The Nation... The Rise and Fall of the ‘Steele Dossier.’

The Rise and Fall of the ‘Steele Dossier.’ A case study in mass hysteria and media credulity. Aaron Maté. The Nation, Jan 11 2021. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-russiagate-steele-dossier/

[related: Aaron Maté on the Russiagate and the Mueller probe New Studies Show Pundits Are Wrong About Russian Social-Media Involvement in US Politics. Aaron Maté. The Nation, Dec 28 2018. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/04/aaron-mate-on-russiagate-and-mueller.html]

[excerpts, no links]

Donald Trump’s journey into and out of the Oval Office was shaped by xenophobia, conspiracy theories—and xenophobic conspiracy theories. Trump launched his political career by spreading the “birther” lie about President Obama, and then became Obama’s improbable successor with an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim presidential campaign. Upon losing the White House four years later, Trump, true to form, blamed his ouster on a vast election fraud conspiracy aided—according to flunkies Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell—by “communist money,” “Venezuelan” voting machines, as well as Chinese and Iranian hackers. The right-wing mob that attacked the Capitol to thwart the certification of Joe Biden’s victory last week was the apotheosis of Trump’s unhinged bigotry.

Trump’s deranged coda was fitting for another reason: During his time in office, Democratic Party operatives and their allies in the media challenged the legitimacy of Trump’s 2016 victory with a xenophobic conspiracy theory of their own. Russia, it was claimed, not only installed Trump in the White House, but did so as part of an elaborate plot with his campaign. While Russiagate did not incite the hatred, violence, and harm of Trump’s MAGA and “Stop the Steal” movement, it was not without its own dangerous consequences.

A “WELL-DEVELOPED CONSPIRACY OF COOPERATION”

The first Manchurian Candidate rumblings about Trump surfaced in the summer of 2016. But the pivotal incident, which morphed into all-consuming Russia mania, came exactly four years ago this month, just days before Trump’s inauguration. On January 10, 2017, BuzzFeed News published the “Steele dossier,” the collection of DNC-funded reports alleging a high-level conspiracy between Trump and Moscow. The catalyst had come four days earlier, when then–FBI Director Jim Comey personally briefed Trump on the dossier’s existence. Their meeting was then promptly leaked to the media, giving BuzzFeed the news hook to publish the Steele material in full.

Despite its outlandish assertions and partisan provenance, Steele’s work product somehow became a road map for Democratic leaders, media outlets, and, most egregiously, intelligence officials carrying out the Russia investigation.

According to Steele, Trump and the Kremlin engaged in a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation.” Russia had, Steele alleged, been “cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for at least five years,” dating back to the time when Trump was merely the host of The Apprentice. Russia, Steele claimed, handed Trump “a regular flow of intelligence,” including on “political rivals.” The conspiracy supposedly escalated during the 2016 campaign, when then–Trump lawyer Michael Cohen slipped into Prague for “secret discussions with Kremlin representatives and associated operators/hackers.”

This purported plot was not just based on mutual nefarious interests but, worse, outright coercion. To keep their asset in line, Steele alleged, the Russians had videotaped Trump hiring and watching prostitutes “perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show,” in a Moscow Ritz-Carlton hotel room. This “kompromat” meant that the leader of the free world was not only a traitor but also a blackmail victim of his Kremlin handlers.

STEELE’S PERFECT TIMING

If the Steele dossier’s far-fetched claims were not enough reason to dismiss it with ridicule, another obvious marker should have set off alarms. Reading the Steele dossier chronologically, a glaring pattern emerges: Steele has no advance knowledge of anything that later proved to be true, and, just as tellingly, many of his most explosive claims appear only after some approximate prediction has come out in public form.

Despite his supposed high-level sources inside the Kremlin, it was only after Wikileaks published the DNC e-mails in July 2016 that Steele first mentioned them. When Steele made the headline-consuming claim that “the TRUMP team had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue” in exchange for Russian help, he did so only after a meaningless Ukraine-related platform change at the RNC was reported (and mischaracterized) in The Washington Post. When Steele claimed that former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was offered up to a 19 percent stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft if he could get Trump to lift Western sanctions, it was only after the media had reported Page’s visit to Moscow.

In short, far from having access to high-level intelligence, Steele and his “sources” only had access to news outlets and their own imaginations. It is for this reason that Russiagate’s key figures and incidents make no appearance in Steele’s dossier. Absent are George Papadapolous and Joseph Mifsud, whose conversations triggered the FBI’s collusion probe. Also MIA is the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian nationals about potential “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. The reason is obvious: These events did not get publicly reported until after Steele wrote his final, secret “intelligence report.”

“A REAL-LIFE JAMES BOND”

All of this was lost on the many credulous media outlets who served as de facto stenographers for Steele, his clients, and a series of unknown intelligence officials who, behind the safe mask of anonymity, assured the public of his credibility.

David Corn, the veteran Mother Jones reporter who broke the Steele story in October 2016, approvingly cited an official’s assurance that Steele “has been a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government.” In addition to making the dossier publicly known, Corn, it later emerged, even personally provided the FBI with a copy.

“Former C.I.A. officials described [Steele] as an expert on Russia who is well respected in the spy world,” The New York Times wrote on the day of the dossier’s release in January 2017. Steele, the Times added, is “considered a competent and reliable operative with extensive experience in Russia.” Steele, an NBC News headline declared, “Is a Real-Life James Bond.” [Christopher Steele, Trump Dossier Author, Is a Real-Life James Bond]

As they vouched for Steele’s tradecraft, anonymous officials also fed media contacts a false picture that Steele’s dossier had been factually checked out. “US investigators corroborate some aspects of the Russia dossier,” a CNN headline proclaimed in February 2017, weeks after the dossier’s publication. The FBI is “continuing to chase down stuff from the dossier, and, at its core, a lot of it is bearing out,” an unidentified “intelligence official” told The New Yorker later that month.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was an early and particularly fervent believer in Steele’s sleuthing powers. Days before Trump’s inauguration, Maddow speculated that Putin might use the pee tape to blackmail Trump into withdrawing US forces near Russia’s border. Weeks later, after no such withdrawal materialized, and no underlying Trump-Russia conspiracy had been unearthed, Maddow assured her audience that “all the supporting details” in Steele’s reports “are checking out, even the really outrageous ones. A lot of them are starting to bear out under scrutiny. It seems like a new one each passing day.”

Guardian reporter Luke Harding, who served as Steele’s unofficial media spokesperson, repackaged the former spy’s assertions for his best-selling book, Collusion. “One associate described him as sober, cautious, highly regarded, professional and conservative,” Harding wrote. “‘He’s not the sort of person who will pass on gossip. If he puts something in a report, he believes there is sufficient credibility in it.’”

Even the revelation, in October 2017, that Steele’s “intelligence” had been paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign did nothing to stop the media adulation.

In a glowing March 2018 profile of “the ex-spy [who] tried to warn the world about Trump’s ties to Russia,” Jane Mayer of The New Yorker assured readers that “a number of Steele’s major claims have been backed up by subsequent disclosures.”

The media’s faith in Steele became so profound that even his most outlandish assertion was not just indulged but actively embraced. During the April 2018 rollout for the first of his two Trump-era books, former FBI director Jim Comey told ABC News that it’s “possible” that the pee tape exists. Comey’s innuendo was enough for New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait to declare himself a “Peeliever.” Urging his readers to join the club, Chait wrote, “I used to doubt that this episode really happened. I now believe it probably did.” Comey, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg declared, “has started a long overdue national conversation about whether the pee tape is real.”

This overdue national conversation received its warmest reception in news media boardrooms, where editors devoted precious journalistic resources to the Pee-Tape Pied Piper. Shortly before setting off the Steele saga with its publication of his dossier, BuzzFeed sent a reporter to Prague in a bid to verify it. After it faced a defamation lawsuit from Russians named in the document, BuzzFeed reportedly paid a private firm $4.1 million to verify portions of its contents.

Racing to find a window in which the pee tape could have occurred, Bloomberg News pored over flight logs, while The Daily Beast scrutinized Trump’s time in Moscow. Their efforts, if not dispositive, were apparently persuasive. “Trump’s Pee-Tape Alibi Is Falling Apart,” Vanity Fair proclaimed. “It is another piece of evidence for the Peelievers,” an increasingly confident Jonathan Chait declared.

According to Greg Miller of The Washington Post, colleagues at the newspaper “literally spent weeks and months trying to run down” material in the dossier, including Cohen’s alleged visit to Prague to pay off Russian hackers. “We sent reporters through every hotel in Prague, through all over the place, just to try to figure out if he was ever there, and came away empty.”

Other reporters claimed to have more success. In April 2018, McClatchy reported that Mueller’s team “has evidence” that Cohen visited Prague in 2016, just as Steele alleged. In December of the same year, McClatchy doubled down by reporting that Cohen’s cell phone sent signals that connected with phone towers in Prague. Cohen ultimately denied the claim under oath, and the Mueller report concurred by noting that Cohen “never traveled to Prague.” More than two years later, McClatchy has since added a tepid editor’s note, rather than a retraction.

In conjunction with the near-uniform journalistic credulity, top Democrats and former intelligence officials used their positions of authority and media stardom to burnish Steele’s public image. Representative Adam Schiff went so far as to read some of Steele’s claims into the Congressional Record. Schiff and his colleagues also invoked a standard of evidence that would not survive a court hearing but was widely embraced in the prolonged media campaign to promote Steele’s claim. Capturing prevailing Steele dossier epistemology, former director of the CIA John Brennan told Meet the Press, “Just because they were unverified does not mean they were not true.”

“Not a single revelation in the Steele dossier has been refuted,” Senator Dianne Feinstein likewise declared. Democratic Senator Mark Warner was more circumspect, explaining that none of the dossier’s allegations has been “proven nor, conversely, disproven.” Speaking to Maddow in May 2018, James Clapper shared his view “that more of it has been corroborated with ensuing developments and what we’ve learned.” Asked by Maddow if there is “anything in the dossier that has been disproven,” Clapper answered confidently—despite being out of office for more than a year, “No.”

“SOURCE #1”

While the media and political promotion of the Steele dossier was contemptible, its embrace by the FBI is an even bigger scandal. Rather than dismiss Steele’s work as a political hit job, the FBI used it as source material.

The FBI’s interest in Steele’s dossier was extensive. The bureau maintained a lengthy spreadsheet to document its efforts to corroborate Steele’s fanciful claims. And when agents first sought the now-infamous surveillance warrant on Carter Page in October 2016, they took their cues right from Steele’s pages.

The FBI told the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that it “believes that [Russia’s] efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with” the Trump campaign. Its source for this absurd “belief” was Steele, whom it described as “Source #1” and “credible.” In an act of circular reporting, the FBI also cited a Yahoo News article by journalist Michael Isikoff—who had also relied on Steele as a source. Although the FBI disclosed to the court that Steele was being paid to do opposition research, it did not disclose that Trump’s Democratic political opponents were footing the bill.

Remarkably, the FBI did not just rely on Steele’s information, but even shared its own information with him. At an October 2016 meeting in Rome, FBI officials disclosed to Steele highly sensitive and even classified material. A damning Justice Department investigation [https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf], overseen by Inspector General Michael Horowitz and released in December 2019, found that FBI agents gave Steele a “general overview” of Crossfire Hurricane, including its specific—and, at the time, secret—probes of Paul Manafort, Carter Page, and Michael Flynn. The Washington Post reported in February 2018 that Steele “would later tell associates” that he gleaned from the meeting that that the FBI “was particularly interested in” George Papadopoulos, the Trump campaign adviser who served as the predicate for the entire investigation. The Post noted that “Papadopoulos had not surfaced in Steele’s research”—unsurprisingly, because media outlets like the Post hadn’t written stories about him when Steele’s “research” was being invented.

According to the Horowitz report, the FBI was so eager to enlist Steele that it offered to pay him $15,000 “just for attending the October meeting” in Rome. It also pledged a “significantly” greater amount if he could collect information for the investigation.

This arrangement was canceled just a month later, after the FBI discovered that Steele was still speaking to the media. But that did not end the FBI’s reliance on him. The FBI continued to collect information from Steele via an intermediary, former DOJ official Bruce Ohr. Worse, it continued to cite the Steele dossier in subsequent applications to renew the surveillance of Carter Page, never informing the FISC about Steele’s conflicts of interest.

Even worse, the FBI continued to cite Steele even after establishing that his claims were baseless. According to the Horowitz report, Steele’s so-called “Primary Sub-source,” Igor Danchenko, personally informed the FBI in January 2017 that “corroboration” for the Steele dossier’s claims was “zero.”

When Danchenko’s identity was revealed this July, it was clear why he rated his own information so poorly. Rather than being inside Russia with access to Kremlin sources, Danchenko was in fact a DC-based Russian expat with better access to Capitol Hill. Danchenko had formerly worked at the Brookings Institution, a prominent Beltway think tank. According to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal, one of Danchenko’s key sources turned out to be another Russian expat, public-relations executive Olga Galkina. Based in Cyprus, Galkina was credited with coming up with the claim about Cohen in Prague. A dispute with her employer, a web services company, apparently inspired Steele’s claim that one of its properties, Webzilla, was implicated in the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC.

Even after learning all of this, the FBI went back to the FISC and obtained two more renewals of Foreign Intelligence Investigation Act authorizations to spy on Page. In its submissions, the FBI mentioned that it had spoken to Danchenko but left out the inconvenient discovery that his corroboration was “zero.”

The April 2019 release of the Mueller report, which found no Trump-Russia conspiracy, dealt a major blow to Steele’s credibility. It also put an end to the breathless media promotion of his fanciful claims. The release of the Horowitz report in December 2019 was even more damaging. The revelation that the FBI misled the FISC about Steele’s claims has triggered high-level calls for reform and a $75 million lawsuit from Carter Page. The Justice Department has also invalidated the final two Page warrants, citing “material misstatements” by the FBI.

While the Steele affair has triggered at least some government-level contrition and nominal reforms, the same cannot be said about the prominent media and political figures who promoted his ludicrous claims with equal credulity. A small number of corporate media voices, notably Erik Wemple of The Washington Post, have criticized the journalists who served as Steele’s stenographers. But Wemple’s columns are one of the few signs of accountability emanating from the media outlets who misled audiences into believing in the fictitious Trump-Russia plot.

LESSONS FROM THE FARCE

[...]. For many liberals, Russiagate offered a comforting explanation for Trump’s improbable, painful victory. If Steele’s spy thriller could be proven true, then the Trumpian nightmare would surely come to an end. This was not only a welcome belief for anyone opposed to Trump but almost a requirement: Day after day, anti-Trump audiences were flooded with constant innuendo about Trump’s treasonous behavior and the false hope that Mueller was a step closer to proving it. To question Steele’s claims and other tenets of Russiagate orthodoxy was, for a long period, an act of heresy to the “Resistance.”

Much like a riveting novel or television show, the Steele story also gave many liberals relief from the daily pain of having such a buffoonish, hateful figure in the Oval Office. But even with Trump now nearly gone, the conditions that gave rise to him, and the dangerous tendencies he represented, remain very present. As do the corporate apologists within the Democratic Party that created an opening for his rise. To ultimately defeat Trumpism, at least some of those who embraced him as a rebuff to the “swamp” will have to be reached.

One place to begin might be by recognizing in ourselves similar qualities to those we’ve deplored in our political opponents. As dismaying as it has been to see MAGA supporters latch on to Trump’s election fraud lies, even to the point of violently attacking the Capitol, perhaps we can develop some insight into their mindset when we consider our own malleability. Trump voters heard liberals incessantly claim that Russia had duped the country into electing their candidate—a Kremlin asset compromised by a salacious videotape, financial leverage, and other unknown kompromat. Even in response to the Trump-fueled assault on Congress, a number of liberal voices, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, immediately brought it back to Putin.

Steele himself personally believed that the aim of his work was to help undo the election. Fusion GPS, Steele told a London court in August 2018, was hired “to obtain information necessary” on “the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.” Based on this, Steele explained, the Clinton campaign “could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of that election.”

Ultimately, Steele’s absurdities, and the overall Russiagate campaign that it fueled, did nothing to undermine Trump. If anything, Trump was handed the enduring gift of a conspiracy-crazed opposition—and, on the core collusion allegation that Steele fueled, his own ultimate exoneration. Just as dangerously, the widespread belief that Trump was a Russian puppet had major geopolitical implications: it helped stigmatize diplomacy with the world’s other top nuclear power, and incentivized liberal adherents to ignore the multiple, hawkish real-world Trump policies that escalated tensions with it. Far more Americans heard of Trump’s fictitious conspiracy with the Kremlin than they did, for example, of him undermining two crucial nuclear weapons treaties, the INF and New START, over Russian objections.

[...]

From 2018... At lower levels of stress, higher average testosterone corresponded to higher average solitary desire for men, but lower solitary desire on average for women

From 2018... Average Associations Between Sexual Desire, Testosterone, and Stress in Women and Men Over Time. Jessica C. Raisanen, Sara B. Chadwick, Nicholas Michalak & Sari M. van Anders. Archives of Sexual Behavior volume 47, pages1613–1631. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-018-1231-6

h/t David Schmitt on Twitter: "seems to map with a previous finding (to be clear, high T only links to higher sexual desire in men when combined with low cortisol [low stress]) https://t.co/klmNQd9g75 https://t.co/bZ6jc4br33"

Abstract: Sexual desire and testosterone are widely assumed to be directly and positively linked to each other despite the lack of supporting empirical evidence. The literature that does exist is mixed, which may result from a conflation of solitary and dyadic desire, and the exclusion of contextual variables, like stress, known to be relevant. Here, we use the Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds as a framework for examining how testosterone, solitary and partnered desire, and stress are linked over time. To do so, we collected saliva samples (for testosterone and cortisol) and measured desire as well as other variables via questionnaires over nine monthly sessions in 78 women and 79 men. Linear mixed models showed that testosterone negatively predicted partnered desire in women but not men. Stress moderated associations between testosterone and solitary desire in both women and men, but differently: At lower levels of stress, higher average testosterone corresponded to higher average solitary desire for men, but lower solitary desire on average for women. Similarly, for partnered desire, higher perceived stress predicted lower desire for women, but higher desire for men. We conclude by discussing the ways that these results both counter presumptions about testosterone and desire but fit with the existing literature and theory, and highlight the empirical importance of stress and gender norms.

Recent work on female competition: These authors research an alternative—the female rivalry hypothesis—that concealed ovulation benefited females by allowing them to avoid aggression from other females

An agent-based model of the female rivalry hypothesis for concealed ovulation in humans. Jaimie Arona Krems, Scott Claessens, Melissa R. Fales, Marco Campenni, Martie G. Haselton & Athena Aktipis. Nature Human Behaviour, Jan 25 2021. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01038-9

Abstract: After half a century of debate and few empirical tests, there remains no consensus concerning why ovulation in human females is considered concealed. The predominant male investment hypothesis states that females were better able to obtain material investment from male partners across those females’ ovulatory cycles by concealing ovulation. We build on recent work on female competition to propose and investigate an alternative—the female rivalry hypothesis—that concealed ovulation benefited females by allowing them to avoid aggression from other females. Using an agent-based model of mating behaviour and paternal investment in a human ancestral environment, we did not find strong support for the male investment hypothesis, but found support for the female rivalry hypothesis. Our results suggest that concealed ovulation may have benefitted females in navigating their intrasexual social relationships. More generally, this work implies that explicitly considering female–female interactions may inspire additional insights into female behaviour and physiology.

Krems' recap: https://twitter.com/JaimieKrems/status/1353759752858324997

The Nation... The Votes of Black Americans Should Count Twice: Vote reparations would empower us to replace oppressive institutions with life-affirming structures of equality

The Votes of Black Americans Should Count Twice: Vote reparations would empower us to replace oppressive institutions with life-affirming structures of equality. Brandon Hasbrouck. The Nation, Dec 17 2020. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/black-votes-reparations-gerrymandering/

Black votes in this country are worth less than white votes. Joe Biden won the Electoral College because Black voters in Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia turned out in significant numbers. But even with overwhelming Black support—94 percent of Detroit voted for Biden!—the outcomes in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania were worryingly close.

One core problem is the Electoral College. Wyoming, which has just 580,000 residents and is 93 percent white, gets three electors because of its two senators and one representative in the House. By comparison, Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District—which includes Atlanta, has 710,000 residents, and is 58 percent Black—has no dedicated electors or senators and can only occasionally overcome the mostly white and conservative votes from elsewhere in the state. This devaluation of Black votes allows our political system to ignore Black lives, and the consequences are devastating. Unequal representation has led to unequal health care outcomes, which the Covid-19 pandemic has only worsened. Without sufficient voting power, Black communities receive substandard education, and politicians are free to appoint judges who sanction mass incarceration, abusive policing, and electoral disenfranchisement.

This is all by design. The Constitution’s framers set up the Electoral College to protect the interests of slave states. Along with the Senate, the Electoral College was critical in the endurance of slavery and its continuation by other means. Abolishing this system would mean that ballots cast by Black voters—or any voters, for that matter—would count the same.

But there’s another way to undo the damage of the Electoral College and other structurally racist political institutions: We can implement vote reparations by double-counting ballots cast by all Black residents. The poisonous legacy of slavery applies to Black people regardless of when we or our ancestors arrived in this country. Vote reparations should also extend to Native Americans. Slavery is rightly called America’s original sin, but so too was the United States’ genocidal seizure of land from its original inhabitants. Various legal forms of disenfranchisement have applied to them. It wasn’t until 1962 that all Native Americans were allowed to vote, and even then they faced—and still face—electoral obstacles. These are not the only examples of American oppression; we should include in vote reparations others who have suffered similar disenfranchisement.

One of the largest objections to monetary reparations is the impracticality of implementing them on a scale that would meaningfully address the injustices. Vote reparations, in contrast, would be a simple, low-cost way to begin to make amends.

This idea isn’t entirely new. Theodore Johnson, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, discussed a similar proposal in 2015 in The Washington Post. While his plan to make Black Americans’ votes worth five-thirds has a poetic symmetry with the three-fifths clause of the Constitution, we shouldn’t bind a remedy to the mathematics of the compromise that formalized and furthered the dehumanization of Black people. That bargain allowed the very people who stripped us of our rights to have their votes counted for more—even more than other white people—in Congress and the Electoral College. But it’s not the only way politicians have legally denied representation to Black people. This country’s history of poll taxes, literacy tests, gerrymandering, voter purges, and intimidation should all be addressed. Tying a remedy to the three-fifths compromise implies that clause was the heart of the problem. It wasn’t and isn’t. Counting Black votes twice keeps the point clear and provides redress for myriad forms of disenfranchisement deployed against Black voters.

Vote reparations would create possibilities to build what W.E.B. Du Bois called “abolition democracy,” or the practice of achieving a racially just society. Abolition democracy invites us to engage with abolition not as a finite goal but as a radical process of challenging injustices wherever and in whatever form they might appear. Vote reparations would empower us to replace oppressive institutions with life-affirming structures of economic, social, and political equality. And if our elected representatives did not prioritize this transformational work, we could vote them out.

Because white votes currently count more than Black ones, double-counting Black votes would restore electoral balance. Vote reparations would be a giant step toward remedying our nation’s long history of denying and devaluing Black votes. To address systemic racism, we must transform how we choose our government. Even if vote reparations aren’t instituted, Black voters will keep tirelessly dragging our states toward a more perfect union. But just imagine our country if our votes counted twice.

People believe that facts are essential for earning the respect of adversaries; wrong, sharing personal experiences about a political issue—especially experiences involving harm—is what helps to foster respect

Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts. Emily Kubin et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 9, 2021 118 (6) e2008389118; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2008389118

Significance: All Americans are affected by rising political polarization, whether because of a gridlocked Congress or antagonistic holiday dinners. People believe that facts are essential for earning the respect of political adversaries, but our research shows that this belief is wrong. We find that sharing personal experiences about a political issue—especially experiences involving harm—help to foster respect via increased perceptions of rationality. This research provides a straightforward pathway for increasing moral understanding and decreasing political intolerance. These findings also raise questions about how science and society should understand the nature of truth in the era of “fake news.” In moral and political disagreements, everyday people treat subjective experiences as truer than objective facts.

Abstract: Both liberals and conservatives believe that using facts in political discussions helps to foster mutual respect, but 15 studies—across multiple methodologies and issues—show that these beliefs are mistaken. Political opponents respect moral beliefs more when they are supported by personal experiences, not facts. The respect-inducing power of personal experiences is revealed by survey studies across various political topics, a field study of conversations about guns, an analysis of YouTube comments from abortion opinion videos, and an archival analysis of 137 interview transcripts from Fox News and CNN. The personal experiences most likely to encourage respect from opponents are issue-relevant and involve harm. Mediation analyses reveal that these harm-related personal experiences increase respect by increasing perceptions of rationality: everyone can appreciate that avoiding harm is rational, even in people who hold different beliefs about guns, taxes, immigration, and the environment. Studies show that people believe in the truth of both facts and personal experiences in nonmoral disagreement; however, in moral disagreements, subjective experiences seem truer (i.e., are doubted less) than objective facts. These results provide a concrete demonstration of how to bridge moral divides while also revealing how our intuitions can lead us astray. Stretching back to the Enlightenment, philosophers and scientists have privileged objective facts over experiences in the pursuit of truth. However, furnishing perceptions of truth within moral disagreements is better accomplished by sharing subjective experiences, not by providing facts.

Keywords: moralitypoliticspoltical tolerancemoral psychologynarrative

Sex differences of negative voice hearing experiences: Women have more negative emotions and report more distress due to voices, which may be rooted in differences in relating to voices

Can Gender Differences in Distress Due to Difficult Voices Be Explained by Differences in Relating? Björn Schlier, Xenia Sitara, Clara Strauss, Aikaterini Rammou, Tania M. Lincoln & Mark Hayward. Cognitive Therapy and Research, Jan 22 2021. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10608-020-10190-5

Rolf Degen's take: Rolf Degen on Twitter: "Women are more likely than men to hear distressing voices in the absence of external stimuli. https://t.co/Kjczg1eTBy https://t.co/NRRTUW9ePs"

Abstract

Background: Research on gender differences has found that women relate to negative voice hearing experiences with more negative emotions and report more distress due to voices, which may be rooted in differences in relating to voices. This study used a robust methodology and a large sample to explore gender differences in relating to voices and voice distress.

Methods: Matched samples of male (n = 124) and female (n = 124) voice hearers were drawn from a survey for secondary analysis. Voice severity (e.g., frequency or loudness), voice distress, and different types of dysfunctional (i.e., passive or aggressive) and functional (assertive) relating were measured. Group comparisons, mediation models, and network analyses were calculated.

Results: Female voice hearers reported more severe voices, more voice distress, more passive, and less assertive relating. Mediation and network analyses yielded evidence for pathways from gender to voice distress via relating and via differences in voice severity.

Conclusion: Gender differences in the emotional impact of voices can be partially explained by relating behavior. Psychological interventions for voice hearing could be optimized by exploring the influence of gender in the emergence of distressing voices. Nevertheless, gender differences need to be treated as one of several different possible mechanisms when working with individual patients.

Discussion

In this study, we tested whether gender differences in voice hearing experiences can be explained by differences in relating to voices. Our results replicated previous findings that female voice hearers tend to have more severe voice hearing experiences (Murphy et al. 2010), report more negative emotions and distress due to voice hearing (Toh et al. 2020), and tend to relate less functionally (Hayward et al. 2016) when compared to male voice hearers. In general, significant effect sizes were small to medium (0.37 ≤|d|≤ 0.59). To translate this range of effect sizes into more understandable terms of overlapping variance (Magnusson 2020): There is an increased chance (i.e., 64.4–72.2%) that a randomly selected female voice hearer shows more distress and less functional relating than a randomly selected male voice hearer. Overall, however, the within gender variances in individual voice hearing experiences still overlap considerably (i.e., 77.2–85.3% overlap). Therefore, while population-wide trends for gender-differences exist, the individual voice hearing experience varies from person to person. In clinical practice, the knowledge of the gender differences can help to inform the diagnostic process and lines of inquiry when initially meeting patients. But at the same time, we need to remain curious about individual differences and avoid over-generalization when delivering person-centered therapy.

Of importance, our findings extend previous results by offering some evidence for a pathway from gender to voice distress via increased levels of passive relating. This is in line with the hypothesis that relating differences drive gender differences in voice hearing. Additionally, using network analysis, we found an extended pathway between gender and voice distress via assertive relating and passive relating. This could point towards an interdependence of the relating styles, where the passive reaction to the voice is the result of reduced assertiveness. In sum, these associations between assertive relating, passive relating and distress corroborate the basic tenets of the relating therapy approach that improving assertive relating can help to reduce less functional responses to voices and thereby reduces distress.

Additionally, in order to further refine our underlying assumptions that gender differences in relating to voices correspond to global differences in social relating, a closer inspection of the Approve Voices scales and the Approve Social scales adds helpful information. By descriptive values, women responded less assertively and more passively to both voices and other people. However, effect sizes for social relating (assertive: d = − 0.24, passive: d = 0.25) were notably lower than for relating to voices (assertive: d = − 0.38, passive: d = 0.47), and only relating to voices yielded consistently significant results when accounting for alpha-error inflation. However, a comparison of our effect-sizes to previous studies on gender differences in relating [i.e., responding to bullying with assertiveness: d = − 0.28, and with avoidance: d = 0.35, transformed from R2 reported in Jóhannsdóttir and Ólafsson (2004)] shows that our effect sizes regarding social relating correspond to previous findings. Conversely, it seems that gender differences in relating to voices constitute an amplification of gender-role conforming differences in social relating. At this point, however, further research is needed to replicate this pattern of results and explore the factors that drive this translation of social relating styles to relating to voices.

Finally, while relating accounted for some of the gender differences in voice distress, network analysis also yielded a pathway that involved gender differences in voice severity. Possibly, women tend to experience more distress due to voices and relate more passively to them because they hear voices more frequently, more loudly, and for longer periods than men. The matching procedure utilized for this study makes it unlikely that this difference can be explained by differences in diagnosis or illness duration (see Table 1) or demographic variables. However, since we have no data on medication or treatment history, we cannot determine to what extent gender differences in voice severity stem from etiological differences or differences in treatment, e.g. differences in prescription practice (Rothbard et al. 2003), efficacy (Usall et al. 2007), and pharmacodynamics of antipsychotic drugs (Seeman 2004). On a related note, the composition of our sample prevented us from examining the role of gender differences across different cultures. It stands to reason that the aggressive-assertive-passive relating continuum is as likely to be affected by cultural norms and the cross-cultural variation in gender norms as it is by gender. To test this hypothesis, future studies will need to collect more ethnically diverse samples. Furthermore, since our data is cross-sectional, we cannot exclude reverse causal effects of passive relating and distress exacerbating voice severity in the long term. At present, the question of what drives the gender difference in voice severity remains open. To further optimize the fit between client and therapeutic approach, future research needs to explore the working mechanisms of gender differences in voice severity.

Strengths and Limitations

Strengths of this study include the matching of the samples which reduces the chance of biased results. Furthermore, the relatively large sample size can be considered a strength as it allows for the detection of medium and small differences and increases the precision of estimates. A limitation is that diagnoses were self-reported. This could have led to reduced accuracy of diagnostic status, especially since there is evidence that mental health professionals are sometimes reluctant to share the exact diagnosis with their patients (Perkins et al. 2018). Secondly, relating and voice hearing were measured by self-report questionnaires. Possibly, self-reports of affect and behavior lead to an overestimation of gender differences in the direction of gender-role conforming behaviors, especially since there are results from other areas of research that show larger differences in self-reported behavioral tendencies than in objectively assessed behavior (Allen 1995), or instances where self-reported symptom intensity shows the opposite effect when compared to objective parameters (e.g., pain perception vs. physiological parameters; Etherton et al. 2014). Whereas voice severity eludes a truly objective assessment, physiological parameters to quantify voice distress and behavioral assessment of relating could be implemented in future research to further elucidate the extent of gender differences. Finally, the current study focuses on negative voices (i.e., when voices become difficult). As there is some evidence for differences in voice valence (with male voice hearers experiencing more benevolent voices, e.g., Toh et al. 2020), we need to interpret our findings in a larger context of potential gender differences in voice hearing.

Practical Implications and Future Directions

Our results show that relating to voices and subsequent voice distress is connected to gender. Future studies could extend on these findings and explore to what degree these differences are the result of external causes (e.g. more frequent experience of abuse) and whether non-assertive relating amplifies gender differences in voice severity and distress over time. In terms of practical implications, this research may ultimately inform efforts to optimize CBT and relating therapies. Specifically, potential applications could be (1) scanning for gender-typical differences during case-formulation (2) including gender in individual case models when working with male and female participants (3) acknowledging that gender roles may have impacted negatively on relational aspects of voice hearing (in female patients) and utilizing the topic of gender role conformity when working with beliefs about oneself. Moreover, it may be possible to (4) build on any existing gender-typical resources a patient may bring to therapy. In male participants, this could mean fostering gender-role conforming assertiveness. For female patients, this may include broadening the range from which an assertive response is chosen. Rather than focusing on confrontational assertiveness (i.e., hearing what they are saying but also presenting and defending my own view), an assertive response rooted in mindfulness (e.g., notice the voices, notice your own reaction to it, and allow both of it to be) or even in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (e.g., notice the voices but make responding a deliberate choice) might be more suitable if a female patient conforms to gender norms in society—especially since some trials have found both of these methods to be more effective in women (Gobin et al. 2019; Katz and Toner 2013). Finally, (5) practical implications of our results could also entail acknowledging that – for reasons yet unknown—women can experience voices more intensely and subsequently have more difficulties relating assertively to them. In sum, this study highlights the importance of including gender differences into our understanding of a relational framework and points to a research topic that could become highly relevant to practical application of voice hearing therapies.

Stronger partisan identities drive stronger intentions to engage in political violence, but that this effect holds for partisans with the callous, manipulative personality indicated by high dark triad scores only

Dark triad, partisanship and violent intentions in the United States. Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 173, April 2021, 110633. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110633

Abstract: We have witnessed a drastic increase in partisanship in the United States in the past decades. This increase has sparked concern that the effects may not be as benign as the positive political engagement and activism behaviors sometimes associated with increased partisanship. This paper explicitly targets the risk that increased partisan identities may lead to stronger intentions to engage in violent political behaviors from an individual difference perspective. This paper integrates insights from the literature on political violence and personality psychology. It understands partisanship as social identity and focuses on the influence of the dark triad. In three original, population representative cross-sectional and experimental studies of adult Americans (total n = 3797), the paper shows that stronger partisan identities drive stronger intentions to engage in political violence, but that this effect holds for partisans with the callous, manipulative personality indicated by high dark triad scores only.

Keywords: PartisanshipPolitical violencePersonalityPolitical identityActivismDark triad

The majority of studies observed beneficial effects of restricted social media use on measures of subjective well-being—but few found advantage in being disconnected from their environment

The Effects of Restricting Social Media Use on Subjective Well-Being – A Systematic Review. Richard Eriksen. Thesis, Bergen Univ, Jan 2020. https://bora.uib.no/bora-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2724018/Hovedoppgave_RE.pdf?sequence=1

Abstract: During the last decade, social media usage has increased dramatically, cultivating a significant change in the way people communicate, socialize, and consume information. In turn, this shift in cultural and behavioral change has given rise to concerns about the potential impact on mental health and well-being. The findings from a range of correlational studies suggest an association between increased social media usage and reduced subjective wellbeing, although the causality of this relationship is not fully understood. Recent studies have attempted to clarify the causality of this association by employing experimental restrictions on social media or smartphone use. The current review summarizes findings from these experiments, highlighting the effects of abstinence and moderation on subjective well-being and the interaction of proposed mediating and moderating factors such as social connection, withdrawal, gender, and baseline use of social media. The review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines; the primary search was performed during October 2020 using the APA PsycInfo, Embase, Medline (Ovid), and Web of Science databases, identifying a total of 19 experimental studies that met the inclusion criteria. Overall, the review found that the majority of studies observed beneficial effects of restricted social media use on measures of subjective well-being—notably, these benefits were most pronounced through an approach of moderated use rather than complete abstinence. Restrictions seem to have stronger effects for heavy social media users than for light or casual users. The results are discussed in terms of limitations and implications for further research.

Reversing the political gender gap, women boycott "evil" products more often than men, partly because they have "nicer" personality traits

Explaining the Reversed Gender Gap in Political Consumerism: Personality Traits as Significant Mediators. Birte Gundelach  Deborah Kalte. Swiss Political Science Review, January 22 2021. https://doi.org/10.1111/spsr.12429

Abstract: Research on political consumerism documents a persistent reversed gender gap, as women boycott and buycott products more often than men. Previous efforts to explain the reversed gender gap rely on classical theoretical models developed to illuminate gender differences in political participation in general. Accounting for socio‐economic and situational factors as well as socialization leaves a significant amount of the reversed gender gap unexplained, though. Adhering to recent empirical evidence of personality as an important factor influencing political behavior, we argue that gender differences in personality traits could provide an alternative explanation to account for gender disparities in political consumerism. We use original survey data specially designed to measure political consumerism in Switzerland, which also include the Big Five model of personality. We find empirical evidence that gender differences in personality traits, in particular agreeableness, explain a significant portion of the reversed gender gap in political consumerism.

Memory of eating was more accurate than memory for other similar behaviors; foods higher in calories were better remembered than foods lower in calories

Calories count: Memory of eating is evolutionarily special. Benjamin M. Seitz, Aaron P. Blaisdell, A. Janet Tomiyama. Journal of Memory and Language, Volume 117, April 2021, 104192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2020.104192

Highlights

• The Memory of Eating Task was used to systematically study memory of eating.

• Memory of eating was more accurate than memory for other similar behaviors.

• Foods higher in calories were better remembered than foods lower in calories.

• Eating food slowly resulted in better memory of eating.

• These evolutionary influences on memory should be considered in memory models.

Abstract: How well do we remember eating food? Some nutritional scientists have decried memory of eating as being highly unreliable (i.e. low in accuracy), but it is unclear if memory of eating is particularly worse than memory of other behaviors. In fact, evolutionary reasoning suggests the mammalian memory system might be biased towards enhanced memory of eating. We created a novel behavioral task to investigate the relative strength and determinants of memory of eating. In this task, participants were cued to eat a single item of food every time a tone was sounded and were later asked to recall how many items of food they consumed. In Experiment 1, we found that memory for the behavior of eating was more accurate than memory for similar but noneating behaviors. In Experiment 2, we ruled out a potential physiological mechanism (glucose ingestion) behind this effect. Last, in two pre-registered studies, we explored determinants of memory of eating. In Experiment 3, we found that the caloric density of the consumed food item potentiates its ability to be remembered and in Experiment 4 we found that a slow eating rate results in more accurate memory of eating than a fast eating rate. Understanding these and future factors that influence memory of eating might be useful in designing intervention strategies to enhance memory of eating, which has been shown to reduce future food consumption. Ultimately these four studies inform our understanding of how selective pressures shaped memory and lay the groundwork for further investigations into memory of eating.

Keywords: Episodic memoryMemory of eatingAdaptive memoryEvolutionary psychologyCognitive control of eating

Women had more favorable attitudes toward the police; those who were victims of crime or had more fear of crime had less satisfaction with the police

What matters in citizen satisfaction with police: A meta-analysis. Michelle A. Bolger, Daniel J. Lytle, P. Colin Bolger. Journal of Criminal Justice, Volume 72, January–February 2021, 101760. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2020.101760

Rolf Degen's take: Rolf Degen on Twitter: Meta-analysis: Women have more favorable attitudes toward the police than men.

Highlights

• We provide the first full meta-analysis of studies examining various factors predicting citizen satisfaction with police.

• We included 66 independent studies in our analysis.

• Random effects analyses revealed that race, age, gender, fear of crime, and victimization were statistically significant.

• Moderating analyses revealed Tthat inclusion of certain variables had impacts on other variable effect sizes.

• In sum, patterns across demographics are consistent with most prior research, but other key variables must be included.

• Furthermore, future research must work to standardize measurement of citizen satisfaction with police.

Abstract

Purpose: While there has been a sizeable amount of research on identifying the correlates of citizen satisfaction with police agencies, that research has not been synthesized to identify patterns across different studies. This study presents the results of a meta-analysis that assessed the predictive strength of the most commonly included correlates of satisfaction with police.

Methods: An exhaustive search for studies on satisfaction with police produced 66 studies eligible for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Random effects models were conducted along with moderating analyses.

Results: Findings revealed that gender, race, age, fear of crime, and victimization were statistically significant predictors of satisfaction with police. Moderating analyses revealed that certain variables, Hispanic ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and perceptions of crime, while not significant in the main effect size analysis, were significant in the moderator analysis.

Conclusions: It is important that future research establishes a more standardized form of measurement for satisfaction, with the consideration that confidence and trust may operate as distinct constructs. Additionally, it is imperative to move beyond investigating demographic factors alone and instead focus on variables related to procedural justice, performance theory, and neighborhood context.

Keywords: Satisfaction with policeTrustConfidenceMeta-analysis

5. Discussion

The results of this meta-analysis provide three insights. First, findings generally support previous studies regarding demographic effects. Second, findings suggest the need for inclusion of citizen experience and neighborhood perception variables such as fear of crime and victimization in studies examining citizen satisfaction. Third, findings highlight the need for more uniform and direct measurement of satisfaction with police.

As expected, gender, age, race, victimization, and fear of crime were statistically significant predictors of satisfaction. Consistent with most previous research, education and socioeconomic status were not statistically significant in either analysis. Surprisingly, prior police contact was not statistically significant despite being noted as a significant predictor in previous studies (Frank et al., 1996; Frank et al., 2005; Rosenbaum et al., 2005). This may be due, in part, to a relatively small number of studies which included the variable and potential interaction effects with other variables such as race, victimization, or fear of crime. Another potential explanation is that the measurement varies widely across studies. Perhaps prior police contact may not be influential, in some studies, measured as a binary prior police contact, but the quality and nature of the police-citizen interaction is important (Dai & Jiang, 2016; Frank et al., 1996; Rosenbaum et al., 2005; Schafer et al., 2003; Skogan, 2005; Wells, 2007). A perceived negative interaction has a substantially greater impact on someone's global perceptions with the police, while a perceived positive interaction does not have the same impact (Dai & Jiang, 2016; Schafer et al., 2003). It should be noted that the mean effect size for prior police contact was just outside the margin for statistical significance (p = .054). As such, future studies should include measures of prior police contact whenever possible in order to discern if it does make a difference in global perceptions of satisfaction with the police. Fear of crime, though relatively weak, was statistically significant in predicting satisfaction. Fear of crime and additional neighborhood perception variables, including physical and social disorder, should also be employed in studies surrounding satisfaction with police.

Another important finding is that some of the variables that were not significant in the general random-effects modeling mean effect size analysis were significant in the moderator analysis. Hispanic ethnicity and SES produced significant mean effect sizes when other correlates were included in the analysis. Hispanic ethnicity was related to police satisfaction when studies included measures of education, fear of crime, and victimization. SES was significant when race and prior police contact were measured. These findings could indicate that consistency in variables measured is an important consideration in studies of police satisfaction, and the model misspecification may mask important findings. It may be especially important to consider Hispanic ethnicity as a separate correlate from race given that Lytle (2014) found that Hispanic individuals were more likely to be arrested and Engel, Cherkauskas, Smith, Lytle, and Moore (2009) found that Hispanic individuals were more likely to be searched, but were significantly less likely to have contraband seized from the stop. As such, it is possible that Hispanic individuals may be more likely to have negative experiences with police.

Where the study occurs is generally not significant, which means that perceptions of police do not appear to vary based on whether the study is conducted in the United States or abroad or whether the environment is urban or rural. There were two exceptions to this from the moderator analysis. First, SES was significant in studies conducted outside of the United States, and Hispanic ethnicity was significant in studies that examined a mixture of environments relative to urban only studies and rural only studies.

Finally, a few measurement nuances were noted in the moderating analyses. Namely, gender produced greater effect sizes in OLS as opposed to probit and logistic regression, indicating that the level of measurement is important. Regarding the impact of SES, it was statistically significant when satisfaction was operationalized as trust only, but not with any other conceptualizations (confidence or general satisfaction). These findings suggest the need for more uniform measures of satisfaction with police. More uniformity in the conceptualization and level of measurement will aid in the inclusion of more studies in future reviews and will aid in our ability to make stronger conclusions about predictors of citizen satisfaction.

5.1. Limitations

There are important limitations to consider when interpreting our findings. First, there was wide variation in how the dependent variable was measured. This limits our ability to make stronger conclusions regarding the main effect sizes of various correlates with satisfaction. Indeed, moderating analyses suggested that there were differences in effect sizes based on conceptualization. We chose to include conceptualizations of trust, satisfaction, and multifaceted global measures of satisfaction to be as inclusive as possible. These varying measures are not necessarily invalid, but our analyses suggest that a more standardized measurement may be more useful, and as Cao (2015) suggested, satisfaction, confidence, and trust may indeed operate as distinct constructs. Second, there are other theoretically supported variables surrounding procedural justice theory and neighborhood factors such as concentrated disadvantage, physical and social disorder, and collective efficacy that were not included in our analyses. The absence of these variables was simply because too few studies included measures of these constructs to include in the analyses. We suggest that future research include measures of procedural justice, concentrated disadvantage, physical and social disorder, and collective efficacy whenever possible.

Finally, there were small sample sizes for some key variables we included, namely victimization, fear of crime, and prior police contact. The small sample size may have played a role in the lack of significance for prior police contact, and the fact that fail-safe N values for victimization and fear of crime were moderately stable. For instance, 25 of the 66 studies (37.88%) included victimization. Fear of crime was included in 21 of the 66 (31.81%). Even so, these variables retained statistical significance in random-effects models. Previous research has suggested that these key variables have predicted satisfaction above and beyond citizen characteristics, supporting theories surrounding performance theory and procedural justice. As such, it is imperative that future research includes these constructs when examining satisfaction with police.

The small sample size could be to blame for the lack of significance for prior police contact and Hispanic ethnicity. This is especially true for Hispanic ethnicity, given the significance of race. Of the 66 studies analyzed, only 15 (22.72%) examined Hispanic ethnicity, and 18 (27.27) included a measure of prior police contact. Future research should pursue attempts to measure these potentially relevant variables given the significance of analogous measures.

6. Conclusion

Despite our limitations, this meta-analysis provides important insights for research surrounding satisfaction with police. First, there is a consistent finding that, based on the studies analyzed, people that have been victims of crime are significantly less satisfied with police. This may indicate that police are doing a subpar job of serving the needs of crime victims. Moreover, this may be exacerbated among minority communities. In support of the majority of prior studies, race remains a statistically significant predictor of satisfaction with police. Based on the studies examined in this meta-analysis, police should make a concerted effort to improve the services they provide to these groups. For practitioners, as police departments across the United States struggle with community relations, particularly relations with African-American communities, these findings point to the importance of adding citizen experiences of victimization and perceptions of police contact as key measures for evaluating agency performance. While demographic factors should always be included in models predicting satisfaction, it is critical that other theoretically supported constructs such as fear of crime, victimization, and prior police contact are also included. It is important to note that the relationship between fear of crime and police satisfaction may be nuanced. Fear of crime was significantly related to police satisfaction in the main effect size analysis. However, based on the moderator analysis, when race, Hispanic ethnicity, or victimization were measured, fear of crime was not significant.

Citizen satisfaction with police has ripple effects regarding compliance with the law (Bolger & Walters, 2019; Murphy et al., 2008; Murphy et al., 2009; Murphy & Cherney, 2012; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Fagan, 2008). Additionally, research has indicated that citizen satisfaction impacts willingness to report a crime (Boateng, 2018; Goudriaan et al., 2006; Watkins, 2005). Given these two findings, increasing citizen satisfaction could improve policing efficiency in general. Based on the findings from this analysis, police have a significant problem with certain groups within society, non-white, younger individuals, those that fear crime, and victims of crime all expressed less satisfaction than their similarly situated counterparts. Moreover, the findings for race, age, and victimization were not conditioned on some other variable or a measurement issue. Considering the findings from this study, combined with those from other studies, it is reasonable to think that if police could improve relationships between those that fall into the dissatisfied categories, then they could increase compliance and citizens' willingness to report crimes. Police certainly need the community in this capacity, and increased cooperation could lead to a better ability to solve crimes (Braga & Dusseault, 2018; Brunson & Wade, 2019; Chaiken, Greenwood, & Petersilia, 1977; Decker, 1996; Regoeczi & Jarvis, 2013).

Second, there is consistent evidence that the effects of some theoretically relevant variables are conditional based on the presence of other covariates. Consistent with prior meta-analytic endeavors in research on policing literature (Bolger, 2015; Bolger & Lytle, 2018; Lytle, 2014), model conceptualization and specification matters. The moderator analysis found differences among mean effect sizes based on the presence of covariates for gender, Hispanic ethnicity, SES, and perceptions of crime. It is essential for future studies that examine police satisfaction to include conditional variables in addition to those which tend to have statistically significant effects. Failure to include both could lead to misspecification of findings. Further, we recommend that police satisfaction literature should work to create more standardized measures as it is clear that there was a wide array of measurements for all variables involved.

In sum, as is the case with the police decision-making literature, a more precise measurement of the dependent variable and more inclusion of neighborhood variables and citizen encounter and experience variables must be employed in future studies. As nationally representative samples of communities and police departments are unlikely to be collected due to the cost and logistical challenges of such efforts, our understanding of what makes people more or less satisfied with policing services will be limited to localized samples unless researchers can agree on more unified measurement to facilitate more robust research synthesis efforts.

Unknowing, indifferent, or committed: Relations between age and assessments of the German population’s involvement and inaction during the time of National Socialism

Unknowing, indifferent, or committed: Relations between age and assessments of the German population’s involvement and inaction during the time of National Socialism. Michael Papendick  Jonas H. Rees  Andreas Zick. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, January 24 2021. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12457

Rolf Degen's take: (20) Rolf Degen on Twitter: "Younger Germans are far more likely to believe that their compatriots knew about the crimes of the Nazis and let it happen than the older ones. https://t.co/qZJdZX1NiI https://t.co/EW0epI7AHw"

Abstract: We examine German participants’ assessment of the time of National Socialism. Especially for younger generations, shifts in the culture of remembrance may change their assessments of historical events. We argue that factors such as increased formal education about the topic and decreased personal contact with contemporary witnesses can weaken attributional biases (e.g., ingroup favouritism) in the assessment of the role of the German population during the time of National Socialism. We use data from a German representative sample (N = 1,000) and focus on the links between participants’ age and the estimated involvement of the German population under National Socialism as perpetrators, victims, helpers, and “bystanders,” as well as the agreement with explanations why the general population did not act against National Socialist crimes. Younger participants estimated the proportions of perpetrators and bystanders within the German population as higher and were less likely to agree that Germans did not know about the systematic killings. Older participants were more likely to agree with situational explanations for the population’s inaction (i.e., that Germans did not know or did not have an opportunity to act against the crimes). We find a positive relation between a more critical perspective on the involvement of the population in the past and participants’ feelings of responsibility in the present.

Discussion

The main objective of the present study was to examine whether and to what extent contemporary Germans’ views on the German population during National Socialism are related to their age. We found that younger Germans reported differing points of contact with the time of National Socialism, as they reported having learned more about the topic in school and having met fewer individuals who have lived through the time of National Socialism themselves. We assumed these kinds of changes in the culture of remembrance would result in differing assessments of the role of the German population during National Socialism. In fact, younger Germans reported a more critical perspective on the role of society in Nazi Germany. They assumed a stronger involvement of the German population as perpetrators, and as bystanders who were aware of the regime’s crimes but did not intervene. When asked to explain the population’s inaction, younger Germans were more likely to reject the situational explanations that Germans during National Socialism “did not know,” did not realize the seriousness of the situation, or did not have any opportunity to act against the Nazis’ crimes. Those participants showing a more critical assessment of the past also reported an increased feeling of responsibility in the present.

Access to the Topic of National Socialism

Results show that the general extent of confrontation with the topic of National Socialism appears to be independent from Germans’ age. Younger Germans did not confront themselves with the topic less intensively than older Germans. Regarding specific ways of confrontation with the past, however, older Germans reported deriving less knowledge from institutional education and more from personal contact with contemporary witnesses. Younger participants, on the other hand, reported more facts‐based confrontation with the topic in school, and less personal points of contact. These results are further supported by additional data from the present project on the German culture of remembrance (Rees, Papendick, & Zick, 2019; Rees, Zick, et al., 2019). For example, younger Germans reported fewer conversations about the topic of National Socialism in their families as well as less knowledge about the role of their own ancestors during the time of National Socialism. These results substantiate the discussions about current shifts in the German culture of remembrance in which “established” ways of confrontation with the time of National Socialism slowly vanish while others evolve and become more influential for the assessment of the past. These changes, again, could be interpreted as a detachment from history and a loss of knowledge. Studies such as the one by Welzer et al. (2014), however, illustrate Germans’ frequently biased perspectives of their ancestors’ involvement in the Nazis’ crimes, the selective communication of stories of heroism and victimhood, and the selective suppression of stories of guilt and responsibility within German families. A further detachment from these biased family representations or individual narratives may increase the impact of more fact‐oriented confrontations with the topic (see also Rees et al., in press).

The German Population’s Involvement and Inaction During National Socialism

To test our prediction that these changes in access to the topic of National Socialism are not only negative but potentially enable a more critical perspective of the role of the German population, we tested for links between participants’ age and their assessments of the time of National Socialism. We hypothesized that younger participants would be more likely to choose accusing explanations for the population’s inaction and emphasize the German population’s awareness of and involvement in the perpetration of crimes, while older participants would more likely exonerate the general population and attribute their inaction to a lack of knowledge. Our results support these predictions, showing that younger participants more often denied the situational explanation that Germans “did not know”—not only when specifically asked whether the lack of knowledge was an appropriate explanation but also when asked to estimate the proportion of Germans who were aware of the regime’s systematic murdering. Older participants, in turn, were more likely to attribute Germans’ inaction to the situational and more exonerating explanations of a lack of knowledge or a lack of opportunities to act. These results are in line with those reported by Imhoff et al. (2017) and Doosje and Branscombe (2003), but extend them in demonstrating that ingroup favouring attributional biases regarding the explanation for the Holocaust may also hold for the specific group of the bystanders to the Nazi crimes, and that differences in attributional patterns are not only found between national groups but also between different generations within German society.

However, we also found deviations from our assumptions and the results reported in previous studies. First, and in contrast to the results reported by Imhoff et al. (2017) and Doosje and Branscombe (2003), we found that within our overall sample, the dispositional explanation that the German population during National Socialism did not intervene because they shared the views of the Nazi regime was affirmed more often than the situational explanation of a population that was inactive due to a lack of knowledge. While counterintuitive at first, we argue that this deviation can be explained by the situational attribution we presented (“They did not know about the murders”). Compared to the more complex situational explanation of “the bad economic conditions and the high unemployment rate” presented by Imhoff et al. (2017, p. 914) the situational explanation of a lack of awareness of the crimes among the German population stands in clear contrast to historical knowledge. Therefore, it is comprehensible that participants in our study were less likely to affirm the situational explanation. This result supports our hypothesis that an explicit denial of the German population’s knowledge of the Nazi regime’s atrocities can be interpreted as an active exoneration of the German population. Additionally, the study by Imhoff and colleagues focused on attributions of the causes of the Holocaust while the present study examined explanations for the lack of resistance within the bystanding German population, and therefore addresses a different aspect of explaining National Socialism. The second result in contrast to our expectations is the lack of age differences in the estimation of helpers among the German population. As we expected younger Germans to report a generally more critical and accusing assessment of the past, we assumed that this critical assessment would be expressed in a lower estimation of helpers among the German population as well. A potential explanation for this result may be a differing definition of the particular group of helpers, depending on participants’ age. If younger Germans have a different concept of “helping potential victims” in mind, they may come to a different conclusion about the proportion of helpers among the German population. More specifically, potential definitions for acts of helping during National Socialism may range from small acts of support in everyday life (e.g., giving food) to more serious interventions (e.g., explicitly saving someone’s life or taking severe personal risks to support someone). Another explanation would be that younger Germans are generally more aware of the population’s involvement in particular roles, as perpetrators or bystanders, but know less about acts of help and support for the victim groups of National Socialism. Future research should further elaborate on how younger Germans themselves define the groups of perpetrators, victims, helpers, and bystanders, and whether these definitions differ from those of older Germans.

In sum, our results corroborate the assumption of generational differences within German society not only with regard to access to the topic of National Socialism, reinforcing discussions about shifts in the German culture of remembrance (Cornelißen, 2015; Knigge, 2010; Körber Foundation, 2017), but also with regard to assessments of the societal circumstances of National Socialism and the Holocaust. These results, especially younger participants’ higher estimations of knowledge among the German population during the Nazi era, may be regarded as the result of more facts‐based confrontations with the topic of National Socialism. Our exploratory analyses show that those participants who reported a more critical perspective on the German population during National Socialism also reported more courageous attitudes with regard to German society today. One obvious interpretation of these results would be to conclude that these participants share a more (self‐) critical perspective on societal issues, attributing responsibility not only to external factors or actors, but hold the society, including themselves, accountable. Following this interpretation, this attribution of responsibilities may at least partially derive from the confrontation with the topic of National Socialism in general or with the bystanding behaviour of the population during National Socialism in particular. Yet, deducing some kind of historical learning or historical consciousness from the present data would be a clear exaggeration and overinterpretation.

Limitations and Future Directions

Although the present study contributes to a better understanding of contemporary Germans’ perspectives on the time of National Socialism and generational differences in these perspectives, a number of methodological restrictions confine potential inferences and should be considered in future research. One of our assumptions is a potentially positive consequence of changes within the German culture of remembrance, resulting in a less biased perspective on the German population in the time of National Socialism. While the theoretical deduction from social identity theory, explaining this effect with the concept of ingroup favouritism, is reasonable and the results support our hypothesis, the extent of participants’ identification with the German population during National Socialism was not explicitly measured. The same applies to the assessment of participants’ estimations of Germans’ involvement in the National Socialists’ crimes and the interpretation of specific estimations (e.g., higher estimations of the percentages of perpetrators and bystanders) representing a more accusing perspective on the role of the German population. The different explanations for the population’s inaction we examined and the correlations between these explanations and participants’ estimations of the population’s involvement reinforce our interpretation that specific estimations of the German population’s involvement represent more critical assessments of the past. The assessment and evaluation of the political, economic, and societal circumstances of National Socialism, however, is a complex question that can hardly be assessed with few quantitative items. Future research might wish to assess participants’ understanding of the conditions of National Socialism and the Holocaust in a more differentiated manner and also include questions on whether participants perceive direct or indirect relations between the past and the present. While the present study included estimations of the German population’s involvement to assess participants’ impression of civil society during the time of National Socialism, more explicit questions are needed to draw a full image of how Germans today perceive and explain the time of National Socialism. This assessment should further take into account the developments during and prior to the time span from 1933 to 1945. Participants’ answers to questions regarding “the time of National Socialism” will most likely be influenced by the specific point in time that is invoked. Answers to questions referring to the early years of National Socialism will differ from those referring to the years of the Holocaust. Qualitative studies on the topic would enable assessments of individuals’ explicit understanding of National Socialism and of how far they regard their personal confrontation with the time of National Socialism as relevant for their attitudes toward present‐day issues. Finally, the potential causal relationships we discuss in the present paper (e.g., the assumption that a confrontation with historical sources representing the German population’s bystanding behaviour promotes more critical perspectives on the role of the German population in general) need to be tested experimentally to understand how far and under which conditions contemporary Germans may draw inferences from a confrontation with National Socialism. These studies should also take into account additional factors that may influence contemporary Germans’ assessment of the past, such as their national identification with Germany.