88% of adolescents experienced no or very small effects of social media use on self-esteem, whereas 4% experienced positive and 8% negative effects

Social Media Use and Adolescents’ Self-Esteem: Heading for a Person-Specific Media Effects Paradigm. Patti Valkenburg, Ine Beyens, J Loes Pouwels, Irene I van Driel, Loes Keijsers. Journal of Communication, jqaa039, January 31 2021, https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqaa039

Rolf Degen's take: For the vast majority of youth, social media use had little or no effect on self-esteem, while small minorities experienced improvement or worsening. https://t.co/rBMHXvhpUn https://t.co/UHeD3Fortg

Abstract: Eighteen earlier studies have investigated the associations between social media use (SMU) and adolescents’ self-esteem, finding weak effects and inconsistent results. A viable hypothesis for these mixed findings is that the effect of SMU differs from adolescent to adolescent. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a preregistered three-week experience sampling study among 387 adolescents (13–15 years, 54% girls). Each adolescent reported on his/her SMU and self-esteem six times per day (126 assessments per participant; 34,930 in total). Using a person-specific, N = 1 method of analysis (Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling), we found that the majority of adolescents (88%) experienced no or very small effects of SMU on self-esteem (−.10 < β < .10), whereas 4% experienced positive (.10 ≤ β ≤ .17) and 8% negative effects (−.21 ≤ β ≤ −.10). Our results suggest that person-specific effects can no longer be ignored in future media effects theories and research.

Discussion

The two existing meta-analyses on the relationship of SMU and self-esteem assessed the effects of their included empirical studies as weak and their results as mixed (Huang, 2017; Liu & Baumeister, 2016). The between-person associations reported in empirical studies on SMU and self-esteem ranged from +.22 (Apaolaza et al., 2013) to −.28 (Rodgers et al., 2020). In the current study, the between-person association between SMU and self-esteem fits within this range: We found a negative relationship of r = −.15 between SMU and self-esteem (RQ1), meaning that adolescents who spent more time on social media across a period of three weeks reported a lower level of self-esteem than adolescents who spent less time on social media. This negative relationship pertained to the summed usage of Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp, but did not differ for the usage of each of the separate platforms.

In addition, although we hypothesized a positive overall within-person effect of SMU on self-esteem (H1), we found a null effect. However, this overall null effect must be interpreted in light of the supportive results for our second hypothesis (H2), which predicted that the effect of SMU on self-esteem would differ from adolescent to adolescent. We found that the majority of participants (88%) experienced no or very small positive or negative effects of SMU on changes in self-esteem (−.10 < β < .10), whereas one small group (4%) experienced positive effects (.10 ≤ β ≤ .17), and another small group (8%) negative effects of SMU (−.21 ≤ β ≤ −.10) on self-esteem.

The person-specific effect sizes reported in the current study pertain to SMU effects on changes in self-esteem (i.e., self-esteem controlled for previous levels of self-esteem). As Adachi and Willoughby (2015, p. 117) argue, such effect sizes are often “dramatically” smaller than those for outcomes that are not controlled for their previous levels. Indeed, when we checked this assumption of Adachi & Willoughby, the associations between SMU and self-esteem not controlled for its previous levels resulted in a considerably wider range of effect sizes (β = −.34 to β = +.33) than those that did control for previous levels (β = −. 21 to β = +.17). To account for a potential undervaluation of effect sizes in autoregressive models, Adachi and Willoughby (2015, p. 127) proposed “a more liberal cut-off for small effects in autoregressive models (e.g., small = .05).” In this study, we followed our preregistration and interpreted effect sizes ranging from −.10 < β < +.10 as non-existent to very small. However, if we would apply the guideline proposed by Adachi and Willoughby (2015) to our results, the distribution of effect sizes would lead to 21% negative susceptibles, 16% positive susceptibles, and 63% non-susceptibles.

Our results showed that the effects of SMU on self-esteem are unique for each individual adolescent, which may, in turn, explain why the two meta-analyses evaluated the effects of their included studies as weak and their results as inconsistent. First, our results suggest that these effects were weak because they were diluted across a heterogeneous sample of adolescents with different susceptibilities to the effects of SMU. This suggestion is supported by comparing our overall within-person effect (β = −.01, ns) with the full range of person-specific effects, which ranged from moderately negative to moderately positive. Second, the effects reported in earlier studies may have been inconsistent because these studies may, by chance, have slightly oversampled either “positive susceptibles” or “negative susceptibles.” After all, if a sample is somewhat biased towards positive susceptibles, the results would yield a moderately positive overall effect. Conversely, if a sample is somewhat biased towards negative susceptibles the results would report a moderately negative overall effect.

It may seem reassuring at first sight that the far majority of participants in our study did not experience sizeable negative effects of SMU on their self-esteem. However, as illustrated in the bottom N = 1 time-series plot in Figure 2, for some participants, their non-significant within-person effect may result from strong social media-induced ups and downs in self-esteem, which cancelled each other out across time, resulting in a net null effect. However, as the two upper time-series plots in Figure 2 show, not only the non-susceptibles, but also the positive and negative susceptibles sometimes experienced effects in the opposite direction: The positive susceptibles occasionally experienced negative effects, while the negative susceptibles occasionally experienced positive effects.

Although DSEM models enable researchers to demonstrate how within-person effects of SMU differ across persons, they do not (yet) allow us to statistically evaluate the presence of both positive and negative effects within one and the same person (Hamaker, 2020, personal communication). A possibility to analyze the combination of positive and negative effects within persons may soon be offered by even more advanced modeling strategies than DSEM, which are currently undergoing a rapid development. Among those promising developments are regime switching models (Lu et al., 2019), which provide the opportunity to establish the co-occurrence of both positive and negative effects of SMU within single persons.

Explanatory Hypotheses and Avenues for Future Research

Although our study allowed us to reveal the prevalence of positive susceptibles, negative susceptibles, and non-susceptibles among participants, it did not investigate why and when some adolescents are more susceptible to SMU than others. Our exploratory results did show that adolescents with a lower mean level of self-esteem, experienced a more positive within-person effect of SMU on self-esteem than adolescents with a higher mean level of self-esteem. This latter result may point to a social compensation effect (Kraut et al., 1998), indicating that adolescents who are low in self-esteem may successfully seek out social media to enhance their self-esteem. Our DSEM analysis did not reveal differences in the within-person effects of SMU on self-esteem among adolescents with high and low SMU, suggesting that the positive effects among some adolescents cannot be attributed to modest SMU, whereas the negative effects among other adolescents cannot be attributed to excessive SMU.

An important next step is to further explain why adolescents differ in their susceptibility to SMU. A first explanation may be that adolescents differ in the valence (the positivity or negativity) of their experiences while spending time on social media. It is, for example, possible that the positive susceptibles experience mainly positive content on social media, whereas the negative susceptibles experience mainly negative content. In this study, we focused on time as a predictor of momentary ups and downs in self-esteem. However, most self-esteem theories emphasize that it is the valence rather than the duration of social experiences that results in self-esteem fluctuations. It is assumed that self-esteem goes up when we succeed or when others accept us, and drops when we fail or when others reject us (Leary & Baumeister, 2000). Future research should, therefore, extend our study by investigating to what extent the valence of experiences on social media accounts for differences in susceptibility to the effects of SMU above and beyond adolescents’ time spent on social media.

A second explanation as to why adolescents differ in their susceptibility to the effects of SMU may lie in person-specific susceptibilities to the positivity bias in SM. Our first hypothesis was based on the idea that the sharing of positively biased information would elicit reciprocal positive feedback from fellow users, which, in turn, would lead to overall improvements in self-esteem. However, our results suggest that, for some adolescents, this positivity bias may lead to decreases in self-esteem, for example, because of their tendency to compare themselves to other social media users who they perceive as more beautiful or successful. This tendency towards social comparison may lead to envy (e.g., Appel et al., 2016) and decreases in self-esteem (Vogel et al., 2014).

Until now, studies investigating the positive feedback hypothesis have mostly focused on the positive effects of feedback on self-esteem (e.g., Valkenburg et al., 2017), whereas studies examining the social comparison hypothesis have mainly focused on the negative effects of social comparison on self-esteem (e.g., Vogel et al., 2014). However, both the positive feedback hypothesis and the social comparison hypothesis are more complex than they may seem at first sight. First, although most adolescents receive positive feedback while using social media, a minority frequently receives negative feedback (Koutamanis et al., 2015), and may experience resulting decreases in self-esteem. Likewise, although social comparison may lead to envy, it may also lead to inspiration (e.g., Meier & Schäfer, 2018), and resulting increases in self-esteem. Future research should attempt to reconcile these explanatory hypotheses by investigating who is particularly susceptible to positive and/or negative feedback, and who is particularly susceptible to the positive (e.g., inspiration) and/or negative (e.g., envy) effects of social comparison on social media.

Another possible explanation for differences in person-specific effects of SMU on self-esteem may lie in differences in the specific contingencies on which adolescents’ self-esteem is based. Self-esteem contingency theory (Crocker & Brummelman, 2018) recognizes that people differ in the areas of life that serve as the basis of their self-esteem (Jordan & Zeigler-Hill, 2013). For example, for some adolescents their physical appearance may serve as the basis of their self-esteem, whereas others may base their self-esteem on peer approval. Different contexts may also activate different self-esteem contingencies (Crocker & Brummelman, 2018). On the soccer field, athletic ability is valued, which may activate the athletic ability contingency in this context. On social media, physical appearance and peer approval may be relevant, so that these contingencies may particularly be triggered in the social media context. It is conceivable that adolescents who base their self-esteem on appearance or peer approval may be more susceptible to the effects of SMU than adolescents who base their self-esteem less on these contingencies, and this is, therefore, another important avenue for future research.

Stimulating Positive and Mitigating Negative Effects

Our results suggest that for the majority of adolescents the momentary effects of SMU are small or negligible. As discussed though, all adolescents—whether they are positive susceptibles, negative susceptibles, or non-susceptibles—may occasionally experience social media-induced drops in self-esteem. Social media have become a fixture in adolescents’ social life, and the use of these media may thus result in negative experiences among all adolescents. Therefore, not only the negative susceptibles, but all adolescents need their parents or educators to help them prevent, or cope with, these potentially negative experiences. Parents and educators can play a vital role in enhancing the positive effects of SMU and combatting the negative ones. Helping adolescents prevent or process negative feedback and explaining that the social media world may not be as beautiful as it often appears, are important ingredients of media-specific parenting as well as school-based media literacy programs.

Although this study was designed to contribute to (social) media effects theories and research, our analytical approach may also have social benefits. After all, N = 1 time-series plots could not only be helpful for theory building, but also for person-specific advice to adolescents. These plots give a comprehensive snapshot of each adolescent’s experiences and responses across more or less prolonged time periods. Such information could greatly help tailoring prevention and intervention strategies to different adolescents. After all, only if we know which adolescents are more or less susceptible to the negative and positive effects of social media, are we able to adequately target prevention and intervention strategies at these adolescents.

Towards a Personalized Media Effects Paradigm

Insights into person-specific susceptibilities to certain environmental influences is burgeoning in several disciplines. For example, in medicine, personalized medicine is on the rise. In education, personalized learning is booming. And in developmental psychology, differential susceptibility theories are among the most prominent theories to explain heterogeneity in child development. Although N = 1 or idiographic research is now progressively embraced in multiple disciplines, spurred by recent methodological developments, it has a long history behind it. In fact, in the first two decades of the 20th century, scholars such as Piaget, Pavlov, and Thorndike often conducted case-by-case research to develop and test their theories bottom up (i.e., from the individual to the population; Robinson, 2011). However, in the 1930s, idiographic research soon lost ground to nomothetic approaches, certainly after Francis Galton attached the term nomothetic to the aggregated group-based methodology that is still common in quantitative research (Robinson, 2011). However, due to technological advancements, it has become feasible to collect masses of intensive longitudinal data from masses of individuals on the uses and effects of social media (e.g., through ESM, tracking). Moreover, rapid developments in data mining and statistical methods now also enable researchers to analyze highly complex N = 1 data, and by doing so, to develop and investigate media effects and other communication theories bottom-up rather than top-down (i.e., from the population to the individual). We hope that this study may be a very first step to a personalized media effects paradigm.

Although people clearly moralize diverse concerns—including those related to religion, sex, and food—heterogeneity in conceptual definitions is problematic for theory development and make falsification extremely difficult

Gray, Kurt, Nicholas DiMaggio, Chelsea Schein, and Frank Kachanoff. 2021. “What Is 'purity'? Conceptual Murkiness in Moral Psychology.” PsyArXiv. February 3. doi:10.31234/osf.io/vfyut

Abstract: Purity is an important topic in psychology. It has a long history in moral discourse, has helped catalyze paradigm shifts in moral psychology, and is thought to underlie political differences. But what exactly is “purity?” To answer this question, we review the history of purity and then systematically examine 158 psychology papers that define and operationalization (im)purity. In contrast to the many concepts defined by what they are, purity is often understood by what it isn’t—obvious dyadic harm. Because of this “contra”-harm understanding, definitions and operationalizations of purity are quite varied. Acts used to operationalize impurity include taking drugs, eating your sister’s scab, vandalizing a church, wearing unmatched clothes, buying music with sexually explicit lyrics, and having a messy house. This heterogeneity makes purity a “chimera”—an entity composed of various distinct elements. Our review reveals that the “contra-chimera” of purity has 9 different scientific understandings, and that most papers define purity differently from how they operationalize it. Although people clearly moralize diverse concerns—including those related to religion, sex, and food—such heterogeneity in conceptual definitions is problematic for theory development. Shifting definitions of purity provide “theoretical degrees of freedom” that make falsification extremely difficult. Doubts about the coherence and consistency of purity raise questions about key purity-related claims of modern moral psychology, including the nature of political differences and the cognitive foundations of moral judgment.

Children with relatively high narcissism levels tend to emerge as leaders, even though they may not excel as leaders

Narcissism and Leadership in Children. Eddie Brummelman, Barbara Nevicka, Joseph M. O’Brien. Psychological Science, February 3, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620965536

Rolf Degen's take: Narcissistic children often attained the leadership position in the classroom even though they did not possess the leadership qualities they thought themselves to have.

Abstract: Some leaders display high levels of narcissism. Does the link between narcissism levels and leadership exist in childhood? We conducted, to our knowledge, the first study of the relationship between narcissism levels and various aspects of leadership in children (N = 332, ages 7–14 years). We assessed narcissism levels using the Childhood Narcissism Scale and assessed leadership emergence in classrooms using peer nominations. Children then performed a group task in which one child was randomly assigned as leader. We assessed perceived and actual leadership functioning. Children with higher narcissism levels more often emerged as leaders in classrooms. When given a leadership role in the task, children with higher narcissism levels perceived themselves as better leaders, but their actual leadership functioning did not differ significantly from that of other leaders. Specification-curve analyses corroborated these findings. Thus, children with relatively high narcissism levels tend to emerge as leaders, even though they may not excel as leaders.

Keywords: narcissism, leadership, childhood, open data, open materials

Discussion

Our randomized study examined the relationship between narcissism levels and various aspects of leadership in childhood. Narcissism was assessed as a continuous personality trait using the Childhood Narcissism Scale (Thomaes et al., 2008). Children with higher narcissism levels more often emerged as leaders in their classrooms and had more positive views of their own leadership functioning. Yet when they actually had to lead a group, their leadership functioning did not differ significantly from that of other leaders. Indeed, as leaders, children with higher narcissism levels did not differ significantly from other leaders in how much leadership behavior they displayed, how positively they were perceived by their followers, or how their group performed. Specification-curve analyses demonstrated the robustness of our findings.

Theoretical implications

Children with relatively high narcissism levels tended to emerge as leaders in their classrooms, even though they did not actually excel as leaders. How is that possible? According to evolutionary theories of self-deception (von Hippel & Trivers, 2011), self-deception has evolved to facilitate interpersonal deception. Because children with relatively high narcissism levels truly believe they make amazing leaders, they may confidently convince others of their leadership skills without having to suppress or hide any self-doubt. These children may thus acquire leadership positions and other social resources.

What is unique about narcissism and leadership in childhood? Like their adult counterparts (Grijalva et al., 2015), children with relatively high levels of narcissism tend to emerge as leaders. Yet unlike their adult counterparts (Nevicka, Ten Velden, et al., 2011), children with relatively high narcissism levels in leadership roles do not tend to significantly harm their group’s performance. Narcissism may have fewer interpersonal costs in childhood than in adulthood (Poorthuis et al., 2019), perhaps because children are generally less socially dominant than adults (Roberts et al., 2006), making them less inclined to act against their group’s interests.

Research in adults suggests that narcissism levels are underpinned by agentic and antagonistic traits (Back & Morf, 2018; Krizan & Herlache, 2018). The association between narcissism levels and leadership may be driven, in part, by agentic traits (e.g., self-confidence; Grijalva et al., 2015; Watts et al., 2013). For example, when adults with relatively high narcissism levels enter a new peer group, their agentic traits predict initial increases in popularity (Leckelt et al., 2015). In our study, agentic traits did not significantly mediate the association between narcissism levels and leadership emergence. Agentic traits did, however, fully mediate the association between narcissism levels and self-perceived leadership functioning. Thus, agentic traits helped explain why children with higher narcissism levels perceived themselves more favorably as leaders—an important step toward developing a leadership identity (Murphy & Johnson, 2011).

Strengths, limitations, and future directions

Strengths of our study include its developmental focus, its experimental design, and its multimethod and multisource assessments of leadership functioning. Our study also has limitations. First, our study was not preregistered. Although specification-curve analyses demonstrate the robustness of our findings, we call for well-powered replications. Second, the nature of childhood leadership is understudied. We captured leadership emergence using peer nominations and captured leadership functioning using a collaborative task (Gummerum et al., 2014). Supporting the task’s validity, results showed that leaders displayed more leadership behavior than did their followers, and the more leadership behavior they displayed, the better their group performed. Also, followers rated leaders in better-performing groups as more effective. We call for more research on the construct validity of childhood leadership. For example, are more popular children also more likely to emerge as leaders? And does children’s leadership functioning vary across contexts (e.g., high vs. low intergroup competition)?

Our research also points to new research directions. An exciting direction will be to examine leadership as it emerges naturally in groups and develops across the life span. In our study, we randomly assigned one child to be the leader. Would children with relatively high narcissism levels perform better as leaders and would they be more valued by their followers when they have truly earned their leadership roles? If so, would they be more likely to become successful leaders in adulthood? And would their success be driven by their agentic or antagonistic traits (Leckelt et al., 2015)? Research has begun to examine how adults with relatively high narcissism levels attain career success, and how success, in turn, shapes them (Wille, Hofmans, Lievens, Back, & De Fruyt, 2019). Addressing these issues will elucidate how narcissism levels and leadership intersect across the life span.

Foreign-born youth reported significantly more internalizing problems & fewer externalizing problems than US-born youth

The Immigrant Paradox in the Problem Behaviors of Youth in the United States: A Meta‐analysis. Jacqueline L. Tilley  Stanley J. Huey Jr.  JoAnn M. Farver  Mark H.C. Lai  Crystal X. Wang. Child Development, February 2 2021. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13542

Abstract: This meta‐analysis synthesizes the empirical data on problem behaviors among foreign‐ (G1) and U.S‐born (G2+) youth and explores the effects of immigrant status on youth internalizing and externalizing problems. A random effects meta‐regression with robust variance estimates summarized effect sizes for internalizing and externalizing problems across 91 studies (N = 179,315, Mage = 13.98). Results indicated that G1 youth reported significantly more internalizing problems (g = .06), and fewer externalizing problems than G2+ youth (g = −.06). Gender and sample type moderated the effects. The findings provide a first‐step toward reconciling mixed support for the immigrant paradox by identifying for whom and under what conditions the immigrant experience serves as a risk or protective factor for youth.

Lower early androgen exposure after the first trimester contributes to male nonconformal gender role behaviors in childhood

Shirazi, Talia, Heather Self, Kevin Rosenfield, Khytam Dawood, Lisa Welling, Rodrigo Cardenas, J. M. Bailey, et al. 2021. “Low Perinatal Androgens Predict Recalled Childhood Gender Nonconformity in Men.” PsyArXiv. February 1. doi:10.31234/osf.io/whtpz

Abstract: The contributions of gender socialization and direct hormonal action on the brain in the development of human behavioral sex differences are subjects of intense scientific and social interest. Prior research indicates masculinized behavioral patterns in individuals with high prenatal androgen exposure raised as girls, but complementary evidence regarding individuals with low prenatal androgens raised as boys is critically lacking. We investigated recalled childhood gender nonconformity (CGN) in men (n = 65) and women (n = 32) with isolated GnRH deficiency (IGD) and typically developing men (n = 463) and women (n = 1207). IGD is characterized by low or absent gonadal hormone production after the first trimester of gestation until hormone replacement therapy initiation around the time of puberty, but external appearance is concordant with chromosomal and gonadal sex. Compared to typically developing men, men with IGD reported higher CGN, particularly if they also reported cryptorchidism at birth, a marker of low perinatal androgens. Women with IGD did not differ from typically developing women. These results suggest that early androgen exposure after the first trimester contributes to male-typical gender role behaviors in childhood.

Undergraduates mistakenly believed that liberal students at their university recycled more than conservatives; inaccurate meta-beliefs may drive political polarization

Collective Responses to Global Challenges: The Social Psychology of Pro-Environmental Action. Markus Barth et al. Journal of Environmental Psychology, February 3 2021, 101562, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101562

Rolf Degen's take: US participants underestimated the actual sustainable actions of conservatives in comparison to liberals.

Abstract: The world faces one of its greatest challenges in climate change. As a global challenge, climate change demands a global response. A psychological approach with the goal to motivate large groups to engage in concerted action will need both, a perspective focused on individual factors and a perspective focused on the collective factors. The social identity approach is a promising and underutilized theoretical basis for the latter. In this special issue, we have brought together new and thought-provoking work on the effects of collective-level variables on pro-environmental action that builds on the social identity approach. This editorial will introduce the core idea of the approach and it will argue for its advantages. We will summarize important previous work on some of the essential variables of the approach and we will briefly introduce the contributions to this special issue which will hopefully stimulate more work in the years ahead.

Keywords: social identityclimate changepro-environmental action

Political ingroup conformity and pro-environmental behavior: Evaluating the evidence from a survey and mousetracking experiments. Nathaniel Geiger et al. Journal of Environmental Psychology, Volume 72, December 2020, 101524. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101524

Highlights

• Four studies looked at the effect of political ingroup norms on recycling behavior.

• Study 1 demonstrated that university students’ perceptions of ingroup norms predicted self-reported recycling behavior.

• Studies 2–4 examined effects of normative feedback on computerized “recycling behavior” using mousetracking software.

• Results were inconsistent (effects found in Studies 2 and 3, but not 4) but suggest the utility of this novel paradigm.

Abstract: Previous work reveals that political orientation is a relevant social identity for many people and that the desire to conform to political ingroup norms can drive belief and behavior change. Because pro-environmental behaviors are viewed as stereotypically liberal in the US, American conservatives may be less likely to engage in pro-environmental behavior, particularly when political identity and normative information are made salient. In four studies, we examine whether heightening the salience of political identity and providing information that one is conforming to or failing to conform to political group norms influences engagement in a pro-environmental behavior (recycling). Study 1 showed that undergraduates falsely believed that liberal students at their university recycled more than conservatives. In turn, while liberal and moderate students' self-reported recycling behavior was predicted by their perceptions of liberals' (but not conservatives') behavior, conservative students' behavior was predicted by perceptions of other conservatives' (but not liberals’) behavior. Studies 2–4 use a novel computerized recycling task and mouse-tracking software to examine whether, among politically conservative Americans, receiving feedback that their recycling behavior is inconsistent with stereotypic ingroup norms modifies behavior and motivates individuals to “recycle” less in the computerized task. In Studies 2 (university student sample) and 3 (preregistered; MTurk worker sample), those who received this feedback adjusted their automatic, but not deliberate responses, although patterns differed slightly between studies. However, in Study 4 (preregistered; MTurk worker sample), this effect was not found. Collectively, these studies suggest that inaccurate meta-beliefs may drive political polarization with respect to pro-environmental behavior, but inconsistencies in results across studies leave open questions about how they do so. This research also contributes to the literature by introducing new methodologies to study pro-environmental decision-making processes.

Keywords: ConformitySocial identityPolitical identityPro-environmental behaviorDecision-making

Data show that while the food and beverage service sector as a whole grew by 17.7%, the bar sector decreased by 10.5%; the food and beverage service industry declined in 28 of 30 municipalities under study

Mattson, Greggor. 2021. “The Decline of Bars and Drinking Establishments, 2006-2016.” SocArXiv. February 2. doi:10.31235/osf.io/jrpnd

Abstract: The growth of the food and beverage service industry in the 2010s obscured the decline of one of its sectors: bars and drinking establishments with limited food offerings. This research note presents 2006-2016 data from the U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns, a time period that captures industry peaks on either side of the Great Recession of 2008. Data show that while the food and beverage service sector as a whole grew by 17.7%, the bar sector decreased by 10.5%. City-level data from the 30-largest municipalities show much internal variation in both sectors, but the bar sector’s share of the food and beverage service industry declined in 28 of 30 municipalities under study. Restaurant industry growth in this decade ranged from 5.0% to 48.4%, while bar sector change ranged from -37.7% to an increase of 56.5%. The implications of this changing industry mix and its municipal variation are discussed for future research into the changing food and drink service industry, its role in urban revitalization, strategies for public health and safety, and the likely acceleration of these trends due to COVID-19.

Observers can gaze upon an image, process enough of that image to identify it, but completely fail to notice drastic changes to the periphery of that image

Cohen, M. A., Ostrand, C., Frontero, N., & Pham, P.-N. (2021). Characterizing a snapshot of perceptual experience. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Jan 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000864

Abstract: What can we perceive in a single glance of the visual world? Although this question appears rather simple, answering it has been remarkably difficult and controversial. Traditionally, researchers have tried to infer the nature of perceptual experience by examining how many objects and what types of objects are not fully encoded within a scene (e.g., failing to notice a bowl disappearing/changing). Here, we took a different approach and asked how much we could alter an entire scene before observers noticed those global alterations. Surprisingly, we found that observers could fixate on a scene for hundreds of milliseconds yet routinely fail to notice drastic changes to that scene (e.g., scrambling the periphery so no object can be identified, putting the center of 1 scene on the background of another scene). In addition, we also found that as observers allocate more attention to their periphery, their ability to notice these changes to a scene increases. Together, these results show that although a single snapshot of perceptual experience can be remarkably impoverished, it is also not a fixed constant and is likely to be continuously changing from moment to moment depending on attention.

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Observers can gaze upon an image, process enough of that image to identify it, but completely fail to notice drastic changes to the periphery of that image

Awe may lead to uncertainty & ambivalence regarding one’s attitudes, a form of epistemological humility, & that this in turn may promote reduced dogmatism and increased perceptions of social cohesion

Stancato, D. M., & Keltner, D. (2021). Awe, ideological conviction, and perceptions of ideological opponents. Emotion, 21(1), 61–72, Jan 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000665

Abstract: Awe is an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that transcend current frames of reference. Guided by prior work documenting that awe promotes humility, increases perceptions of uncertainty, and diminishes personal concerns, across 3 studies (N = 776) we tested the hypothesis that awe results in reduced conviction about one’s ideological attitudes. In Study 1, participants induced to experience awe, relative to those feeling amusement or in a neutral control condition, expressed less conviction regarding their attitudes toward capital punishment. In 2 subsequent studies, we showed that experiencing awe decreased perceptions of ideological polarization in the U.S. vis-à-vis racial bias in the criminal justice system (Study 2) and reduced desired social distance from those with different viewpoints regarding immigration (Study 3)—effects that were partially mediated by reduced conviction. These findings indicate that awe may lead to uncertainty and ambivalence regarding one’s attitudes, a form of epistemological humility, and that this in turn may promote reduced dogmatism and increased perceptions of social cohesion.

Psychopathic people were generally interested in having one-night stands, seemingly without concern for the personality traits of the other person involved

Negative traits, positive assortment: Revisiting the Dark Triad and a preference for similar others. Cameron S. Kay. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, February 2, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407521989820

Abstract: Across two studies (N TOTAL = 933), a person’s willingness to engage in a relationship with those scoring high in each of the Dark Triad traits (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) was examined as a function of their own levels of the Dark Triad traits and the relationship type in question (i.e., a one-night stand, a dating relationship, or a marriage). There were three notable findings. First, those scoring high in Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy were more willing to engage in a relationship with a person who was also high in Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, respectively. Second, as the commitment level of the relationship increased, so did a narcissistic individual’s willingness to engage in a relationship with a fellow narcissist. Third, psychopathic people were generally interested in having one-night stands, seemingly without concern for the personality traits of the other person involved. Results are discussed in relation to assortative mating.

Keywords Dark Triad, long-term relationships, Machiavellianism, narcissism, personality, positive assortment, psychopathy, short-term relationships

Auditory Agnosia With Anosognosia

Auditory Agnosia With Anosognosia. Maja Klarendić et al. Cortex, February 2 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.12.025

Abstract: A 66-year-old female medical doctor suffered two consecutive cardioembolic strokes, initially affecting the right frontal lobe and the right insula, followed by a lesion in the left temporal lobe. The patient presented with distinctive phenomenology of general auditory agnosia with anosognosia for the deficit. She did not understand verbal commands and her answers to oral questions were fluent but unrelated to the topic. However, she was able to correctly answer written questions, name objects, and fluently describe their purpose, which is characteristic for verbal auditory agnosia. She was also unable to recognise environmental sounds or to recognise and repeat any melody. This inability is suggestive of environmental sound agnosia and amusia, respectively. Surprisingly, she was not aware of the problems, not asking any questions regarding her symptoms, and avoiding discussing her inability to understand spoken language, which is indicative of anosognosia. The deficits in our patient evolved from generalized AA with distinct pattern of recovery. The verbal auditory agnosia was the first to resolve, followed by environmental sound agnosia. Amusia persisted the longest. The patient was clinically assessed from the first day of symptom onset and the evolution of symptoms was video documented. We give a detailed account of the patient’s behaviour and provide results of audiological and neuropsychological evaluations. We discuss the anatomy of auditory agnosia and anosognosia relevant to the case. This case study may serve to better understand auditory agnosia in clinical settings. It is important to distinguish AA from Wernicke’s aphasia, because use of written language may enable normal communication.

Keywords: auditory agnosiaanosognosiaverbal auditory agnosiaenvironmental sound agnosiaamusia

Fluoride in Drinking Water: We estimate a zero effect on cognitive ability in contrast to several recent debated epidemiological studies

The Effects of Fluoride in Drinking Water. Linuz Aggeborn and Mattias Öhman. Journal of Political Economy, Jan 2021. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/711915

Abstract: Water fluoridation is a common but debated public policy. In this paper, we use Swedish registry data to study the causal effects of fluoride in drinking water. We exploit exogenous variation in natural fluoride stemming from variation in geological characteristics at water sources to identify its effects. First, we reconfirm the long-established positive effect of fluoride on dental health. Second, we estimate a zero effect on cognitive ability in contrast to several recent debated epidemiological studies. Third, fluoride is furthermore found to increase labor income. This effect is foremost driven by individuals from a lower socioeconomic background.

VI.  Discussion and Conclusion

Let us now return to our findings on cognitive ability. We claim that we find no effect of fluoride on cognitive ability, but is the estimated effect effectively zero? Let us monetize the estimates by relating them to earlier published findings on the predicted power of cognitive ability. We then choose column 5 in Table 4, where fixed effects and covariates are included. Our point estimate is 0.0028, with fixed effects and covariates included, for an increase of 0.1 milligrams/liter of fluoride on cognitive ability.

Lindqvist and Vestman (2011) estimate the return of cognitive ability on wages using Swedish registry data. Let us do a back-of-the-envelope calculation. Their results in Table 1 indicate that a 1 standard deviation increase in cognitive ability yields an approximately 10.4% increase in wages. We multiply their return to cognitive ability with our results for the effect of fluoride on cognitive ability. The estimated effect of an increase of 1 milligram/liter of fluoride translates to an 0.29% increase in wages.19 In conclusion, the close to zero and insignificant result that we estimate for the effect of fluoride on cognitive ability translates to a small impact on wages.

Another way to evaluate a zero result is to look at earlier studies that have found statistically significant results and compare the precision of the estimates. Our study includes more than 80,000 individuals when we do not include covariates or fixed effects and about 47,000 individuals with covariates and fixed effects. This may be compared with Green et al. (2019), which included around 600 observations, and the reviewed studies in Choi et al. (2012), where the number of observations was less than 1,000 for the largest study. Our confidence intervals are tighter than the 95% confidence intervals in all earlier studies.20

The remaining question is why our results deviate from previous studies, such as Green et al. (2019), that have considered similar fluoride levels.21 The main objection against Green et al. (2019) is that the choice of fluoridating water is an endogenous policy variable. Individuals do not exogenously live in fluoridated areas, making it likely that there are selection problems present. It is also noteworthy that Green et al. (2019) find a negative association only for boys and not for girls. However, we should note that Green et al. (2019) have access to urine data with actual fluoride measures within the body and several background variables that we do not have access to and that they also measured IQ at a younger age than we do.

Our results are policy relevant for developed countries with water fluoridation, given that water authorities seldom consider fluoridation above 1.5 milligrams/liter. How do our results relate to developing countries in terms of external validity? We have no reason to expect that the effect of fluoride on cognitive ability is dependent on the institutional setting. Fluoride is a chemical substance, and its effect on cognitive development should not be specific to Sweden. Choi et al. (2012) consider studies from China and Iran with fluoride levels similar to ours but also studies with higher levels, and they concluded an overall negative association. Although the mass of fluoride is within the range of 0–1.5 milligrams/liter in our data, we have some observations above the 1.5 milligrams/liter threshold set by the World Health Organization. The share of observations in this upper limit is still large in comparison to the studies reviewed in Choi et al. (2012). Figure A4 and table A7 focus on these high-level treatment effects and display no evidence of a negative effect of fluoride up to at least 3 milligrams/liter. These results should be interpreted with caution given that it is a selected sample, but it covers many of the papers in Choi et al. (2012) in terms of range. Given that our results deviate from studies reviewed in Choi et al. (2012), we believe that many of the studies capture other simultaneous hazardous treatments.

Our paper is about not only cognitive ability but also the effect of fluoride on dental health and income. Regarding dental health, we believe that our results are generalizable. Fluoride does improve dental health, and our natural experiment confirms this well-established finding in a long-term setting. However, we should remember that we measure dental health indirectly through the dental health care system in Sweden, with a large supply of dental care. The outcome where we expect to have the least external validity is our income measure, where the mechanism channels previously discussed are dependent on the institutional setting. It is interesting to note that our estimates on income, derived from rich and detailed population-wide data, are in line with Glied and Neidell (2010), who used American data.

Our findings add to the literature on the effects of fluoride on cognitive ability, but we have also broadened the understanding of the effects of fluoride by studying dental health (the first-stage relationship) and income (the long-term outcome). On the basis of the results, fluoride exposure through drinking water seems to be a good mean of improving dental health without negative effects on cognitive development for the fluoride levels considered in this study.

No Evidence That Hormonal Oral Contraceptives Affect Chemosensory Perception

No Evidence That Hormonal Contraceptives Affect Chemosensory Perception. Martin Schaefer at al. i-Perception, February 1, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/2041669520983339

Rolf Degen's take: Contrary to previous assumptions, oral contraceptives do not affect women's smell or taste perception

Abstract: The use of oral contraceptives (OC) in the form of a hormonal pill has been widespread for decades. Despite its popularity and long-time use, there is still much ambiguity and anecdotal reports about a range of potential side effects. Here, we addressed the potential effect of OC use on chemosensory perception. Previous research has almost exclusively focused on olfaction, but we expanded this to the trigeminal system and the sense of taste. We used Bayesian statistics to compare the olfactory, trigeminal, and taste detection abilities between a group of 34 normal cycling women and a group of 26 women using OC. Our results indicated that odor, trigeminal, and taste thresholds were not affected by the use of OC. Moreover, neither odor perception, nor taste perception was affected; all with Bayes factors consistently favoring the null hypothesis. The only exception to these results was odor identification where Bayes factors indicated inconclusive evidence. We conclude that effects of OC use on chemosensory perception are unlikely, and if present, likely are of no to little behavioral relevance.

Keywords: oral contraceptives, chemosensory perception, Bayesian, olfaction, trigeminal, taste, the pill

Discussion

Previous research investigating the effect OC on olfactory sensitivity has been inconclusive. Odor sensitivity has previously been shown to be both positively and negatively affected by pill use, positively and negatively affected by duration of pill intake, and potential differences seem to have been odor-dependent (Derntl et al., 2013; Kollndorfer et al., 2016; Lundström et al., 2006; Renfro & Hoffmann, 2013). Here, we revisited the question of whether OC use affects olfactory performance as well as assessed potential effects of OC use on trigeminal and taste perception. Our results indicate that OC use does not impact chemosensory perception. In fact, we considered a wide range of priors, and the null hypothesis (H0) was consistently favored over the alternative hypothesis (H1). Importantly, as trigeminal thresholds were not affected by OC, the mixed results from earlier research likely do not depend on differences in odor trigeminality of the odors used. Also, the only measure that indicated a potential effect of OC in our data was not a sensory function, but a measure that can be considered as more cognitive (cued odor identification). Notably, women have been shown to outperform men in odor identification—an effect not thought to be mediated by differences in olfaction but rather in general language abilities (Larsson, 1997, 2002; Larsson et al., 2005, 2014). A recent meta-analysis on the effect of OC on cognition further demonstrated that there is little evidence that OC impacts cognitive functions with consistent evidence only demonstrated for verbal memory (Warren et al., 2014). These findings indicate that any potential effect of OC on odor identification may be due to an impact on language functions and not olfactory function per se.

The current study has, however, weaknesses including a rather small sample size of participants in each group (OC users and nonusers), thus making it difficult to reach definite conclusions due to low statistical power. Post hoc power calculations revealed that we had 0.47 power to detect a medium effect size (0.5 d) at alpha level .05 (Faul et al., 2007). Another limitation is that the type, and dosage, of the hormonal contents of the used OC varied, and we could not control the duration of OC intake. Both the dosage of the ethinyl estradiol content, and the duration of OC use, have been suggested to alter how OC usage impacts olfactory sensitivity (Derntl et al., 2013; Kollndorfer et al., 2016). Future research should take this into account and also test a wider range of odorants, tastants, and trigeminal compounds. We tried to minimize the limitation in number of stimuli by including ecological relevant stimuli (food and non-food-associated odors) as well as use different chemical compositions (monomolecular odors and mixtures). Despite these short comings, we argue that our findings are strengthened by the following points. Earlier studies have only used frequentist statistics and were not able to test the strength of the H0 in instances when no differences were found (Dienes, 2014). Moreover, previous studies have found an effect of OC use on olfactory sensitivity when assessing very specific outcomes (e.g., the sensitivity for a specific odor, the influence of hormone dosage of the OC content, the duration of pill intake, which menstrual phase the women in the control group were in, etc.), with no general or broader effects consistently shown.

In summary, we conclude that an effect of OC use on chemosensory perception is unlikely and, if present, presumably of a small effect size with negligible ecological relevance. This should come as good news to OC users as based on these results there is no need to be concerned about altered chemosensory perception.