Evidence from a Panel of Transition Economies: The flat tax reforms increase annual GDP growth by 1.36 percentage points for a transitionary period of approximately one decade

The Macroeconomic Effects of Flat Taxation: Evidence from a Panel of Transition Economies. Brian Wheaton. Harvard Univ., October 24, 2020. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/wheaton/files/flat_tax.pdf

Abstract: Flat taxes have been the subject of policy discussion for decades, and such discussions have often come with bold macroeconomic claims. Yet the macroeconomic effects of flat taxation remains a mostly overlooked topic in the economics literature. To guide my analysis, I construct a simple model of investment decisions under varying income tax progressivity, and I show that decreased tax progressivity increases investment, which – under standard models of economic growth – should induce a transitionary increase in GDP growth. To test these implications, I turn to a natural experiment: between 1994 and 2011, twenty post-Communist countries introduced flat taxation on personal income. Since 2011, five of these countries have reverted to progressive income taxation. Using static and dynamic difference-in-differences approaches, I find that the flat tax reforms increase annual GDP growth by 1.36 percentage points for a transitionary period of approximately one decade. These findings are robust to multiple alternative specifications designed to deal with various identification challenges, including electoral endogeneity and correlated reforms. Entirely consistent with the model, this growth effect is operationalized through increases in investment (and labor supply), and it is driven both by the decreases in the average marginal tax rate and the reductions in progressivity resulting from the tax reforms. In short, tax progressivity can have important implications for macroeconomic outcomes.

Corporal punishment in schools increases educational attainment, increases later-life social trust & trust in institutions, leads to less authoritarian attitudes toward child-rearing, to greater tolerance of free speech, & decreases later-life crime

Petrova, Maria, Gautam Rao, and Brian Wheaton. “The Long-Run Effects of Corporal Punishment in Schools,” Harvard Working Paper, Nov 2020. https://scholar.harvard.edu/wheaton/publications/poppies-protest-and-demand-economic-and-political-effects-legalizations-and

Abstract: Corporal punishment is used in schools in about 70 countries, including in 19 states in the United States. Despite its prevalence as a tool to discipline students, it remains remarkably understudied. We leverage the staggered state-level bans of school corporal punishment in the United States over the past several decades in conjunction with data on social and economic outcomes from the American Community Survey (ACS) and the General Social Survey (GSS), using a difference-in-differences design to measure the causal effects of school corporal punishment.  We find that the presence of corporal punishment in schools increases educational attainment, increases later-life social trust and trust in institutions, and leads to less authoritarian attitudes toward child-rearing, and greater tolerance of free speech.  Additionally, exposure to corporal punishment in school decreases later-life crime.  We find no effects on mental or physical health.  These results hold up to dynamic difference-in-differences specifications – which reveal non-existence of pre- trends – and a wide variety of other robustness checks.  Observing that only a small share of students are exposed to corporal punishment, we argue that the effects primarily represent spillovers resulting from restraining the behavior of disruptive students.

Masculinity & femininity affect disgust by gender; reframing disgust in terms of caregiving eliminates the gender gap in disgust; & the caregiving frame unexpectedly strengthens the relationship between disgust & political ideology

Slimy worms or sticky kids: How caregiving tasks and gender identity attenuate disgust response. Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz (a1) and Amanda Friesen. Politics and the Life Sciences, Volume 39, Special Issue 2, Fall 2020, pp. 167-186, November 3 2020. https://doi.org/10.1017/pls.2020.21

Abstract: Disgust is derived from evolutionary processes to avoid pathogen contamination. Theories of gender differences in pathogen disgust utilize both evolutionary psychological and sociocultural perspectives. Drawing on research that suggests that masculine and feminine gender identities are somewhat orthogonal, we examine how gender identity intersects with pathogen disgust. In addition, building on evolutionary psychological and sociocultural accounts of how caregiving and parental investment affect pathogen disgust, we present a new measure of caregiving disgust and compare its properties across gender, parental status, and political ideology with those of a conventional pathogen disgust measure. This registered report finds that how masculinity and femininity affect disgust varies by gender, disgust domain, and their intersection; that parental status effects vary by disgust domain but not gender; that reframing disgust in terms of caregiving eliminates the gender gap in disgust; and that the caregiving frame unexpectedly strengthens the relationship between disgust and political ideology.

Age trends in malevolent personality conform to established patterns of normative change, indicating temporary disruption in adolescence and social maturation across adulthood

Age differences in Machiavellianism across the life span: Evidence from a large‐scale cross‐sectional study. Friedrich M. Götz  Wiebke Bleidorn  Peter J. Rentfrow. Journal of Personality, March 7 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12545

Abstract

Objective: Lifespan perspectives on personality development have gained much momentum in recent years, mostly focusing on benevolent and neutral traits such as the Big Five. Despite their strong associations with critical personal outcomes, surprisingly little research has investigated the development of malevolent traits. Addressing this gap, we examined age trends in Machiavellianism across the lifespan.

Methods: Using data from a large‐scale cross‐sectional sample (n = 1,118,643), we analyzed mean‐level changes from age 10 to 67.

Results: Age differences in Machiavellianism were most pronounced as a strong upward trend during the transition from late childhood to adolescence, when it peaked. Throughout adulthood it exhibited a steady downward trend, reaching an overall minimum at age 65. Across the lifespan, Machiavellianism tended to be higher in men and high‐income participants. Compared to Machiavellianism, the age trends in Agreeableness and—to a lesser extent—Conscientiousness showed almost perfectly polar opposite patterns.

Conclusions: Age trends in malevolent personality conform to established patterns of normative change, indicating temporary disruption in adolescence and social maturation across adulthood. The results advance theory and research on personality trait development across the lifespan and highlight crucial developmental windows that can inform targeted interventions to keep socially aversive traits in check.

Rolf Degen summarizing... Across the world, the number of people who were “very” or “extremely” concerned about fake news was far higher than the number of people who had actually seen any

Fletcher R. (2021) How News Audiences Think About Misinformation Across the World. In: Jayakumar S., Ang B., Anwar N.D. (eds) Disinformation and Fake News. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. Nov 1 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5876-4_4

Abstract: In this chapter, Richard Fletcher examines some of the key findings from the 2018 Reuters Institute Digital News Report. This report analysed online data dealing with news consumption from approximately 74,000 respondents internationally, with particular focus on their “level of concern over and exposure to specific types of misinformation and disinformation associated with the news”. One of its main findings was that just over half of the respondents were either “very” or “extremely” concerned about bias, poor journalism, and completely made-up news. However, Fletcher explains that the level and areas of concern varies from country to country. For example, in Eastern Europe, the questionnaire showed that “misleading advertising was more of a concern than in many other parts of the world”. Fletcher analyses each key finding of the report, including the public perception of “fake news” as a term, and who news audiences think should do more to fix problems associated with misinformation. He concludes by emphasising the importance of monitoring public concern over misinformation, in order to properly address the problems it poses.

Keywords: Misinformation Disinformation Bias Fake news Social media 

Parenting Styles in Gay Families: The homosexual parents reported a warmer parenting style, more cooperation, and less irritation with the temperament of the firstborn child

Parenting Styles in Gay Families. Christine Neresheimer. PhD Thesis, Zurich Univ, 2020.  https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-191334

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1324959453326831616

Abstract: There is less research on parenting styles in Europe currently than, for example, in the 1970s, when many researchers were working on the subject, developing instruments, and designing models for parenting styles. Parenting styles are influenced by many factors, such as the temperament of the child, the personality of the parents, or the cooperation between parents. Since the 1970s, ever more homosexual parents in Western cultures are open to their sexual orientation, live it, and use the opportunity to raise children, whether through surrogacy, adoption, or living with a second homosexual couple of another gender. Thus, in recent decades, in addition to a number of forms that replace the traditional family (e.g. patchwork families), ‘new’ or ‘modern’ family forms have correspondingly been discussed in literature (e.g. rainbow families, queer families). Most research in this area has focused on the immediate development of children in these family forms, such as the perennial question of whether children whose parents are homosexual more likely to display this sexual orientation in adulthood. In this work, the focus was on the parents. In this thesis project, we investigated the extent to which the parents’ parenting style is related to or independent of their sexual orientation. From this starting point, two studies were derived that investigated the parenting styles and related factors of homosexual and heterosexual couples. Study 1 showed correlations between parenting style, sexual orientation, and the temperament of the firstborn child. The homosexual parents reported a warmer parenting style, more cooperation, and less irritation with the temperament of the firstborn child. Study 2 investigated personality and the cooperation between the two parents. Here, both family forms showed many similarities, but they still differed slightly in personality and cooperation. In summary, the results of this doctoral thesis show that there are slight differences in parenting styles between homosexual and heterosexual parents and that these differences are partly significant but should also be considered with caution due to the parents' self-assessment.

Rising Ethnic Diversity in the United States Accompanies Shifts Toward an Individualistic Culture

Rising Ethnic Diversity in the United States Accompanies Shifts Toward an Individualistic Culture. Alex C. Huynh, Igor Grossmann. Social Psychological and Personality Science, October 29, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620967230

Abstract: We investigate the relationship between ethnic diversity and the rise of individualism in the United States during the 20th and 21st centuries. Tests of the historical rates of ethnic diversity alongside individualistic relational structures (e.g., adults living alone, single-/multi-child families) from the years 1950 to 2018 reveal that societal and regional rates of ethnic diversity accompanied individualistic relational structures. These effects hold above and beyond time-series trends in each variable. Further evidence from experimental studies (N = 707) suggests that the presence of, and contact with, ethnically diverse others contributes to greater individualistic values (e.g., the importance of uniqueness and personal achievement). Converging evidence across societal-, regional-, and individual-level analyses suggests a systematic link between ethnic diversity and individualism. We discuss the implications of these findings for sociocultural livelihood in light of the rising rates of ethnic diversity across the globe.

Keywords: ethnic diversity, cultural change, cultural cognition, individualism

Moral foundations and political orientation: The basic differences about conservatives and liberals are supported; results may be less generalizable across samples and political cultures than previously thought

Kivikangas, J. M., Fernández-Castilla, B., Järvelä, S., Ravaja, N., & Lönnqvist, J.-E. (2020). Moral foundations and political orientation: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, Nov 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000308

Abstract: We investigate the relationship of morality and political orientation by focusing on the influential results showing that liberals and conservatives rely on different moral foundations. We conducted a comprehensive literature search from major databases and other sources for primary studies that used the Moral Foundations Questionnaire and a typical measure of political orientation, a political self-placement item. We used a predefined process for independent extraction of effect sizes by two authors and ran both study-level and individual-level analyses. With 89 samples, 605 effect sizes, and 33,804 independent participants, in addition to 192,870 participants from the widely used YourMorals.org website, the basic differences about conservatives and liberals are supported. Yet, heterogeneity is moderate, and the results may be less generalizable across samples and political cultures than previously thought. The effect sizes obtained from the YourMorals.org data appear inflated compared with independent samples, which is partly related to political interest and may be because of self-selection. The association of moral foundations to political orientation varies culturally (between regions and countries) and subculturally (between White and Black respondents and in response to political interest). The associations also differ depending on the choice of the social or economic dimension and its labeling, supporting both the bidimensional model of political orientation and the findings that the dimensions are often strongly correlated. Our findings have implications for interpreting published studies, as well as designing new ones where the political aspect of morality is relevant. The results are primarily limited by the validity of the measures and the homogeneity of the included studies in terms of sample origins. 

Within-person grade variability was largely unstable across subjects & ages & not associated with any of 15 variables that typically explain between-person differences in school performance (e.g. IQ, socioeconomic status, personality traits)

Wright, Megan, and Sophie von Stumm. 2020. “Within-person Variability in School Performance.” PsyArXiv. November 6. doi:10.31234/osf.io/5ne37

Abstract: Although thought to be substantial, within-person variability in school grades has not been systematically studied. Here we analysed data from the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS; Nmax = 11,132) to describe within-person variability across grades in English, maths, and science from age 7 to 16 years. We found that within-person grade variability was largely unstable across subjects and ages. Within-person grade variability at age 16 was not associated with any of 15 variables that typically explain between-person differences in school performance (e.g. IQ, socioeconomic status, and personality traits). Also, within-person grade variability did not predict later educational outcomes at ages 18 and 21. Our findings suggest that within-person grade variability is an observable, but not meaningful psychological construct. We conclude that understanding the causes and consequences of within-person grade variability is of limited epistemological value.

Fukushima Daiichi: Each standard deviation increase in the influx of temporarily relocated survivors within 100 m of a resident’s home address was associated with a decrease in their trust in both people from their community and outside of it

Evaluation of Trust Within a Community After Survivor Relocation Following the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Krisztina Gero et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(11):e2021166. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.21166

Key Points

Question  How is the movement of internally displaced survivors in the aftermath of a disaster associated with perceived trust towards others within a host community?

Findings  In this cohort study that included 3250 adults aged 65 years or older, each standard deviation increase in the influx of temporarily relocated survivors within 100 m of a resident’s home address was associated with a decrease in their trust in both people from their community and outside of it.

Meaning  The findings of this study suggest that opportunities for social interaction between old and new residents of host communities may be crucial for maintaining social trust.

Abstract

Importance  Trust is a core component of social cohesion, facilitating cooperation and collective action in the face of adversity and enabling survivors to remain resilient. Residential stability is an important prerequisite of developing trusting relations among community members. However, little is known about whether the movement of internally displaced persons (IDPs) after a disaster might change community relations.

Objective  We explored perceived changes in trust within 1 community directly impacted by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

Design, Setting, and Participants  This prospective cohort study examined survey data from 3594 residents of Iwanuma City, Japan, aged 65 years or older. Data were obtained from the Iwanuma Study—part of the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study, a nationwide cohort study established in 2010—approximately 7 months before the disaster. All Iwanuma City residents age 65 years or older (8576 residents) were eligible to participate in 2010. The response rate was 59.0% (5058 residents). A follow-up survey was conducted in 2013, approximately 2.5 years after the disaster. Of the 4380 remaining participants who answered the baseline survey, 3594 were recontacted (follow-up rate, 82.1%). Data analysis was performed from July 1, 2019, to January 9, 2020.

Exposures  The number of temporarily relocated Iwanuma City survivors within 100 m and 250 m of a nonrelocated resident’s home address.

Main Outcomes and Measures  Perceived changes in particularized trust (ie, trusting people from the same community) and generalized trust (trusting people from other communities) measured on a 5-point Likert scale.

Results  Among 3250 nonrelocated residents (1808 [55.6%] women; mean [SD] age, 76.5 [6.2] years) of Iwanuma City included in the analytic sample, multivariable-adjusted multinomial logistic regression analyses found that each standard deviation increase in the influx of internally displaced persons (1 SD = 11 IDPs) within 250 m of a resident’s home address was associated with higher odds of a decrease in the resident’s particularized and generalized trust (odds ratio, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.04-1.32).

Conclusions and Relevance  The influx of IDPs in the host community appeared to be associated with an erosion of trust among locals. To avoid the erosion of social cohesion after a disaster, it may be crucial to provide opportunities for social interaction between old and new residents of communities.

Discussion

Our study found that after the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake, the influx of IDPs to another community was associated with weakening of both generalized and local trust, suggesting that the concentration of IDPs within a temporary shelter village (as happened in Iwanuma) may have a particularly detrimental effect on social cohesion.

Building trust between residents of a community depends on repeated social interactions over an extended period of time, whereas exposure to outsiders or out-groups can trigger conflict and mistrust.²⁰ In a 2007 study, Putnam²⁶ found that the influx of immigrants in communities can spur perceived competition over scarce resources (eg, housing, schools), ultimately resulting in reduced community cooperation and altruism, as well as lower trust not only in people perceived as different, but also in those who are perceived as similar. This study found that internal forced migration after a disaster, even within the same city from 1 district to another, might also lead to the erosion of the trust of nonrelocated residents in people from other communities as well as in people from the same community.

Previously, we reported that relocating IDPs together as a group, as opposed to randomly housing them throughout the community, can be an effective means of preserving social connections and strengthening the resilience of disaster survivors.¹⁰ However, the same policy may also inadvertently promote erosion of trust between older residents of the host community and newcomers.

We have therefore identified a potential dilemma in postdisaster resettlement. Our previous studies^10,27,28 have reported that the resettlement of survivors needs to take into account the preexisting social ties within a disaster-effected community in order to prevent the loss of communality associated with widespread housing destruction. In Iwanuma, the city offered 2 different means of relocation to temporary housing to survivors. People could choose between individual relocation—moving to public housing by a random lottery or seeking housing in the open rental market—or group relocation, in which whole communities would be moved together as a group into prefabricated temporary housing villages (resembling FEMA-style trailer parks in the US). Families who wanted to escape the emergency shelters as soon as possible selected the individual option, so they could leave the shelters as soon as their number came up on the lottery. However, this mode of resettlement had the unintended consequence of disrupting existing social connections in the community and scattering the residents randomly throughout the trailer settlement. We previously found that people selecting the lottery option reported lower levels of social participation and social support.^10,28 By contrast, people selecting group resettlement were even more likely to be engaged in informal social participation 3 years after the disaster compared with before the disaster.¹⁰ However, as the result of our present analysis suggests, the option of moving large numbers of IDPs together and concentrating them into 1 location may lead to greater friction with established residents of host communities.

Limitations

Several limitations need to be considered while interpreting the findings of this study. First, although we controlled for socioeconomic status, depressive symptoms, and personal disaster experiences, there may be residual confounders that we failed to take into account. Second, the number of nonrelocated participants reporting much weaker trust after the earthquake is quite small (12 participants), resulting in relatively wide 95% CIs around the point estimates. Therefore, the results have to be interpreted with caution. Third, because of the uneven distribution of displaced survivors in the community, we were unable to determine the precise threshold between 8 and 21 IDPs when the erosion of trust began to occur. The results suggest that the resettlement of a few scattered individuals in a community was not associated with changes in on local trust. The erosion of trust seemed to appear when larger numbers of people moved in. Fourth, we do not have information on the residential movements of people younger than 65 years, which might not be correlated with the movement of people aged 65 years or older. On the other hand, two-thirds of the population of the city of Iwanuma were aged 65 years or older before the disaster, and the age structure of IDPs was similar. Fifth, it is not clear how participants define people from their community and people from other communities. By 2013, when the question was asked, IDPs had spent approximately 2.5 years in their new environment. Thus, the respondents may have perceived the displaced population as either people from their own community or as outsiders. Hence, the 2 questions about trust might not have distinguished between particularized and generalized trust, which would also explain the similarity of the corresponding OR estimates. Also, perceived change in trust was measured based on 1 question instead of a multi-item scale, which hindered a more precise assessment of trust levels among the respondents. Sixth, the question of the generalizability of our results needs to be considered due to the relatively low response rate (59%) on the baseline survey. However, previous reports based on the JAGES study confirmed that the demographic profile of the participants is similar to the rest of the residents aged 65 years or more in Iwanuma City.^7,10 Moreover, a 59% response rate is comparable with other studies on community-dwelling respondents.²⁹

Confidence is sexy and it can be trained: Examining male social confidence in initial, opposite‐sex interactions

Confidence is sexy and it can be trained: Examining male social confidence in initial, opposite‐sex interactions. Norman P. Li  Jose C. Yong  Ming‐Hong Tsai  Mark H. C. Lai  Amy J. Y. Lim  Joshua M. Ackerman. Journal of Personality, June 8 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12568

Abstract

Objective: We investigated whether men's social confidence in an initial, opposite‐sex chatting context can be improved through a video tutorial and the extent to which being perceived as socially confident results in being seen as more romantically desirable and worthy of future contact.

Method: Women chatted with men who had received or not received a tutorial on how to handle speed‐dating chats (Study 1: N = 129; Study 2: N = 60) or with male targets selected for having high versus moderate confidence in handling initial, opposite‐sex encounters (Study 3: N = 46).

Results: Tutorial‐trained men felt more confident going into the chats and they, as well as male targets selected for their confidence, were perceived by female chat partners to be higher in social confidence, status, and dominance. However, only perceptions of social confidence were further associated with being perceived as more romantically desirable (as a short‐term mate) and worthy of future contact.

Conclusions: Findings indicate that social confidence is trainable and that other‐perceived social confidence can impact the outcomes of social interactions.

That humans are the rational animal may be overstated; we're not so much rational animals but rather the rationalizing animal

Yong, J. C., Li, N. P., & Kanazawa, S. (2020). Not so much rational but rationalizing: Humans evolved as coherence-seeking, fiction-making animals. American Psychologist, Nov 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000674

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1324712219335184384

Abstract: The evidence for biased perceptions and judgments in humans coupled with evidence for ecological rationality in nonhuman animals suggest that the claim that humans are the rational animal may be overstated. We instead propose that discussions of human psychology may benefit from viewing ourselves not so much as rational animals but rather as the rationalizing animal. The current article provides evidence that rationalization is unique to humans and argues that rationalization processes (e.g., cognitive dissonance reduction, post hoc justification of choices, confabulation of reasons for moral positions) are aimed at creating the fictions we prefer to believe and maintaining the impression that we are psychologically coherent and rational. Coherence appears to be prioritized at the expense of veridicality, suggesting that distorted perceptions and appraisals can be adaptive for humans—under certain circumstances, we are better off understanding ourselves and reality not so accurately. Rationalization also underlies the various shared beliefs, religions, norms, and ideologies that have enabled humans to organize and coordinate their actions on a grand scale, for better or worse. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this unique human psychological trait.

Human neonates prefer colostrum to mature milk; there is evidence for an olfactory bias toward the “initial milk”

Human neonates prefer colostrum to mature milk: Evidence for an olfactory bias toward the “initial milk”? Magali Klaey‐Tassone  Karine Durand  Fabrice Damon  Katrin Heyers  Nawel Mezrai  Bruno Patris  Paul Sagot  Robert Soussignan  Benoist Schaal  the MILKODOR Consortium. American Journal of Human Biology, November 5 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23521

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1324661491593826306

Abstract

Objectives: Colostrum is the initial milk secretion which ingestion by neonates warrants their adaptive start in life. Colostrum is accordingly expected to be attractive to newborns. The present study aims to assess whether colostrum is olfactorily attractive for 2‐day‐old newborns when presented against mature milk or a control.

Methods: The head‐orientation of waking newborns was videotaped in three experiments pairing the odors of: (a) colostrum (sampled on postpartum day 2, not from own mother) and mature milk (sampled on average on postpartum day 32, not from own mother) (n tested newborns = 15); (b) Colostrum and control (water; n = 9); and (c) Mature milk and control (n = 13).

Results: When facing the odors of colostrum and mature milk, the infants turned their nose significantly longer toward former (32.8 vs 17.7% of a 120‐s test). When exposed to colostrum against the control, they responded in favor of colostrum (32.9 vs 16.6%). Finally, when the odor of mature milk was presented against the control, their response appeared undifferentiated (26.7 vs 28.6%).

Conclusions: These results indicate that human newborns can olfactorily differentiate conspecific lacteal fluids sampled at different lactation stages. They prefer the odor of the mammary secretion ‐ colostrum ‐ collected at the lactation stage that best matches the postpartum age of their own mother. These results are discussed in the context of the earliest mother‐infant chemo‐communication. Coinciding maternal emission and offspring reception of chemosignals conveyed in colostrum may be part of the sensory precursors of attunement between mothers and infants.

Expanding the Measurement of Culture with a Sample of Two Billion Humans: Facebook users across 225 jurisdictions, data on 60,000 topics

Obradovich, Nick, Ömer Özak, Ignacio Martín, Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín, Edmond Awad, Manuel Cebrián, Rubén Cuevas, et al. 2020. “Expanding the Measurement of Culture with a Sample of Two Billion Humans.” SocArXiv. September 9. doi:10.31235/osf.io/qkf42

Abstract: Culture has played a pivotal role in human evolution. Yet, the ability of social scientists to study culture is limited by currently available measurement instruments. Scholars of culture must regularly choose between scalable but sparse survey-based methods or restricted but rich ethnographic methods. Here, we demonstrate that massive online social networks can advance the study of human culture by providing quantitative, scalable, and high-resolution measurement of behaviorally revealed cultural values and preferences. We employ publicly available data across nearly 60,000 topic dimensions drawn from two billion Facebook users across 225 countries and territories. The data capture preferences inferred by Facebook from online behaviours on the platform, behaviors on external websites and apps, and offline behaviours captured by smartphones and other devices. We first validate that cultural distances calculated from this measurement instrument correspond to survey-based and objective measures of cultural differences. We then demonstrate that this measure enables insight into the cultural landscape globally at previously impossible resolution. We analyze the importance of national borders in shaping culture and explore unique cultural markers that identify subnational population groups. The global collection of massive data on human behavior provides a high-dimensional complement to traditional cultural metrics, potentially enabling novel insight into fundamental questions in the social sciences. The measure enables detailed investigation into the countries’ geopolitical stability, social cleavages within both small and large-scale human groups, the integration of migrant populations, and the disaffection of certain population groups from the political process, among myriad other potential future applications.

US: Females are now more likely to report drinking and getting drunk in the past month than their male peers for the first time since researchers began measuring such behaviors

Gender Differences in the Epidemiology of Alcohol Use and Related Harms in the United States. Aaron White. American Academy of Anti-Aging, Preventative, and Regenerative Medicine, Nov 5 2020. https://www.worldhealth.net/news/gender-differences-epidemiology-alcohol-use-and-related-harms-united-states/

Over the past century, differences in alcohol use and related harms between males and females in the United States have diminished considerably. In general, males still consume more alcohol and experience and cause more alcohol-related injuries and deaths than females do, but the gaps are narrowing. Among adolescents and emerging adults, gaps in drinking have narrowed primarily because alcohol use among males has declined more than alcohol use among females. Among adults, alcohol use is increasing for women but not for men. Rates of alcohol-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths all have increased among adults during the past 2 decades. Consistent with the changing patterns of alcohol use, increases in these outcomes have been larger for women. Recent studies also suggest that females are more susceptible than males to alcohol-induced liver inflammation, cardiovascular disease, memory blackouts, hangovers, and certain cancers. Prevention strategies that address the increases in alcohol consumption and unique health risks for women are needed.

Summary

For at least a century, differences in the prevalence and amount of alcohol consumption between males and females in the United States have been narrowing.73-76 As a result, so have rates of alcohol-related harms, including DUIs, ED visits, hospitalizations, and deaths. Although men still account for more total alcohol consumption and the negative outcomes that follow, the gaps are slowly disappearing. In fact, among adolescents and emerging adults, females are now more likely to report drinking and getting drunk in the past month than their male peers for the first time since researchers began measuring such behaviors.

Importantly, it is not the case that women in the U.S. are simply drinking more like men. Instead, women and men appear to be moving toward one another in terms of drinking patterns and harms. Among adolescents and emerging adults, narrowing gaps are being driven primarily by faster declines in alcohol use by males than females. Among adults, gaps are narrowing primarily because women are drinking more while men are either drinking less or maintaining their levels.

Knowledge of the unique risks that alcohol poses for women—including an increased likelihood of memory blackouts and hangovers and a faster progression of liver disease and AUD—makes recent increases in alcohol use by women more concerning.77 Although alcohol use by pregnant women has declined, research regarding the impact of prenatal alcohol exposure has accelerated and suggests that relatively small amounts of alcohol can produce detectable changes in morphology and deficits in cognitive and motor function. It is important to consider the unique factors that might influence alcohol use among women, and the unique direct and secondhand health effects that alcohol poses for women, when developing prevention strategies to address alcohol use and related harms.

Hippocampal Volume and Navigational Ability: The Map(ping) Is Not to Scale

Weisberg, Steven M., and Arne Ekstrom. 2020. “Hippocampal Volume and Navigational Ability: The Map(ping) Is Not to Scale.” PsyArXiv. November 5. doi:10.31234/osf.io/ckh7s

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1324408676262825990

Abstract: A critical question regards the neural basis of complex cognitive skill acquisition. One extensively studied skill is navigation, with evidence suggesting that humans vary widely in navigation abilities. Yet, data supporting the neural underpinning of these individual differences are mixed. Some evidence suggests robust structure-function relations between hippocampal volume and navigation ability, whereas other experiments show no such correlation. We focus on several possibilities for these discrepancies: 1) volumetric hippocampal changes are relevant only at the extreme ranges of navigational abilities; 2) hippocampal volume correlates across individuals but only for specific measures of navigation skill; 3) hippocampal volume itself does not correlate with navigation skill acquisition; connectivity patterns are more relevant. To explore this third possibility, we present a model emphasizing functional connectivity changes, particularly to extra-hippocampal structures. This class of models arises from the premise that navigation is dynamic and that good navigators flexibly solve spatial challenges. These models pave the way for research on other skills and provide more precise predictions for the neural basis of skill acquisition.

How the COVID‐19 pandemic has changed our lives: A study of psychological correlates across 59 countries

How the COVID‐19 pandemic has changed our lives: A study of psychological correlates across 59 countries. Elisabet Alzueta  Paul Perrin  Fiona C. Baker  Sendy Caffarra  Daniela Ramos‐Usuga  Dilara Yuksel  Juan Carlos Arango‐Lasprilla. Journal of Clinical Psychology, October 31 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23082

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1324384844302999554

Abstract

Objective: This study examined the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic and subsequent social restrictions or quarantines on the mental health of the global adult population.

Method: A sample of 6,882 individuals (Mage = 42.30; 78.8% female) from 59 countries completed an online survey asking about several pandemic‐related changes in life and psychological status.

Results: Of these participants, 25.4% and 19.5% reported moderate‐to‐severe depression (DASS‐21) and anxiety symptoms (GAD‐7), respectively. Demographic characteristics (e.g. higher‐income country), COVID‐19 exposure (e.g., having had unconfirmed COVID‐19 symptoms), government‐imposed quarantine level, and COVID‐19‐based life changes (e.g., having a hard time transitioning to working from home; increase in verbal arguments or conflict with other adult in home) explained 17.9% of the variance in depression and 21.5% in anxiety symptoms.

Conclusions: In addition to posing a high risk to physical health, the COVID‐19 pandemic has robustly affected global mental health, so it is essential to ensure that mental health services reach individuals showing pandemic‐related depression and anxiety symptoms.

4 DISCUSSION

This study examined the effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the mental health of adults in the general population of five global regions, as well as the demographic risk factors that may have made depression and anxiety symptoms more likely. This is one of the first studies to provide a global perspective on the pandemic's effects on mental health. While the majority of the sample had low or mild levels of depression and anxiety symptoms during the pandemic, a significant proportion of respondents reported moderate to severe symptoms of depression (25.4%) and anxiety (19.5%). These prevalence rates help generalize to a much larger global population the high rates of mental health issues found in previous studies of specific global regions or countries (Solomou & Constantinidou, 2020). COVID‐19‐related life changes were the strongest predictors of higher depression and anxiety symptoms over and above effects of demographics, quarantine level, and COVID‐19 exposure. Myriad consequences of the pandemic, including challenges paying bills, inability to access food, conflict in the home, and separation from loved ones were linked with poorer mental health.

In line with the current results, emerging studies have consistently reported a high prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms in populations around the world during the COVID‐19 pandemic (Ahmed et al., 2020; Gao et al., 2020; Li et al., 2020; Mazza et al., 2020; Moghanibashi‐Mansourieh, 2020, Solomou & Constantinidou, 2020; Ueda et al., 2020; Wang, Wang, et al., 2020). While most of these cross‐sectional studies—including the current study—can only show levels of and not change in depression and anxiety symptoms in the populations studied during the pandemic, a cross‐sectional study in China (Ahmed et al., 2020) comparing the psychological impact during the outbreak with an epidemiological study conducted before the pandemic (Huang et al., 2019) concluded that the rates of anxiety, depression, and alcohol consumption were higher, and mental well‐being was lower, among Chinese people during the COVID‐19 outbreak than before. In addition, a longitudinal study comparing pre‐ and during‐pandemic levels of depression, anxiety, and well‐being in two UK population cohorts reported a significant decrease in well‐being and a higher probability of anxiety disorders during the pandemic (24% in vs. the previous 13%; Kwong et al., 2020). Altogether, evidence so far points to the pandemic's negative effect on mental health.

Certain populations may be more vulnerable to the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on mental health. In line with previous studies (Kwong et al., 2020; Mazza et al., 2020; Moghanibashi‐Mansourieh, 2020; Solomou & Constantinidou; 2020; Stanton et al., 2020; Wang, Wang, et al., 2020), the current study found a higher prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms among women or people with a nonbinary/transgender relative to men. These findings also are consistent with the literature showing a strong association between woman gender and a higher prevalence of anxiety and depression in the general population in nonpandemic times (Baxter et al., 2014; Kessler, 2003), suggesting gender‐role influences on coping with or reporting of mental health symptoms (Mrazek, and Haggerty, 1994; Sandanger et al., 2004). This somewhat consistent finding is complex, and researchers and theorists have postulated many explanations for it, ranging from social norms for the gender‐role based experience of emotion, to personality traits, to hormones (Albert, 2015). Whatever the source of these effects, the current findings suggest that women and nonbinary‐trans individuals may be at greater risk for mental health symptoms during the pandemic.

The current study found other demographic factors, such as younger age, not being partnered, and living in a high‐income country to be associated with higher levels of depression and anxiety symptoms during the pandemic. In terms of age, others researchers have reported that younger adults may be more vulnerable to the effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic (Moghanibashi‐Mansourieh, 2020; Qiu et al., 2020; Stanton et al., 2020), which could be a consequence of greater exposure to media, how they are affected by financial crisis, and managing workload responsibilities (Ahmed et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2020). Also, studies about previous outbreaks have attributed the greater vulnerability of young people to a less effective use of coping strategies than older adults (Yeung & Fung, 2007). The current finding that being not partnered was associated with more depression and anxiety symptoms supports findings in the general population that being separated or divorced are risk factors for some psychological disorders (Afifi et al., 2006; Andrade et al., 2003).

The finding that living in a high‐income country during the pandemic is a risk factor for depression and anxiety might seem counterintuitive, though it is in line with studies showing that citizens of these countries report more stress relative to those in low‐to‐middle income countries (Br et al., 2011). A related (and likely overlapping) finding was that countries belonging to the Latin America and Caribbean cluster showed a lower prevalence of mental health symptoms compared to countries belonging to North America, Europe and Central Asia, and Sub‐Saharan Africa clusters. Comparing psychological symptoms across different cultures and countries presents complex challenges (Van Bavel et al., 2020), and therefore these findings should be interpreted with caution. However, differences found in symptoms across global regions might in part be explained by the timing of data collection. The COVID‐19 pandemic outbreak has evolved rapidly and asynchronously across countries. At the time of data collection, the outbreak was more severe in North America, Europe, and Central Asia in comparison to the Latin America and Caribbean region (see report from World Health Organization, 2020). Prevalence studies during the pandemic have shown the severity of psychological symptoms are especially high in areas most affected by COVID‐19 (Moghanibashi‐Mansourieh, 2020; Solomou & Constantinidou, 2020). Therefore, lower levels of depression and anxiety reported in global regions might be explained by a possible lower perception of COVID‐19 severity or threat.

The main finding of this study is that even though certain demographic characteristics and COVID‐19 exposure were associated with increased symptoms of depression and anxiety, the effects that COVID‐19 had on a person's life were generally the most robust predictors of negative psychological effects. The most notable effects included the impact that the COVID‐19 pandemic had on economic stability (i.e., being unable to get enough food or healthy food, being unable to pay important bills like rent or utilities), work (i.e., having a hard time doing one's job well because of needing to take care of people in the home, having a hard time making the transition to working from home), and social aspects (i.e., being separated from family or close friends, having an increase in verbal arguments or conflict with other adults in home). Somewhat surprisingly, level of quarantine or social restrictions issued by governments at the time of data collection was not a notable predictor of depression and anxiety symptoms. Thus, depression and anxiety in the current sample were not directly accounted for by governmental restrictions but rather likely the consequences of these restrictions and the pandemic as a whole on participants’ lives. Studies from prior epidemics have shown that social isolation during a quarantine period is commonly associated with anxiety and depression symptoms (DiGiovanni et al., 2004; Hawryluck et al., 2004). Also, comparing data from a quarantined population versus no‐quarantined population during the COVID‐19 outbreak in China (n = 1593), a study reported a higher prevalence of depression (22.4% vs 11.9%) and anxiety (12.9% vs 6.7%) in the quarantined group (Lei et al., 2020).

The specific unique effects found within the regression provide evidence that COVID‐19‐related life changes, especially in home and work spheres, were associated with increased depression and anxiety symptoms. Changes in family structure and roles can cause psychological distress, ultimately affecting the relational environment at home (Prime et al., 2020). In this sense, caregivers who must adapt their work routines to care for others at home are at a higher risk of burden. In addition, results from the present study show that verbal arguments or conflicts with others at home during the confinement were very strongly associated with depression and anxiety symptoms. A previously problematic family environment combined with financial strain and social isolation—both well‐known domestic abuse risk factors (Usher et al., 2020)—might lead to escalating conflicts and violence at home during confinement. Indeed, there has been an unprecedented wave of intimate partner violence during the COVID‐19 pandemic (Campbell 2020). Economic insecurity, increase exposure to possible abusive relationships, as well as limited access to support in the community, among others, have been related to intimate partner violence during the COVID‐19 pandemic (Peterman et al. 2020). Therefore, providing accessible mental health support to vulnerable families while confined is critical.

Findings presented here need to be interpreted in the context of several study limitations. First, the ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic is a volatile phenomenon affecting countries in different ways. This cross‐sectional study represents the effects of the pandemic on an adult population in several global regions during a specific period of time (April–May 2020), and therefore, different countries and even different regions within a country were experiencing different scenarios in relation to the pandemic. However, it is important to note that many of the countries were experiencing a prominent peak in the COVID‐19 pandemic, and all participants’ countries were under some kind of social isolation measures at the time of data collection. Also, with the cross‐sectional design, it is not possible to conclude directionality of the relationships found, and people with poor mental health also could have reported worse life changes based on depression‐ or anxiety‐driven viewpoints. In addition, even while much effort was made to achieve a generalizable global sample, the representation of countries in different global regions or of specific demographic characteristics was not equal. Therefore, comparisons between global regions, and generalizability to the entire global population, must be viewed with caution. Certain global regions (e.g., North America, Europe) had a much higher representation than other regions (e.g., Asia, Africa) due to limitations in the snowball data collection approach and languages used. Due to the high representation of women in the sample, a finding commonly observed in other psychological studies (Plomecka et al., 2020; Solomou & Constantinidou, 2020), generalizations to men also should be made with an appropriate degree of caution.

Dreams: Deep neural networks face the issue of overfitting as they learn (performance on one data set increases but the network's performance fails to generalize); dreams can be the "noise injections" in the form of corrupted inputs

The Overfitted Brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization. Erik Hoel. arXiv.org, Sep 24 2020. arXiv:2007.09560

Abstract: Understanding of the evolved biological function of sleep has advanced considerably in the past decade. However, no equivalent understanding of dreams has emerged. Contemporary neuroscientific theories generally view dreams as epiphenomena, and the few proposals for their biological function are contradicted by the phenomenology of dreams themselves. Now, the recent advent of deep neural networks (DNNs) has finally provided the novel conceptual framework within which to understand the evolved function of dreams. Notably, all DNNs face the issue of overfitting as they learn, which is when performance on one data set increases but the network's performance fails to generalize (often measured by the divergence of performance on training vs. testing data sets). This ubiquitous problem in DNNs is often solved by modelers via "noise injections" in the form of noisy or corrupted inputs. The goal of this paper is to argue that the brain faces a similar challenge of overfitting, and that nightly dreams evolved to combat the brain's overfitting during its daily learning. That is, dreams are a biological mechanism for increasing generalizability via the creation of corrupted sensory inputs from stochastic activity across the hierarchy of neural structures. Sleep loss, specifically dream loss, leads to an overfitted brain that can still memorize and learn but fails to generalize appropriately. Herein this "overfitted brain hypothesis" is explicitly developed and then compared and contrasted with existing contemporary neuroscientific theories of dreams. Existing evidence for the hypothesis is surveyed within both neuroscience and deep learning, and a set of testable predictions are put forward that can be pursued both in vivo and in silico.

Women were more likely to baby talk to their dog and speak gently/whisper to their dog, while young adults were more likely to use collar correction/jerk the leash

Owner Sex and Human–Canine Interactions at the Park. Shelly Volsche et al. Anthrozoös, Volume 33, 2020 - Issue 6, Pages 775-785. Nov 4 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/08927936.2020.1824659

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1324331912392048641

Abstract: The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate if and what types of differences exist between men and women when interacting with their dogs in a “natural” setting. In the case of this study, we defined “natural” as visiting a public park with their dog. To do this, we completed a series of 10-minute focal follows (n = 177) on human–canine dyads at local leashed and off-leash dog parks from December 2018 to March 2019. Data collection included counting incidences of 14 specific interactions (i.e., “baby talks to dog” or “scolds/speaks harshly to dog”), observable demographics (sex of owner, age cohort, sex of dog), and additional notes (i.e., extended play sessions, talking to other park visitors, cell phone use). Women were more likely to baby talk to their dog and speak gently/whisper to their dog, while young adults were more likely to use collar correction/jerk the leash. The results also suggest young adults may be more likely to throw toys/play with their dog, though more data are needed to confirm this. Given the increase in invested pet dog ownership, we suggest that sex differences in interactions with pet dogs mirror the literature on sex differences in human parenting. This is particularly relevant as decreasing birth rates and climbing pet ownership give rise to the practice of applying parenting strategies to pets, suggesting the need to better understand potential welfare concerns that may mirror those in the parenting literature.

Keywords: age, dogs, focal follows, human–animal interaction, pet parenting, sex

Women’s productivity responds more to wage increses and their turnover responds less to wage changes than men’s, which can lead to occupational pay gaps

The Payoffs Of Higher Pay: Elasticities Of Productivity And Labor Supply With Respect To Wages. Natalia Emanuel · Emma Harrington (Job Market Paper). November 3, 2020. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nataliaemanuel/files/emanuel_jmp.pdf

Abstract: When setting pay, firms trade off the potential benefits of higher compensation—including increased productivity, decreased turnover, and enhanced recruitment—against their direct costs. We estimate productivity and labor supply elasticities with respect to wages among warehouse and call-center workers in a Fortune 500 retailer. To identify these elasticities, we use rigidities in the firm’s compensation policies that create plausibly exogenous variation relative to local outside options, as well as discrete jumps when the firm adjusts pay. We document labor market frictions that give firms wage-setting power: we estimate moderately large, but finite, turnover elasticities (−3.0 to −4.5) and recruitment elasticities (3.2 to 4.2). The firm gains $1.10 from increased productivity for a $1 increase in wages. By comparing warehouse workers’ responses to higher wages both across and within workers, we estimate that over half of the turnover reductions and productivity increases arise from behavioral responses as opposed to compositional differences. These aggregate patterns mask considerable heterogeneity by gender: women’s productivity responds more and their turnover responds less to wage changes than men’s, which can lead to occupational pay gaps.

Check also... Bus and Train Operators: Men actually work nearly 50% more overtime hours than women, who are less likely than men to game the scheduling system by trading off work hours at regular wages for overtime hours at premium wages:

Bolotnyy V, Emanuel N. Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators (Job Market Paper). Working Paper. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/11/bus-and-train-operators-men-actually.html

Album and song sales have a remarkably short period of economic viability. Sales of whole albums approach zero by the end of their first year of release; individual tracks maintain meaningful sales volumes for longer

Copyright and Economic Viability: Evidence from the Music Industry. Kristelia García  James Hicks  Justin McCrary. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, November 5 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12267

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1324316696157417473

Abstract: Copyright provides a long term of legal excludability, ostensibly to encourage the production of new creative works. How long this term should last, and the extent to which current law aligns with the economic incentives of copyright owners, has been the subject of vigorous theoretical debate. We investigate the economic viability of content in a major content industry—commercial music—using a novel longitudinal dataset of weekly sales and streaming counts. We find that the typical sound recording has an extremely short commercial half‐life—on the order of months, rather than years or decades—but also see evidence that subscription streaming services are extending this period of economic viability. Strikingly, though, we find that decay rates are sharp even for blockbuster songs, and that the patterns persist when we approximate weekly revenue. Although our results do not provide an estimate of the causal effect of copyright on incentives, they do put bounds on the problem, suggesting a misalignment between the economic realities of the music industry and the current life‐plus‐70 copyright term.

Discussion

Our top‐line results show that album and song sales have a remarkably short period of economic viability. Sales of whole albums (both traditional CDs and digital) approach zero by the end of their first year of release. Individual tracks maintain meaningful sales volumes for longer—perhaps up to several years—but average track sales are negligible in the medium term, and almost zero by the end of our 10‐year study period.

We also find indicative evidence that streaming services prolong the life of sound recordings. Our data suggest that the economic value of the average track declines more slowly through this medium. (From a revenue perspective, the incentive implications of this remain unclear, since streaming volume far exceeds sales volume, while per‐sale earnings far exceed per‐stream royalties.) Unfortunately, our conclusions about streaming are quite tentative. As a result of the small sample size and limited window of observation, we simply cannot make confident inferences. This is a clear avenue for further research as the music industry continues to evolve and further data on consumer behavior becomes available.

There are obvious limitations to our analysis. First, the findings are purely descriptive: nothing in our data allows us to directly assess the causal effect of copyright on sales, let alone on creators’ or labels’ incentives. The data provide a portrait of the economic environment faced by the industry, but we cannot directly observe the choices of artists and record labels.

Second, this is just a piece of the puzzle. Although music is a copyright‐intensive industry, consumer sales and streams are only one component of revenues for commercial music. Statutory royalties paid to the owners of musical compositions and sound recordings are not accounted for in our data. Nor are the various contractual income sources—including sync licensing, touring, and endorsements—that can constitute a significant portion of an artist's revenues. In many cases, these contractual revenue streams are influenced by the copyright‐related revenue streams. This impact varies, however, from artist to artist, and over the course of a career. Unfortunately, our results cannot reveal much quantitatively about these ancillary revenue sources because this information is not generally public.31 Nevertheless, we think these data provide a reasonably good proxy for the overall popularity and revenue performance of the bulk of commercially recorded music.

Our analysis shows that the average work has exhausted its commercial potential long before the term of copyright protection expires. This might suggest—as we conclude—an inefficiency owing to overprotection, such that a more carefully calibrated term would strike a better balance between incentivizing creation and ensuring a robust public domain. An alternate interpretation might suggest that a work's lack of commercial value mitigates concerns stemming from overprotection. In other words, if a work is commercially worthless, what harm is there in that work remaining under copyright protection? In a word: access. In the absence of a use requirement, copyright protection prevents a work from falling into the public domain regardless of whether the rightsholder is actively exploiting it or making it available. The literature has identified several categories of post‐commercial works for which an extended period of copyright protection has an adverse impact on access. These include orphan works (works whose authors are either unknown or unidentifiable); mismanaged works (where a work's author is known but deceased, and the stewards are either delinquent or difficult to trace); and works by disadvantaged or marginalized authors. Works in the latter category, for example, often do not experience commercial success in their day, but may later prove to be valuable historical accounts of oppression (Reese 2012: 291).

Overall, we find the sharpness of the results quite striking. Our analysis provides a baseline for the commercial relevance of the typical sound recording and offers a rare window into the on‐the‐ground economics of a major content industry. As political debates about the appropriate term of copyright continue to roil in the international arena, empirical evidence provides an important, but inexplicably rare, check: Our findings suggest that current copyright terms are at odds with the economic reality of the majority of commercially recorded music.

Experiencing an object as pleasurable is a prerequisite for judging it to be beautiful; but to qualify as beautiful, an object must elicit especially high levels of pleasure & be matched to internal learned models of what counts as beautiful

The nature of beauty: behavior, cognition, and neurobiology. Martin Skov  Marcos Nadal. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, November 4 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14524

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1324292298436476928

Abstract: Beauty is commonly used to refer to positive evaluative appraisals that are uniquely human. Little is known, however, about what distinguishes beauty in terms of psychological function or neurobiological mechanisms. Our review describes recent empirical studies and synthesizes what behavioral, cognitive, and neuroscientific experiments have revealed about the nature of beauty. These findings suggest that beauty shares computational mechanisms with other forms of hedonic appraisal of sensory objects but is distinguished by specific conceptual expectations. Specifically, experiencing an object as pleasurable is a prerequisite for judging it to be beautiful; but to qualify as beautiful, an object must elicit especially high levels of pleasure and be matched to internal learned models of what counts as beautiful. We discuss how these empirical findings contradict several assumptions about beauty, including the notion that beauty is disinterested, and that it is specific to Homo sapiens.

Denmark: Citizens' policy opinions changed immediately and substantially when their party switched its policy position—even when the new position went against citizens' previously held views

How Political Parties Shape Public Opinion in the Real World. Rune Slothuus  Martin Bisgaard. American Journal of Political Science, November 4 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12550

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1324316696157417473

Abstract: How powerful are political parties in shaping citizens' opinions? Despite long‐standing interest in the flow of influence between partisan elites and citizens, few studies to date examine how citizens react when their party changes its position on a major issue in the real world. We present a rare quasi‐experimental panel study of how citizens responded when their political party suddenly reversed its position on two major and salient welfare issues in Denmark. With a five‐wave panel survey collected just around these two events, we show that citizens' policy opinions changed immediately and substantially when their party switched its policy position—even when the new position went against citizens' previously held views. These findings advance the current, largely experimental literature on partisan elite influence.

Using Twitter decreases the level of depressive symptoms by 27%, which explains why social media usage in the US has grown steadily even though most studies find that more usage correlates with higher depressive symptoms

Social Media Usage and the Level of Depressive Symptoms in the United States. Qin Jiang. October 30, 2020. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x8icCMCMWcBS2H2mc48bQgm-ZfkQwTEQ/view

Abstract: In 2019, more than 72% of US adults used social media. The use of social media can potentially decrease the level of depressive symptoms by providing support or increase the level of depressive symptoms by putting social pressure on users. This paper leverages a fixed effects model to estimate the effect of using social media platforms on depression. I find that using Twitter decreases the level of depressive symptoms by 27%. This result explains why social media usage in the US has grown steadily even though most studies find that more usage correlates with higher levels of depressive symptoms. There is heterogeneity with respect to age, income, education, race, previous level of depressive symptoms, and region. The average labor market benefit that comes from this effect is equivalent to 0.1% GDP in the US.

JEL: I12, I31, O33

Keywords: Social Media, Depressive Symptoms, Twitter, CESD, Fixed Effects

The Fears of Being Infected by the COVID–19 Virus in Canada: A Look at Germophobes, Crowd-averse, Fearless and Other Population Segments

Mata, Fernando. 2020. “The Fears of Being Infected by the COVID–19 Virus in Canada: A Look at Germophobes, Crowd-averse, Fearless and Other Population Segments.” SocArXiv. November 4. doi:10.31235/osf.io/b38vs

Abstract: The fear of being infected by the COVID-19 virus is widespread in the Canadian population. This study examined the COVID-19 virus infection fears in a survey sample of 4,200 adult Canadians aged 15 years old and over during the confinement period of June 21-26, 2020 and collected by Statistics Canada. A marketing segmentation analysis was carried out using a roster of 13 perceived health risks items leading to the identification of typical fears and the profiling of five major segments present in the Canadian adult population: "Germophobes" (7%), "Crowd-Averse" (34%), "Fearless" (17%), "Outside "Bubble"-Averse" (18%), and ""Nursing Homes-Averse" (24%). Health risk items included a wide range of preoccupations such as visiting retirement homes, travelling by car or airplane, attending public events, shopping, eating out, seeing doctors and/or participating in sports or gyms. The five population segments were identified using a combination of principal component and k-means cluster statistical analysis. Marketing segmentation is a useful tool for decision makers to categorize population members and, by doing so, facilitate better public campaigns, help design messages, and implement changes that can promote more efficient ways to deal with the various societal consequences of the COVID-19 confinement.

Partisans are less altruistic, less trusting, & less likely to contribute to a mutually beneficial public good when paired with the other party's members, bordering on entrenched divisions commonly saw in conflict or post-conflict societies

Tribalism in America: Behavioral Experiments on Affective Polarization in the Trump Era. Sam Whitt et al. Journal of Experimental Political Science, November 2020. https://doi.org/10.1017/XPS.2020.29

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1323938691383988224

Abstract: Our research speaks to the ongoing debate over the extent and severity of partisan political divisions in American society. We employ behavioral experiments to probe for affective polarization using dictator, trust, and public goods games with party identification treatments. We find that subjects who identify politically with the Democratic or Republican Party and ideologically as liberals and conservatives display stronger affective biases than politically unaffiliated and ideological moderates. Partisan subjects are less altruistic, less trusting, and less likely to contribute to a mutually beneficial public good when paired with members of the opposing party. Compared to other behavioral studies, our research suggests increasing levels of affective polarization in the way Americans relate to one another politically, bordering on the entrenched divisions one commonly sees in conflict or post-conflict societies. To overcome affective polarization, our research points to inter-group contact as a mechanism for increasing trust and bridging political divides.