can beeliminated but must instead be managed. To begin with, we need toacknowledge that such biases exist.Moreover, we must recognize that in many situations, it is unfair to allowour expectations and evaluations to beshaped by how a person looks. Finally, we need to do our best toensure that such biases do not undulyinfluence our decision making, allow-ing traits that are only skin deep toobscure our perception of far moreimportant personal attributes such asintelligence, character, and experience,which in the long run are likelier topredict performance.

Combine people’s 1st estimate with their 2d estimate made from the perspective of a person they often disagree with; this produces highly accurate inner crowds, as compared to when people simply make a second guess

van de Calseyde, Philippe, and Emir Efendic. 2019. “Taking a Disagreeing Perspective Improves the Accuracy of People’s Quantitative Estimates.” PsyArXiv. November 15. doi:10.31234/osf.io/k3w4u

Abstract: Many decisions rest upon people’s ability to make estimates of some unknown quantities. In these judgments, the aggregate estimate of the group is often more accurate than most individual estimates. Remarkably, similar principles apply when aggregating multiple estimates made by the same person – a phenomenon known as the “wisdom of the inner crowd”. The potential contained in such an intervention is enormous and a key challenge is to identify strategies that improve the accuracy of people’s aggregate estimates. Here, we propose the following strategy: combine people’s first estimate with their second estimate made from the perspective of a person they often disagree with. In five pre-registered experiments (total N = 6425, with more than 53,000 estimates), we find that such a strategy produces highly accurate inner crowds (as compared to when people simply make a second guess, or when a second estimate is made from the perspective of someone they often agree with). In explaining its accuracy, we find that taking a disagreeing perspective prompts people to consider and adopt second estimates they normally would not consider as viable option, resulting in first- and second estimates that are highly diverse (and by extension more accurate when aggregated). However, this strategy backfires in situations where second estimates are likely to be made in the wrong direction. Our results suggest that disagreement, often highlighted for its negative impact, can be a powerful tool in producing accurate judgments.

We already knew... Leaving the Loners Alone: Preference for Solitude Evokes Ostracism

Leaving the Loners Alone: Dispositional Preference for Solitude Evokes Ostracism. Dongning Ren, Anthony M. Evans. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, November 2, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220968612

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1323276161703661574

Abstract: What are the interpersonal consequences of seeking solitude? Leading theories in developmental research have proposed that having a general preference for solitude may incur significant interpersonal costs, but empirical studies are still lacking. In five studies (total N = 1,823), we tested whether target individuals with a higher preference for solitude were at greater risk for ostracism, a common, yet extremely negative, experience. In studies using self-reported experiences (Study 1) and perceptions of others’ experiences (Study 2), individuals with a stronger preference for solitude were more likely to experience ostracism. Moreover, participants were more willing to ostracize targets with a high (vs. low) preference for solitude (Studies 3 and 4). Why do people ostracize solitude-seeking individuals? Participants assumed that interacting with these individuals would be aversive for themselves and the targets (Study 5; preregistered). Together, these studies suggest that seeking time alone has important (and potentially harmful) interpersonal consequences.

Keywords: preference for solitude, ostracism, exclusion, person perception

General Discussion

Across five studies, we found consistent evidence that individuals who voluntarily seek solitude are at greater risk for ostracism. This conclusion is based on correlational evidence, using participants’ self-reported experiences and their perceptions of others’ experiences (Studies 1 and 2), as well as experimental evidence using verbal descriptions and simulated personality profiles (Studies 3–5). These findings were robust across the contexts of data collection: the United States and the Netherlands; online and in a laboratory; from college students and MTurk.

Importantly, our final study provides some insight into why people ostracize targets with higher preference for solitude. Ostracism intentions are related to both self-interested and other-regarding motives (Study 5). This finding supports and builds on Williams’ theorizing that people may use ostracism preemptively to avoid any aversive outcomes (Williams, 1997). Comparing the two motives further revealed that self-interest, wanting to avoid an unpleasant social interaction, was the primary motive underlying participants’ ostracizing intentions.

Our work also provides insights into general beliefs about solitude-seeking individuals (Studies 3–5): participants considered solitude-seeking individuals to be low in the need to belong, indifferent to belonging events, cold, competent, and introverted. While most of these evaluations are intuitive, given the conceptual link between preference for solitude and low sociality, the positive relationship between preference for solitude and competence is surprising. Past studies found that people believe that loneliness and introversion are associated with incompetence (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009; Lau & Gruen, 1992), suggesting that lay people are able to distinguish preference for solitude from loneliness and introversion. Why do people perceive high (vs. low) solitude preference targets to be more competent? One possible interpretation is that preference for solitude is perceived as a sign of maturity, given that as people transition from adolescent to adulthood, choosing to spend time in solitude becomes more normative and purposeful (Coplan, Ooi, et al., 2019). Another possible interpretation is that preference for solitude is linked with independence in lay beliefs. In fact, wanting to be alone is termed as a motivation for independence in the fundamental social motives framework (Neel et al., 2016). Future research should try to better understand the intriguing link between preference for solitude and competence in lay beliefs.

Theoretical Contributions

The current research contributes to the growing literature on voluntary solitude. To date, there is a general lack of studies on the voluntary preference for solitude, and there are even fewer studies using adult samples or providing causal evidence (Coplan, Ooi, et al., 2019). Our research contributes to this literature by presenting clear evidence that having a strong preference for solitude is consequential in the interpersonal domain. The desire for “me time” is commonly experienced (e.g., Larson, 1990), and there are many potential benefits that voluntary solitude affords (e.g., Long et al., 2003). However, our research sheds light on potential barriers (and consequences) to seeking solitude—the risk of being ostracized and stigmatized.

The current studies suggest that the link between preference for solitude and ostracism could be dynamic and recursive. Targets of ostracism may withdraw from social interactions to minimize risk of additional social pain (Richman & Leary, 2009; Van Kleef et al., 2010). In past experiments, targets of ostracism (vs. inclusion) indicated stronger intentions to disengage from social situations (Pfundmair et al., 2015), more positive ratings of physical spaces that hinder social interaction (Meagher & Marsh, 2017), and, importantly, a higher preference for being alone in the following activity (Ren et al., 2020). Here, we showed that, ironically, the very response to ostracism (i.e., preference for solitude) may put targets at higher risk for ostracism in future social interactions. To fully establish this bidirectional causal link between preference for solitude and ostracism, future work should track participants longitudinally.

The current studies also broaden our understanding of who is ostracized. Focusing on the broad Big Five dimensions, past studies identified two risk factors: low agreeableness and low conscientiousness (Rudert et al., 2020). Notably, narrow traits are often able to better predict domain-specific behavioral outcomes, even when controlling for global traits (Dudley et al., 2006; Paunonen et al., 2003). Here, we focus on preference for solitude, a narrow, domain-specific trait, as both preference for solitude and ostracism are conceptually related to absence of social interactions (although in the case of ostracism, the absence is involuntary). We found that preference for solitude was associated with general ostracism experience, even while controlling for the Big Five traits (Study 1); in addition, participants did not consistently infer agreeableness or conscientiousness from targets’ preference for solitude (Studies 3–5: analyses on perceptions of targets). Taken together, these findings demonstrated that a narrow trait—preference for solitude—put individuals at heightened risk for ostracism above and beyond the known dispositional factors of agreeableness and conscientiousness. An interesting direction for future research is to explore other narrow, domain-specific traits (e.g., trait aggression) and examine multiple risk factors for ostracism in one study. This would allow researchers to examine the relative importance of each risk factor and any potential interaction effects between these factors.

More broadly, the current studies shed light on the question of why people ostracize others. Empirical attention has been given to self-interested or malicious reasons such as using ostracism to punish deviant or burdensome behaviors (Schachter, 1951; Wesselmann et al., 2013; Wirth et al., 2020). Our research adds to this literature by showing that people may have self-interested and other-regarding reasons for ostracizing others. This other-regarding motive for ostracism is in fact not uncommon in our daily life: people may stay silent during an argument with their partner to avoid saying anything harmful, refrain from inviting a busy coworker out for drinks so as not to distract them, or withhold information from a friend when they believe the information may hurt their feelings (a form of partial ostracism; Jones & Kelly, 2013). All these behaviors, albeit motivated by genuine concerns for the target individual, are still examples of the act of ostracizing.

Limitations and Additional Future Directions

In Studies 3 to 5, we used hypothetical profiles to manipulate preference for solitude. This approach is limited in two ways. First, the profiles (e.g., the verbal descriptions in Study 3) may not represent the actual levels of preference for solitude of individuals people encounter in their social environment. Recognizing this potential issue, in Studies 4 and 5, we used a data-driven approach of generating the hypothetical profiles. Second, the profiles made the information of preference for solitude explicit to the participants. In real life, people sometimes indeed make interpersonal decisions based on explicit personality information, for instance, in the domains of personnel selection (Ones & Viswesvaran, 1996) and romantic partner choice (Hall et al., 2010). Yet, at other times, people lack explicit knowledge of their interaction partners. Is preference for solitude a visible trait in social interaction? In other words, can people accurately infer others’ preference for solitude?

Past studies have not examined this question directly. However, there is suggestive evidence that people readily detect the preference for solitude in others. For example, children are able to recognize their peers’ preference for solitude and interact with these individuals accordingly (e.g., overlook them; Harrist et al., 1997). Similarly, adult participants can detect their friends’ motivation to spend time alone (referred to as independence) with some accuracy (Huelsnitz et al., 2020). Generally, people accurately detect personality traits in a target person based on brief interactions or minimal information (Connelly & Ones, 2010; Tskhay & Rule, 2014). Moreover, compared with other traits, extroversion (a related construct) is more visible and more accurately rated by perceivers (Connelly & Ones, 2010).

Another limitation in our experiments is that we measured participants’ ostracism intentions; yet intentions do not necessarily predict actual behavior (e.g., Ajzen, 1991). However, we speculate that there is a relatively strong link between ostracism intentions and behavior (vs. other active forms of exclusion such as physical aggression; Kerr & Levine, 2008). Ostracism does not require an action (Williams, 1997, 2009). In fact, it may take minimal effort to engage in ostracizing (e.g., not saying hello; Kerr & Levine, 2008). In addition, the ambiguous nature of ostracism makes it hard to be documented and thus sources may not be held accountable. It has been shown that ostracism (vs. harassment) is perceived to be more socially acceptable and less regulated at the workplace (O’Reilly et al., 2015). Finally, people tend to underestimate others’ social sufferings caused by ostracism (Nordgren et al., 2011), suggesting that the act of ostracizing is believed to be relatively inconsequential, which may further contribute to the link between intentions and behavior.

In addition to the limitations of the experiments, we collected data from Western countries (the United States and the Netherlands) in all five studies. This puts constraints on the generalizability of the results to other cultural contexts. It has been observed that people in Western cultures are more encouraged to be sociable and expressive, whereas people from East Asian cultures are more encouraged to be shy and self-reflective (Chen, 2010; Ding et al., 2015; Oyserman et al., 2002). Consistent with this observation, past research has suggested that solitude is more valued and experienced more positively in East Asian cultures than in Western cultures (Jiang et al., 2019). Thus, solitude-seeking individuals might be perceived more positively and at less risk for ostracism in East Asian cultures versus Western cultures. These ideas point to a fruitful avenue for future research.

Finally, future research should examine whether or not people’s judgments of those who prefer solitude are accurate. Participants in our studies assumed that preference for solitude is an undesirable disposition in social interactions. They anticipated interactions to be unpleasant for themselves and for the target individual. But are these valid concerns? We speculate that people might over-rely on preference for solitude as a predictor of social interaction outcomes. Because preference for solitude is not an indicator of a lack of interest in social interactions (Coplan, Ooi, et al., 2019), the need to affiliate is a basic need that applies to everyone (Baumeister & Leary, 1995), and that the immediate impact of ostracism is universally aversive regardless of dispositional characteristics of the targeted individual (McDonald & Donnellan, 2012), it is likely that individuals with a high preference for solitude would enjoy social interactions as much as others. Dispelling these misconceptions of solitude-seeking individuals might be an effective strategy to promote inclusive behaviors.

Novel techniquest (exorcism) instead of the Salem witchcraft convictions could have conferred even greater wealth for the Puritan church; but exorcism was inferior to executions for the congregant-maximizing Puritan ministers

The economics of Puritanism’s treatment of bewitchment: exorcism as a potential market-pull innovation? Franklin G. Mixon Jr. & Kamal P. Upadhyaya. European Journal of Law and Economics volume 50, pp 203–222 (2020). May 26 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10657-020-09659-1

Abstract: A long history of research on the witchcraft hysteria in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692 contends that a group of Puritan ministers, including Salem Village’s Samuel Parris, developed and used the witchcraft hysteria in order to boost religiosity and church attendance in an effort to augment corporate and personal wealth. In carrying out this effort, these ministers pitted churched colonists against unchurched colonists, resulting in the wrongful convictions of 20 American colonials. This study argues that it might have ended without the executions of the colonists, and perhaps in even greater corporate wealth for the Puritan church, had Puritanism been receptive to the potential market-pull innovation represented by exorcism. Scrutiny of this proposition through the lens of rational choice theory suggests, however, that exorcism was inferior to executions as a technology choice for the congregant-maximizing Puritan ministers in Salem Village in 1692.

The Accuracy and of Personality Impressions from Faces, and the meta-accuracy (i.e., whether they are aware of their judgment accuracy), are both low

Jaeger, Bastian, Willem Sleegers, Julia Stern, Lars Penke, and Alex L. Jones. 2020. “The Accuracy and Meta-accuracy of Personality Impressions from Faces.” PsyArXiv. November 2. doi:10.31234/osf.io/4x7d8

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1323191071401250818

Abstract: People spontaneously judge others’ personality based on their facial appearance and these impressions guide many important decisions. Although the consequences of personality impressions are well documented, studies on the accuracy of personality impressions have yielded mixed results. Moreover, little is known about people’s meta-accuracy (i.e., whether they are aware of their judgment accuracy). Even if accuracy is generally low, meta-accuracy would allow people to rely on their impressions in the right situations. In two studies (one preregistered), we examined the accuracy and meta-accuracy of personality impressions. We addressed three crucial limitations of previous studies (a) by incentivizing accuracy and meta-accuracy, (b) by relying on substantially larger samples of raters and targets (646 participants rating 1,660 faces), and (c) by conducting Bayesian analyses to also quantify evidence for the null hypothesis. Our findings consistently suggest that people show neither accuracy nor meta-accuracy when forming face-based personality impressions.

Descriptive, Predictive and Explanatory Personality Research: Different Goals, Different Approaches, but a Shared Need to Move Beyond the Big Few Traits

Mõttus, René, Dustin Wood, David M. Condon, Mitja Back, Anna Baumert, Giulio Costantini, Sacha Epskamp, et al. 2020. “Descriptive, Predictive and Explanatory Personality Research: Different Goals, Different Approaches, but a Shared Need to Move Beyond the Big Few Traits.” PsyArXiv. November 1. doi:10.31234/osf.io/hvk5p

Abstract: We argue that it is useful to distinguish between three key goals of personality science – description, prediction and explanation – and that attaining them often requires different priorities and methodological approaches. We put forward specific recommendations such as publishing findings with minimum a priori aggregation and exploring the limits of predictive models without being constrained by parsimony and intuitiveness but instead maximising out-of-sample predictive accuracy. We argue that naturally-occurring variance in many decontextualized and multi-determined constructs that interest personality scientists may not have individual causes, at least as this term is generally understood and in ways that are human-interpretable, never mind intervenable. If so, useful explanations are narratives that summarize many pieces of descriptive findings rather than models that target individual cause-effect associations. By meticulously studying specific and contextualized behaviours, thoughts, feelings and goals, however, individual causes of variance may ultimately be identifiable, although such causal explanations will likely be far more complex, phenomenon-specific and person-specific than anticipated thus far. Progress in all three areas – description, prediction, and explanation – requires higher-dimensional models than the currently-dominant “Big Few” and supplementing subjective trait-ratings with alternative sources of information such as informant-reports and behavioural measurements. Developing a new generation of psychometric tools thus provides many immediate research opportunities.

If it was possible to be presented with a comprehensive list of everyone who has thought about you while having sex, would you want to see it?; his guess is that the list would destroy us all

The Masturbation List - A thought experiment. Jack Pemment. Psychology Today, Oct 31, 2020. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/blame-the-amygdala/202010/the-masturbation-list

Here’s a thought experiment for you.

It’s both at once amusing and terrifying, but as it’s Halloween, it’s the perfect time to share it with you.

If it was possible to be presented with a comprehensive list of everyone who has thought about you, either while masturbating or having sex, would you want to see it?

There is no way to feel neutral about this list.

Just pausing to imagine what names you might see on the list could at once be validating, but at the same time, horrifying. What if someone you once had a crush on is on the list, but then also someone you really don’t or didn’t like all that much?

This list would change your life. You might not be able to look at many of your colleagues the same way again. Do you have the kind of personality where this knowledge wouldn’t get to you? If somebody has had a sexual fantasy about you, without you, is that their privilege? Is it okay, but just as long as you don’t know about it? But now you do.

Would you be okay looking at the list, but with the caveat of being protected by it only covering up to five years previous? Looking back might be amusing, but seeing anyone on the list you still interact with in the present might be awkward and borderline traumatic.

But looking back, would you want to know who thought about you in a sexual fantasy when you had not yet come of age? If someone had been the same age as you, maybe you’d be comfortable with that, but what if they’d been quite a lot older than you?

What about how many people were on the list? If it was minimal, would you feel [...]

[Full text at the link above.]

Gender gap in organizations of excellence... Studying an organized criminal network shows women occupying structural positions generally associated with a lack of power; overall, women are less present in the network

A Man’s world? Comparing the structural positions of men and women in an organized criminal network. Tomáš Diviák, James A. Coutinho & Alex D. Stivala. Crime, Law and Social Change volume 74, pp 547–569. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10611-020-09910-5

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1322501235770073089

Abstract: The crime gender gap is the difference between the levels of participation of men and women in crime, with men responsible for more crime than women. Recent evidence suggests that the crime gender gap is closing, both in crime in general and in organized crime. However, organized crime differs from other forms of criminal activity in that it entails an organizational structure of cooperation among offenders. Assessing whether the gender gap in organized crime is narrowing is not only about the overall levels of involvement of women, but about their roles and positions within the organized criminal structure, because the involvement of women does not mean that they are in influential positions, or that they have power or access to resources important for the commission of organized crime. This paper uses a social network approach to systematically compare the structural positions of men and women in an organized criminal network. We use a dataset collected by Canadian Law Enforcement consisting of 1390 individuals known or suspected to be involved in organized crime, 185 of whom are women. Our analysis provides evidence for an ongoing gender gap in organized crime, with women occupying structural positions that are generally associated with a lack of power. Overall, women are less present in the network, tend to collaborate with other women rather than with men, and are more often in the disadvantageous position of being connected by male intermediaries. Implications for theory and law enforcement practice are discussed.

Discussion

The results of our analysis are surprising in the sense that where previous research on the role of gender in criminal contexts suggests that there ought to be numerous structural differences between men’s and women’s networks, we found relatively few significant differences between the structural positions of men and women in our observed network. A number of differences between men and women’s networks suggested by the descriptive statistics were contradicted or clarified by the modelling results (ALAAM). While descriptive analysis shows that women on average have lower betweenness centrality in the collaboration network than men, the results of the ALAAM indicate no significant tendency towards lower betweenness centrality for women. Further, while the descriptive statistics show weak support for gender homophily, the modelling results indicate a significant positive tendency towards homophily in the collaboration network. Finally, while women have more pre-existing ties on average than men, modelling results indicate that women do not tend to have a greater tendency to collaborate with one another via pre-existing ties than men do. These results demonstrate the importance of comparing men and women’s criminal network positions using methods such as ALAAM that account systematically for network tie dependencies, and that acknowledge the fact that lower-order network configurations are nested within higher-order configurations. Thus the interpretations of particular structural features of a network may be explained or strengthened when we account for lower-order and other theoretically-relevant configurations.

However, our modelling results indicate that women are overall less likely to participate in the network, when they participate they associate significantly more frequently with other women, and they tend to be on the potentially less advantageous ends of open brokerage structures. These results provide evidence for an ongoing gender gap in organized crime. Research in legitimate contexts has found evidence for a ‘structural perspective’, where gender differences in networks are explained by opportunities and constraints in network formation presented by men and women’s differential positions in the broader economic and societal structure [9, 10, 31]. On this view, the observation that women are both less present and less active in the network of organized criminals connected to the Canadian province of Alberta may reflective of a systemic lack of opportunities for women to participate in organized crime, or systemic constraints preventing women from joining the network. For example, women may lack opportunities to form network ties because they are excluded from convergence settings such as dive bars where criminal collaborations arise and crimes are planned [11] and so they are unable to learn about criminal opportunities or become involved in criminal conspiracies [10]. Constraints may include a relative lack of the resources required to be of use to criminal organizations, or a cultural perception among criminals that women should not or cannot participate in criminal activities [9]. Furthermore, gender stereotypes operating in wider society may affect the positions of women in criminal networks. Societal expectations and gender relations are geared towards men holding positions of influence and power [19, 20], and as such men may work to keep women excluded from powerful positions within criminal networks. For instance, some research suggests that male criminals’ perceptions that women are untrustworthy, unreliable, or weak is a barrier to women’s entry into, and acquisition of advantageous positions within, organized crime [6, 7].

Our finding that when women do participate they tend to occupy the potentially disadvantageous ends of open brokerage structures, with men occupying the broker position, suggests that women may be ‘used’ by men for what resources they have, without exercising true power in the form of the coordination or orchestration of criminal activities. While in other contexts brokerage behaviour has been viewed mainly as a source of performance advantages for individuals and groups [53, 54], in criminal networks it has also been seen as a source of covertness [56] or as a niche role in the organization of criminal activity [57]. Combining these functions of brokerage, occupying brokerage positions may be a source of potential power in criminal collaboration networks in that it could allow individuals to control information and resources while maintaining concealment and allowing the accumulation of advantage. Thus the fact that women tend to be brokered between by men in our data evidences their systematic lack of power in comparison to men. The observation that women tend to ‘flock together’ [43] also implies that when women do participate in organized crime it may be in niche activities or segments of the criminal supply chain [26] that are open to women, such as sex or human trafficking. Taken together, these findings provide evidence that women tend to participate in organized crime either in peripheral, low-power positions or in groups with other women, in accordance with some previous findings (cf. [9, 10]).

Finally, the finding that there is no tendency towards heterophily in women’s network ties, alongside women’s minority position in the network in terms of overall numbers, might speak to a lack of opportunities by which women are able to form ties with and access resources from important men in the network. In contrast, research on legitimate organizations has found that women tend to violate homophily preferences in order to access resources from powerful actors, and this may be a mechanism by which women who are in a minority position increase their power [73].

In sum, while our findings do not accord fully with previous research regarding differences in the structural positions of men and women in criminal networks, they do provide evidence for an ongoing gender gap in involvement in organized crime. In other words, it appears that organized crime continues to be predominantly ‘a man’s world’.

Conclusions and future research directions

We formulated our hypotheses and specified our model based on previous research on the positions of men and women in organized crime and on the differences in positions between men and women in legitimate networks. Most of the former studies are qualitative case studies on different criminal groups focusing specifically on what women do within these groups. This provides great detail and the contextual information on women’s roles in organised crime and how women acquire certain positions. This depth is, however, perhaps achieved at the expense of systematic comparison between men and women. The social network perspective and specific models such as ALAAM offer a way to make such a comparison. Statistical models for social networks allow us to show that in our specific case, we do not find evidence for the differences in the structural positions of women compared with men in organized crime, as apparent structural differences may be due to structural social processes that are not gender-specific and are not accounted for by simple descriptive network analysis. However, further research is necessary in order to say whether our findings differ from previous research because of the use of our statistical models or because our case itself is different from other cases. The present study provides an insight into differences between men and women in organized crime in one large network, albeit in a particular societal, geographic and temporal context. In order to gain a more solid picture of the gender differences in organized crime, it is necessary to study other criminal networks and accumulate findings on consistently appearing patterns concerning gender therein, which provide systematic evidence of the roles women play in organised crime.

One avenue for further research would be the investigation of how the activities of criminal groups affect the involvement and structural positions of women within the groups. There may be differential rates of involvement in different types of organized criminal activities or groups [6]. We might expect that women are less involved in those types of organized crime which require more “professional” involvement, and where stakes and risks are higher (Steffensmeier and Allan [2]) (although there are counterexamples in the trafficking industry). Some researchers hypothesize that women are less likely to be involved in violent activities, a hypothesis sometimes referred to as the gendered market hypothesis [36, 46]. Connell’s [19, 20] social theory of gender argues that violence is a means by which men maintain power over women – violence is regarded as ‘natural’ for men, but not for women – so there are ways that broader social theory may be informative here as well. Answering these questions will likely prove valuable in understanding organized crime.

Another avenue for future research is the dynamics of criminal networks. Our study provides a static picture of positions of men and women in one criminal network, but in order to better understand the differences between genders it is important to consider the evolution of these differences over time. In other words, an important issue is whether the crime gender gap is narrowing or widening over time and in what aspects – in the sheer involvement of women, in their structural positions or in both? A longitudinal perspective would also allow us to better understand the mechanisms behind the formation of criminal networks. For example, given that we observe that women tend to be brokered between by men, we may wonder if there is a high rate of ‘churn’ of women occupying this structural position in the network. If so this would suggest that women play a relatively dispensable role in criminal networks, where they are used for their resources and then discarded. There has been vigorous development of longitudinal models for networks in SNA [74] which are capable of separating the influence of endogenous network effects, attribute effects, and exogenous dyadic effects on the evolution of the network as well as attributes over time. Thus far these models have been relatively little-used in criminal network research. Combining longitudinal network data with qualitative or ethnographic data about broader social, economic, and political context would also be a fruitful avenue in studying how changes at the societal level translate into individual positions of men and women in the structures of organized crime.

The study of both the different activities within criminal networks and network dynamics require suitable data. As we have noted above, collection of complete and reliable data is probably the largest challenge in the study of criminal networks [26, 27] and it also presents the greatest limitation of our present study. It is impossible to know whether the observed differences between men and women in our network are a true reflection of the phenomenon of organized crime, or whether they are an artefact of data collection, recording and collation methods. For example, women may appear less present in the observed network because law enforcement tend to focus attention on male criminals while paying less attention to the kinds of crime that women are involved in. In addition, we found no evidence that women are more likely to be connected by pre-existing ties in the network. However, the way in which our data was collected and collated means that the number of pre-existing ties may be underestimated and their temporal precedence to collaboration ties is uncertain. Time-stamped data, indicating the precise temporal order of tie formation, would provide further evidence on interrelationships among types of ties in criminal networks. However, as more and more studies reveal interesting and valuable insights, law enforcement practitioners collect more valuable data and are increasingly interested in the field of criminal network analysis. Researchers may take advantage of this momentum and propagate good practices for collecting and processing data on covert populations to further advance the area of inquiry.

Egocentrism shapes moral judgements; those judgements appear to people as objective, impartial & morally right; the biases are not easily overcome, even when presented with morally relevant information

Egocentrism shapes moral judgements. Konrad Bocian  Wieslaw Baryla  Bogdan Wojciszke. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, October 24 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12572

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1322434595619569664

Abstract: We review past and recent literature on how egocentrism shapes moral judgements. We focus on mechanisms by which egocentric evaluations appear to people as objective, impartial and morally right. We also show that people seem to be unaware of these biases and suggest that understanding how egocentrism impacts moral judgements demands studying morality embedded in a specific social context rather than the social void created in a laboratory. Finally, we argue that egocentric biases in moral judgements are not easily overcome and persist even if people deliberately try to omit attitudes in their judgements or if morally relevant information is present. We conclude that egocentric evaluations triggered by such factors as personal and group interests or attitudes may lay at the core of moral judgements of others because they help maintain a strategic social and personal relationships.

9 DEBIASING STRATEGIES FOR EGOCENTRIC EVALUATIONS IN MORAL JUDGEMENTS

Identifying strategies that could eliminate egocentric biases in moral judgements might help modern societies change the disruptive nature of moral disagreements. However, to date, research on effective strategies for reducing egocentric biases has been limited to studies on conflict or fairness but has returned inconclusive results and are thus unable to advise which specific strategies are successful (see Epley & Caruso, 2004). For example, one line of studies found that a commonly advised strategy of considering the perspective of others (perspective taking) did reduce egocentric judgements (people claimed that it was fair for them to take less) but also strengthened egoistic (selfish) behaviour, as participants in the end allocated more resources to themselves (Epley, Caruso, & Bazerman, 2006). Therefore, egocentric evaluations might be challenging to overcome because of their automatic and affective nature and because attempts to mitigate them might lead to a discrepancy between moral judgements (what people judge as fair distribution of resources) and moral behaviour (how people distribute the resources; Epley et al., 2006). This discrepancy was also found in research that showed that people's imaginary moral judgements differed significantly from their behavioural moral judgements (Bocian & Wojciszke, 2014b; Wojciszke & Bocian, 2018).

Recently, Bocian, Baryla, and Wojciszke (2020a) tested which strategies might be successful in eliminating the biasing impact of interpersonal attitudes on attributions of moral character. The results of three experiments revealed that only accountability (i.e., the prospect of giving justification for one's moral judgements) was strong enough to block the bias. However, neither a deliberate attempt to ignore personal attitudes nor the presence of morally relevant information about past unethical behaviour of a judged (and well‐liked) person could de‐bias moral judgement. Overall, these results suggest that the influence of attitude‐driven egocentric interpretations on moral character perception can be either eliminated or limited through specific cognitive factors. Future research should focus on testing which deliberate (e.g., moral image) and automatic (e.g., time pressure) factors weaken or reinforce egocentric evaluations in judgements of moral character.

10 CONCLUSION

Egocentric evaluations are fast, automatic, affective and strategically motivated. Because they do not require effort and resources to operate, they can serve as a default basis for moral judgements. Therefore, egocentric evaluations subjectively seem objective and accurate perceptions of the social world, thereby making people unaware of their biasing power in moral evaluations. However, even though strategies such as attitude evading or increased motivation could help people correct their biased egocentric perspective, the evidence presented in this study suggests that these strategies are frequently insufficient since they require effort and conscious attention.

Knowledge that egocentric evaluations are predominantly automatic helps understand why people judge outcomes as fair or moral when they are positive for them and unfair or immoral when they are negative. Moreover, it also clarifies why the same people perceive others as self‐interested or egoistic. People overestimate the impact of self‐interest on others' attitudes and behaviours (Miller & Ratner, 1998) and probably assume that others judge positive outcomes as fair and negative outcomes as unfair because of their selfish and egoistic nature. That might be plausible because people are not aware that the egocentric perspective automatically influences their evaluations. Hence, instead of accusing people of being selfish or self‐interested, we should understand how egocentrism shapes the way people talk about morality.

This can be done by bringing egocentric biases into moral judgement paradigms to make them more ecologically valid and, thus, more socially relevant. However, to understand how egocentrism biases moral judgements, we should recognize that while recent theories of moral psychology explain morals through the self, most of the empirical work regarding morality does not take the self into account. Therefore, moral judgements are typically studied in a sort of social vacuum by placing people in decontextualized and often imagined situations when they are asked to act as omniscient moral judges. These methods raise concerns about the value of moral judgements in moral behaviour predictions. For example, recent evidence confirms that responses to hypothetical moral dilemmas cannot predict responses to real‐life dilemmas (Bostyn, Sevenhant, & Roets, 2018), moral decisions (Patil, Cogoni, Zangrando, Chittaro, & Silani, 2014) or moral actions (Francis et al., 2016).

The mismatch between studied and experienced morality may be resolved by embedding moral judgements in a specific context. Specifically, scholars may contextualize actors (e.g., manipulating personal relationships; Waytz, Dungan, & Young, 2013), actions (e.g., studying the unique context of war; Watkins & Goodwin, 2020), judges (e.g., participant's subjective experience; Royzman, Kim, & Leeman, 2015) and values (e.g., how do people prioritize them; Dungan, Young, & Waytz, 2019; for the review see Schein, 2020). Based on the reviewed theories and empirical evidence, we argue that scholars should contextualize attitudes and personal or group interests as well. In this way, future research would narrow the gap between the egocentrism centrality in theory and its underrepresentation in empirical work, bringing moral judgements closer to moral behaviour.

We might need to accept that egocentric biases in moral judgements are inevitable. Social, justice and moral psychology offer ample evidence against our naïve confidence in humans as impartial judges, despite the strong confidence in the objective nature of our moral judgements and collective denial they could be influenced by such egocentric factors as personal benefits, attitudes or group interests.