Males were the most eager to view sexually arousing images of the opposite sex, whereas females were more strongly motivated to view less sexual images of couples

Sex Differences in the Motivation for Viewing Sexually Arousing Images. Maiko Kobayashi, Koyo Nakamura & Katsumi Watanabe. Evolutionary Psychological Science, Feb 27 2021. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-021-00276-y

Abstract: Sexual motivation strongly influences mate choice and dating behavior and can be triggered by merely viewing sexually arousing visual images, such as erotic pictures and movies. Previous studies suggested that men, more than women, tend to search for sexual cues that signal promiscuity in short-term mates. However, it remains to be tested whether sex differences in the motivation to view sexual cues can be observed by using robust and well-controlled behavioral measures. To this end, we employed a pay-per-view key-pressing task. Japanese self-identified heterosexual male and female participants viewed images of men, women, or couples with two levels of sexual arousal (sexual vs. less sexual). Participants could alter the viewing time of a presented image according to their willingness to keep viewing it. Male participants were the most eager to view sexually arousing images of the opposite sex, whereas female participants were more strongly motivated to view less sexual images of couples. Such sex differences may reflect differentiated reproductive strategies between men and women in terms of men’s motivation toward promiscuity and women’s motivation toward long-term relationships.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examine whether there are differences between men and women in terms of their motivation to view sexual images. Drawing on SST (Buss & Schmitt, 1993), we hypothesized that our self-identified heterosexual male and female participants would view the opposite-sex images longer than the same-sex images because opposite-sex images can evoke sexual arousal (Chivers & Bailey, 2005; Hahn et al., 2013), and that men would be more eager than women to view the highly sexual images because sexually explicit opposite-sex images suggest sexual accessibility (Buss & Schmitt, 1993). Our results indicate that the motivational salience of sexual images differed between male and female participants. Here, we summarize the main findings and interpret such differences in light of the SST (Buss & Schmitt, 1993).

First, as predicted, our male participants viewed the opposite sex images and couple images longer than the same sex images, irrespective of the sexual arousal of the images. These results confirm that heterosexual males are strongly motivated to view opposite sex images (Baumeister et al., 2001; Hamann et al., 2004). Furthermore, the number of key-presses by the male participants for the opposite sex images in the sexual condition was higher compared to that for the other image. Such prioritized motivational responses to the opposite sex images were also evident in likability and sexual arousal ratings. In the less sexual condition of the opposite-sex images, there were no significant differences in the pay-per-view key pressing, but there were significant differences in subjective likeability and arousal ratings. This result was not reflected in the behavior of opposite sex images with less sexual condition, even though male participants reported higher levels of subjective sexual arousal and preference than female participants. This suggests that the pay-per-view responses reflect sexual motivation to view the images, not merely the subjective evaluations of them (Aharon et al., 2001). These observations of the male participants’ behavior are consistent with the behavioral predictions provided by the SST (i.e., prediction 6: cues to immediately available sex will be valued by men in short-term mates more than in long-term mates because they provide cues to sexual accessibility). Previous studies also suggest that men are likely to prefer visual sexual cues than women, and are thus eager to view nude images of women (Baumeister et al., 2001; Regnerus et al., 2016). Also, recent studies reveal that heterosexual men prefer to view opposite-sex images in both erotic and non-erotic contexts more than heterosexual women do (Lykins et al., 2006; Lykins et al., 2008; Rupp & Wallen, 2007). Taken together, these findings suggest that men tend to value cues to immediately available sex (e.g., promiscuity) in short-term mates (Buss & Schmitt, 1993), possibly leading to men’s greater attraction to sexually arousing visual images (Symons, 1979). Our results support these previous findings by using a behavioral measurement that reflects sexual motivation.

In contrast to the male participants, the female participants displayed different patterns of pay-per-view responses depending on the sexual arousal of the images. From the standpoint of mate choice, the female participants would have also viewed the male images longer than the female images (Chivers & Bailey, 2005; Hahn et al., 2013). However, the female participants in this experiment viewed the couple images longer than the other images, while they decreased the viewing time for all types of images in the sexual condition. Female participants in this study were less responsive than male participants to opposite sex images in all pay-per view key-pressing, subjective likeability and arousal. Previous studies indicate that women react to men’s physical attractiveness as strongly as men react to women’s physical attractiveness (Hahn et al., 2013; Hamann et al., 2004; Wiederman & Dubois, 1998). This indicates that men and women are equally able to identify sexual cues from the opposite sex (Kowalski, 1993). It is noteworthy that many previous findings were based on participants from Western cultures; so, the inconsistency between previous findings and our results may be partially derived from cultural and social differences in sexual attitudes (Thomas et al., 2015). Our results that women decreased viewing time for both sexual and less sexual same sex images ostensibly seem to be inconsistent with some previous findings (e.g., Women react to men’s physical attractiveness as strongly as men react to women’s physical attractiveness (Hahn et al., 2013; Hamann et al., 2004; Wiederman & Dubois, 1998). One possible explanation for the inconsistent results can be provided by cultural differences in expression and social expectations of female sexuality. Indeed, Western women tend to explicitly report higher sexual desire, arousal, and pleasure when experiencing orgasm compared to East Asian women (Brotto et al., 2005; Cain et al., 2003). Also, East Asian women are likely to have automatic thoughts related to sexual guilt (e.g., “I am an immoral person for wanting sex,” or “It is wrong for a woman to initiate sexual activity?”), which may originate from implicit social expectations of female sexuality and thereby motivate them to avoid sexual scenarios they believe immoral (Woo et al., 2011). Although such cultural differences are also found in men, they are reflected in women more strongly (Abramson & Imai-Marquez, 1982). It would be interesting to address this question by conducting a cross-cultural study with East-Asian and Western populations.

Of particular interest is that our female participants viewed the couple images longer than the male and female images in the less sexual condition. Such patterns were also observed in the subjective likeability rating task but not in the subjective arousal task. These results are consistent with previous findings that women are highly motivated to view couple images depicting relationship contexts and emotional bonds (Laan et al., 1994; Carvalgho,  2013). According to the behavioral prediction of the sexual strategies theory, women place more emphasis on romantic relationships than men’s physical attractiveness (Rupp & Wallen, 2007). Indeed, Dewitte (2015) showed that women feel greater sexual desire when primed with visual cues conjuring up romantic relationships. Correspondingly, women experience more intense sexual arousal when viewing pornography with romantic elements (e.g., glancing at each other, kissing, or marriage) than pornography with actual sexual intercourse (Laan et al., 1994). In our study, the female participants displayed prolonged viewing of less sexual couple images compared to the highly sexual couple images. The less sexual couple images often include romantic elements as described above. The female preference for romantic or relational elements likely derives from psychological adaptations for long-term relationship and pair-bonding signals (Buss & Schmitt, 1993; Chivers & Timmers, 2012). Long-term relationships are more advantageous for women than for men (Trivers, 1972), because women tend to be the more heavily investing sex (e.g., fertilization, gestation, placentation, and maternal care). Thus, women’s strong preference for long-term mating cues might reflect the motivation to secure the quantity and quality of external resources for themselves and their offspring from men (Buss & Schmitt, 1993). At the same time, our female participants made key-press responses to reduce the viewing time for images with high sexual arousal (sexual condition), regardless of the image category. This response pattern may be related to an adaptive behavior such as preventing the initiation of sexual intercourse after only brief intervals of time (Buss & Schmitt, 1993) and/or women’s sexual attitudes are influenced by societal norms that place them in a dilemma regarding sexuality, such that female sexuality has historically been suppressed and deemed as immoral (Lemer et al., 2013).

The present study has been based on the sexual strategies theory and has discussed considerations related to reproductive success, such as opposite-sex and couple images, but it is necessary to discuss the results for same-sex sexual images, which are not thought to contribute to reproduction according to the sexual strategies theories. Our female participants were more motivated, more preferred, and more aroused by the same sex images with less sexual condition than male participants. This result may be due to a greater intra-individual variation in female preferences, behavior, attitudes, and responsiveness to cultural influences drives. Greater flexibility in female sexual preferences may also be reflected in a less specific pattern of sexual arousal (Baumeister et al., 2001; Chivers et al., 2004). These response characteristics to same-sex sexual stimuli are important in examining various genders, including LGBT, and can provide valuable insights for discussions that go beyond sexual strategies theory.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

While the findings of the current study are novel, there exist several limitations to be considered. As mentioned in the introduction, sexual arousal is a multifaceted concept that includes physical, subjective, emotional, and behavioral aspects (Bancroft et al., 2009). Among them, this study focused on the motivation to view sexual images in an experimental setting as indexed by the pay-per-view key-pressing responses. It is important to keep in mind that the pay-per-view responses are not the direct measures of actual sexual behaviors and physiological arousal. Sex differences in psychological reactions to sexual cues await further validation with physiological and subjective measurements. In addition, the visual stimuli we used were limited to images from Western models, while the participants in this study were Japanese. Some studies demonstrate that people are susceptible to recognition errors or biased emotional evaluation when target images are from an unfamiliar group rather than their own group (e.g., other-race-effect; Feng et al., 2012; Herrmann et al., 2007; Hugenberg et al., 2010). Although we confirmed in the preliminary experiment that Japanese viewers were able to evaluate sexual arousal consistently, it may be more appropriate to use sexually arousing images from the same cultural group. However, to the best of our knowledge, the image database including a Japanese erotic category is not publicly available yet. Our findings await validation from future studies by using images from the same and different groups. Lastly, we could not rule out the possibility that unidentified factors other than sexual arousal and the image categories of our image stimuli affected the viewing time in the pay-per-view task because of the lack of experimental control for the components constituting each image, such as the presence of faces, the number of persons, and so on. More detailed analysis is needed for a deeper understanding of what triggers the sex differences in the motivation to view sexual images.

Politics of children in same-sex marriages are like in heterosexual families; on the rare occasion a difference exists, people with same-sex female parents are more progressive, those with same-sex male parents are more conservative

Flores AR, Morrison M (2021) Potential differences between the political attitudes of people with same-sex parents and people with different-sex parents: An exploratory assessment of first-year college students. PLoS ONE 16(2): e0246929; Feb 25 2021. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246929

Rolf Degen disagrees: I would already question the unspoken premise of the above study, which is that parents imprint their political orientation on their children

Abstract: Children were often near the center of public debates about legal marriage recognition for same-sex couples. Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the case that resulted in legal same-sex marriage recognition, stressed the importance of these children as one of many factors compelling the opinion. Estimates indicated same-sex couples were raising 200,000 children in the United States. Children raised by same-sex couples may be politically socialized in distinct ways compared to children of different-sex couples because lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals tend to hold distinct and progressive political viewpoints on a wide variety of issues. What are the political attitudes of people with same-sex parents? In this exploratory study, we analyze a large, representative survey of first-year college students across the United States; we find few differences between people with same-sex and different-sex parents, and some of those differences may be attributable to households and respondent characteristics. When on the rare occasion a difference exists, we find that people with same-sex female parents are more progressive, but people with same-sex male parents are more conservative. Gender differences also emerged, with some distinctive patterns between males with same-sex parents and females with same-sex parents.

Discussion

What are the political attitudes of people with SS parents, and do they differ from people with DS parents? Prior to matching, people with SS parents are more progressive, except for respondents with SS male parents, who are more conservative on gender equality in the workplace. Differences diminish after matching, suggesting background characteristics that distinguish people with SS parents from people with DS parents likely lead to those differences. We do not find that people with SS female or male parents are much different from people DS parents. Indeed, on some measures people with SS male parents are more conservative than similarly situated people with DS parents. This is contrary to what is expected, and it fails to support our hypothesis. Given the exploratory nature of our study, future work should see if our findings replicate in other samples.

There are potentially a few reasons why we do not find support for our expectations. First, there may be differences in the political attitudes of LGB persons who choose to become parents as compared to LGB people in general. For example, in the cumulative General Social Survey, LGB parents are more likely to be political independents than LGB people who are not parents (see S5 Appendix). Thus, LGB parents may not hold as distinctly progressive political attitudes as LGB people in general. This may be particularly important to explain the somewhat more conservative attitudes of people with SS male parents. Second, our sample is of entering college first-years, and this age cohort may be distinctively more progressive on politics [e.g., 52] such that the distinctiveness we would expect to find by having SS parents is muted by an overall more progressive sample. Third, the sample size of people with SS parents is small relative to people with DS parents. While there is a large sample in the HERI survey data, these null patterns may be due to a lack of analytical power. If this is the case, then pooling multiple years of the HERI data may reveal patterns that are significant and distinct.

Our findings further suggest that there are meaningful differences between SS female and SS male households. People with SS female parents have lower household incomes and are more racially and ethnically diverse than people with SS male parents. SS male couples face, on average, greater costs to become parents, and SS female couples are more likely to be raising biological children [2]. Thus, socialization may be different in SS female households and SS male households, and this may intersect with both race and class. This is further supported by the demographic differences we observed in the data, as people with SS female parents are more likely to self-identify as black and have lower household incomes. The overall effects of SS parentage are being primarily driven by both the type of SS couple and the gender of the respondent. Men with same-sex male parents are more conservative, but men with same-sex female parents are more progressive. As prior work indicates that there are differences in the political socialization of boys and girls [34], we find divergences between males and females with SS parents. That most of these differences are among males complements prior work that suggests boys have a more malleable orientation toward politics than girls [33]. Thus, both the gendered nature of politics and gendered differences in political socialization can explain the distinctive patterns we observe for men with SS parents.

There are limitations in our current exploration. The secondary analysis of survey data means that we lack the ability to control the questionnaire design. This means that we have only one indicator of SS parentage. Thus, we lack an opportunity to more fully understand the households and characteristics of the respondents. Our analysis would be more thorough if we had measures of length of time in a SS parent household, aspects of family formation (e.g., if children were biological from a previous heterosexual relationship, if children were born through surrogacy; or if children were adopted), and other aspects of family stability. Prior research suggests the family formation SS households are distinct from DS households [3], so these measures may identify distinct subgroups of individuals with SS parents where their political attitudes are distinct (e.g., people who have had a long tenure of having SS parents with no family disruptions versus people who only recently had SS parents). Future primary data collection efforts can move beyond the current study’s limitations by incorporating such measures to evaluate political attitudes with a fuller understanding of the family formation process. Even with its limitations, our study at least can incorporate some characteristics of parents, which enables us to make more direct comparisons with similarly situated people with DS parents. Large-N studies of political attitudes rarely incorporate such details [14], even though prior work suggests that such details are important to understanding identity and attitude formation [14,32].

Despite these limitations, we present novel data to explore the potential for the distinct political attitudes of people with SS parents. Parental socialization is occasionally a factor in the political orientations of people with SS parents, though in unanticipated ways.

An immigrant female chimpanzee copies an inefficient behaviour without clear function to mitigate risk of rejection in the new tribe

Zoo-housed female chimpanzee adopts local female-specific tradition upon immigrating into a new group. Zoë Goldsborough et al. Behaviour, Feb 25 2021. https://doi.org/10.1163/1568539X-bja10075

Abstract: Wild female chimpanzees typically migrate to a neighbouring community at the onset of sexual maturity, a process that can be dangerous and unpredictable. To mitigate the risk of rejection in the new community, immigrants may employ several behavioural strategies. During the integration of two chimpanzee females at Royal Burgers’ Zoo (Arnhem, The Netherlands) one of the immigrant females rapidly copied a local tradition — the crossed-arm walk — which has been present in the group for over 20 years. She copied the behaviour after meeting only one resident female, and showed the behaviour frequently throughout a 6-month observation period following the introduction. The other immigrant female never adopted the crossed-arm walk, highlighting the variation in behaviour by immigrants upon integration, as well as the potential associated consequences: in a separate observation period 2 years later, the female who copied the local tradition appeared more socially integrated than the other immigrant female.

Keywords: chimpanzees; social integration; social learning; behavioural copying; tradition

Check also Differences in nut-cracking efficiency between wild chimpanzee groups: Group belonging and conformity makes them to use inferior tools to be more prosocial

Costly culture: differences in nut-cracking efficiency between wild chimpanzee groups. Lydia V. Luncz et al. Animal Behaviour, Volume 137, March 2018, Pages 63-73. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/03/differences-in-nut-cracking-efficiency.html

4. Discussion

In this report, we describe how an immigrant female chimpanzee (Moni) copies an idiosyncratic group-specific behaviour soon after being introduced to a new group. Two days after first contact with a resident female (a crossed-arm walker), before meeting any other resident individuals, Moni engages in crossed-arm walking: an inefficient means of locomotion without clear function that is enacted by the majority of females in the new group. The immediacy of the acquisition of this behaviour by the immigrant, as well as the introduction context during which this behavioural copying occurred, both invite us to speculate that Moni may have enacted an integration strategy that facilitated social favourability (as suggested by Moni’s steep increase in social integration over time). Another immigrant female (Erika) who similarly encountered the crossed-arm walkers first and for similar durations during integration — yet never adopted the crossed-arm walk — did not exhibit marked improvements in social integration over time. These findings provide anecdotal evidence that behavioural copying might be an expression of social motivation which in conjunction may facilitate social acceptance in chimpanzees.

Anecdotal evidence should be treated with care (Sarringhaus et al., 2005; Sándor & Miklósi, 2020). Yet, it is noteworthy that the anecdote reported here does not stand on its own. There are at least two other reports showing that chimpanzees may copy behaviourally ineffective/functionless behaviour (Hobaiter & Byrne, 2010; van Leeuwen et al., 2014) and some indications that wild female chimpanzees may gradually (>1 year) adopt local conventions upon immigration (Luncz et al., 2012; Luncz & Boesch, 2014). Hence, it is conceivable that Moni strategically adopted the local convention. Moni’s behavioural copying upon immigration is further reminiscent of studies reporting conformity in migrating animals (Van de Waal et al., 2013; Luncz & Boesch, 2014; Aplin et al., 2015). Especially when individuals are uncertain of their predicament, for instance during migrations, the inclination to align oneself with the (new) majority can take precedence (van Bergen et al., 2004; Morgan et al., 2012; Smolla et al., 2016; Jones et al., 2018). It is noteworthy that chimpanzee introductions in captive settings are notoriously difficult, often resulting in protracted aggression and injuries (Brent et al., 1997). This may further incentivize immigrating individuals to gain social acceptance from the group. In this light, it is relevant to emphasize that Erika, the immigrant who did not copy the crossed-arm walk, was introduced to the new group together with her mother, Marlene. As such, Erika might have been less uncertain/insecure in her new environment compared to Moni, who was introduced alone and had been housed solitary for years prior to her arrival. By extending her behavioural repertoire with the local customary behaviour of crossed-arm walking, Moni might have alleviated her uncertainty by gaining social benefits as expressed by her expedited social integration. The possibility that Moni engaged in behavioural copying in order to increase social favourability is consistent with the fact that Moni selectively directed her grooming efforts towards the two most prolific crossed-arm walkers (Morami and Moniek). Interestingly, though, while crossed-arm walk is shown by the majority of the Burgers’ group, Moni first engaged in the behaviour after having met only one resident female. This suggests the workings of another yet related mechanism that could be sparked by uncertainty, namely copying the behaviour of the first individual one encounters (Galef & Whiskin, 2008; van Leeuwen et al., 2016).

Similarly, given that close affiliative relationships are thought to facilitate social learning (Bonnie & de Waal, 2006; Hobaiter et al., 2014; van Leeuwen et al., 2014; Lamon et al., 2017), it is also possible that Moni copied the crossed-arm walk from Morami given the nature of the social bonds between the females. According to the caretakers, Moni (but not Erika) and Morami responded very positively to one another when introduced, which is supported by the fact that they went from visual contact to sharing an enclosure within one day. However, as Moni engaged in the crossed-arm walk already two days after first meeting Morami, in our view, it is more plausible to infer that Moni proactively tried to establish connections by means of behavioural copying than the inverse alternative where Moni established close social bonds of which the behavioural copying was but an expression. This interpretation is corroborated by the observation that although Moni directed her grooming efforts selectively to Morami and Moniek, this directional social bonding behaviour was not selectively reciprocated. Interestingly, when an entire group of chimpanzees migrated to a resident group, the adoption of local behaviour by immigrant chimpanzees only occurred after affiliative social relationships had been formed (Watson et al., 2015). In conjunction, these findings suggest that chimpanzees may cope with immigration by converging toward locally adaptive information, but that the extent of experienced stress owing to uncertainty (higher when migrating alone — like Moni — than with familiar group members — like Erika and in the study by Watson and colleagues) moderates its immediacy.

To our knowledge, the crossed-arm walk is the first female-specific tradition in chimpanzees ever reported. While sex-specific preferences in play object choices have been found in juvenile chimpanzees (Kahlenberg & Wrangham, 2010), and sex differences in rates of social learning (Lonsdorf et al., 2004), there are no reports on sex-specific conventions in chimpanzees or primates in general. The crossed-arm walk tradition was presumably instigated by Morami, who was pregnant at the time. Given that the form of the crossed-arm walk (which closely resembles how a chimpanzee would carry an (deceased) infant), and the female-specific expression of the behaviour, it is tempting to speculate that maternal instincts could have played a role in the inception and spread of the behaviour. In this light, it is of interest to note that Erika is the only female in the group who has never had an infant.

The reported observations and inferences warrant differential scrutiny (Sándor & Miklósi, 2020). Moni’s adoption of the crossed-arm walk provides an objective account of chimpanzees’ capacity to copy behavioural sequences (Hobaiter & Byrne, 2010; van Leeuwen et al., 2014), yet proponents of the “zone of latent solutions” approach (Tennie et al., 2020) would challenge this notion by arguing that the crossed-arm walk was merely individually reinvented by Moni. In our view, however, the speed at which Moni adopted the crossed-arm walk, in conjunction with the idiosyncrasy of the crossed-arm walk posture/gait, defies — probabilistically — the reinvention hypothesis. The link between Moni’s crossed-arm walk adoption and her facilitated social integration compared to the immigrant who did not copy the crossed-arm walk (Erika) is impossible to prove based on the reported observations. There are myriad reasons why Moni might have become more socially integrated than Erika — for instance, a difference in personality, a difference in life histories (i.e., Moni was hand-raised while Erika was mother-reared), and the differences in introduction contexts. Events during the observation period could also have affected differences in integration, for instance, Moni experienced a stillbirth during Period 1 and received increased affiliation from certain group members afterwards (Goldsborough et al., 2020). Therefore, our anecdotal report could best be interpreted as (i) evidence that chimpanzees can (and are motivated to) alter their behaviour upon integration into a new group (likely owing to social influences), and (ii) a tentative pointer to the possibility that in non-human animals behavioural similarity may induce relative favourability, just like in humans (e.g., McPherson et al., 2001). Tracking behavioural responses of animals integrating into new groups may thus represent an interesting approach for examining animals’ phenotypic plasticity and exploring the evolutionary origins of behavioural copying and its ramifications for social acceptance.

I Want You to Want Me: A Qualitative Analysis of Heterosexual Men's Desire to Feel Desired in Intimate Relationships

I Want You to Want Me: A Qualitative Analysis of Heterosexual Men's Desire to Feel Desired in Intimate Relationships. Sarah Hunter Murray &Lori Brotto. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, Feb 24 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623X.2021.1888830

Abstract: Current sexual scripts for heterosexual relationships in the Western world stipulate that men should be the ones to initiate sexual activity, push to the next level of physical intimacy, and to desire women (and not be desirable themselves). However, there is building evidence that sexual scripts and gender roles are not only limited, they may be evolving and shifting over time. The purpose of the current study was to explore the degree to which feeling desired is considered important to heterosexual men in intimate relationships as well as how heterosexual men feel desired by their partners. Three hundred men between the ages of 18 and 65 were recruited from the online platform Reddit. Using Thematic Analysis, we determined that the vast majority of men in this study felt that feeling desired was very important to their sexual experiences. Men in this study listed several ways they felt desired, many that fell outside of traditional gender roles such as romantic, non-sexual touch and having women initiate sexual activity. The findings add to a growing body of literature which suggests traditional sexual scripts for heterosexual men may be limiting and not accurate for all men’s sexual experiences.

Daily stressors may serve as a proxy to engagement in social activities, where a lower level of engagement is related to better physical and emotional well-being but lower levels of cognitive functioning

Charles, S. T., Mogle, J., Chai, H. W., & Almeida, D. M. (2021). The mixed benefits of a stressor-free life. Emotion., Feb 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000958

Abstract: Research documents the pernicious effects of daily stressors on well-being, but often ignored in these studies are people reporting no stressors. The current study compared adults who reported no daily stressors with adults who reported at least one stressor across 8 consecutive days on measures of well-being. Of the 2,804 respondents (age range = 25–75 years, M = 53.46) from the Midlife in the United State Survey daily diary study, 10% reported experiencing no stressors across 8 days. Those reporting no stressors were generally older, male, unmarried, and were less likely to work, provide or receive emotional support, or experience positive daily events. They reported greater daily affective well-being and fewer chronic health conditions but had lower levels of cognitive functioning. Findings suggest that daily stressors may serve as a proxy to engagement in social activities, where a lower level of engagement is related to better physical and emotional well-being but lower levels of cognitive functioning.

Results indicate that although high self-control is associated with a wide range of socially desirable traits, choice of social partners does not depend or depends only to a small degree on the partner's high self-control

The Upsides and Downsides of High Self-Control: Evidence for Effects of Similarity and Situation Dependency. Lukas Röseler, Jacqueline Ebert, Astrid Schütz, Roy Baumeister. Europe's Journal of Psychology, Vol 17(1). Feb 26 2021. https://ejop.psychopen.eu/index.php/ejop/article/view/2639

Abstract: High trait self-control is generally depicted as favorable. We investigated whether this holds for social perception. Using vignettes, we tested whether a person with high self-control is 1) preferred as a partner for all or only certain social situations, 2) perceived as less likeable than a person with low self-control, 3) liked more if the person is female and the behavior thus fits the sex-stereotype, and 4) perceived differently from a person with low self-control with respect to a wide range of adjectives used to describe personality. Competing theories are presented for each area. Results indicate that although high self-control is associated with a wide range of socially desirable traits, choice of partners 1) depends on the type of situation in which the interaction will occur, 2) depends on the similarity between the respondent and the partner, 3) does not depend on a stereotype match, and 4) does not depend or depends only to a small degree on the partner's high self-control. The perception of individuals with high self-control is thus variable and situationally contingent, and more than a single theory is needed to explain it.

Discussion

A broad and high-powered vignette study provided detailed evidence for a wide range of effects of a person's self-control on social perception. Contrary to the view that high self-control is always better than low self-control (positivity hypothesis of self-control), we found that the type of person that is preferred 1) depends on the type of situation one is confronted with, 2) depends on similarity, and 3) does not depend on gender stereotypes. In terms of duty situations (e.g., getting advice for a decision), people with high self-control were the preferred partners, whereas in socializing situations (e.g., going for a walk, attending a party, having a nice conversation), people with low self-control were the preferred partners. Also contradicting the positivity hypothesis of self-control, we found that how much people liked people with low or high self-control depended on their own self-control. More specifically, people with high self-control preferred other people with high self-control, and people with low self-control preferred other people with low self-control, a trend that is consistent with similarity being a major factor for determining attraction in nonromantic contexts.

There was an apparent contradiction of the main effect of self-control: When the task was to choose a partner for socializing and duty situations, participants preferred partners with high self-control overall (high vignette self-control). However, when we asked for how much participants liked the vignettes and participants' self-control was controlled for, low vignette self-control received higher liking scores overall. Note that choosing somebody in a situation differs from liking somebody and that the overall mean effect across all 10 situations depended on these situations and could easily be different for other situations. For example, the duty situations might have been more diagnostic than the sociality situations, but at the same time, they might occur less often and thus weigh less.

Although there is evidence for stereotypical male behavior being less self-controlled than female behavior, and there are theoretical grounds for predicting that a stereotype match would be positively associated with how much a person likes another person, we found no such effect: Whether men or women were presented as high or low in self-control had no differential effect on liking.

We found that the similarity effect and the situation effect occurred simultaneously and independently and dominated the main effect of vignette self-control (positivity hypothesis) by far. That is, the choice of a partner depends on the situation that the partner is needed for (situation hypothesis), the resemblance between the partner and the person who is choosing the partner (complementarity hypothesis), but not or only to a very small degree on the self-control of the partner being high (positivity hypothesis). Future research should consider these aspects of social perception in relation to self-control. We did find an advantage of people with high self-control over people with low self-control when people look for partners in duty situations. Despite this corroboration of the positivity hypothesis, other factors such as similarity and the situation seem more important. This is surprising given that the definition of self-control includes aspects of social desirability. In other words, whether one likes somebody who is socially desirable (i.e., has high self-control) also depends on the perceiver's self-control. And whether one wants to work with somebody who is socially desirable depends on the situation. Ironically, in what we termed socializing situations (e.g., going on vacation together or partying), vignette characters with low self-control (i.e., a socially undesirable trait) were preferred over vignette characters with high self-control.

Finally, and more in line with the positivity hypothesis of self-control, an exploratory approach revealed that people with high self-control are associated with a wide range of other socially desirable traits, such as being assured, unassuming, and agreeable. Some of the results are seemingly contradictory: Although some factors theoretically correlate negatively (e.g., assured-dominant and gregarious-extraverted), differences between high and low self-controlled vignettes are not in the same direction with these factors. This could be due to patterns that are different in that population, possibly due to trans situational variability, than in a standard population. That is, people very high and low in self-control or the perceptions about these people could show other patterns of correlations between the dimensions that differ from those in a standard population.

Limitations

In our outline of the social perception of people with high self-control, we considered different kinds of situations, individual differences in the participants, sex stereotypes, and a wide range of traits. However, several factors merit further investigation.

First, we used vignettes only. Our setting was thus highly artificial, and the large effect sizes were probably due to the extreme manipulations. If actual people with less extreme differences were used, we would expect smaller effects.

Second, our study may have been affected by demand characteristics. It was evident that we were interested in perceptions that were based on the vignettes and on stereotypes. Even though people are not defenseless against demand characteristics (Hofmann, Gschwendner, Friese, Wiers, & Schmitt, 2008) judgments in everyday life may differ from findings in an experiment. The ratings of the vignettes might be subject to demand characteristics whereas spontaneous responses might not. Although tasks such as the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) have been criticized heavily (e.g., Schimmack, 2019), they allow for an assessment of such spontaneous reports (Hofmann, Gawronski, Gschwendner, Le, & Schmitt, 2005) and can thus be helpful to avoid the problem of demand characteristics.

Third, our sample and vignettes targeted 20- to 30-year-old German people. Academic and social goals may vary across the lifespan and cultures, moderate the importance of duty and socializing situations, and thus affect their weight in choosing interaction partners and evaluating others. Even what is socially desirable might depend on these factors. For example, an interesting approach could be the longitudinal perspective on romantic relationships with respect to self-control. At the beginning of a romantic relationship, partners might exercise much more self-control in order to convince their partner of sustaining the rather fragile relationship than after a few months or years.

Although we identified situation type, similarity, and self-control as three parallel effects, with the last one being the weakest in our study, we cannot generalize their significance to contexts outside the laboratory. Generalization to other cultures where different traits are considered socially desirable may not be possible either. Replications, especially in non-Western cultures, are needed. Due to the artificial setting and different manipulations and measures (i.e., manipulation of vignette self-control but no manipulation of respondent self-control), the effect sizes might be skewed.

Most think about themselves, remember about themselves, & feel about themselves in positive rather than in negative ways; when we think negatively about ourselves, we tend to minimize the negativity

Chapter Five - On the utility of the self in social perception: An Egocentric Tactician Model. Constantine Sedikides, Mark D. Alicke, John J. Skowronski. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 63, 2021, Pages 247-298, https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aesp.2020.11.005

Abstract: This chapter describes the Egocentric Tactician Model. The model purports to account for the influence of the self on social thought. Such thought refers to the social world and those who inhabit it (i.e., characterizing or construing another's actions, predicting others’ preferences or behaviors, evaluating what is normative or right). The model posits that the influence of the self on social thought is contingent on both the content of the self-concept and the motives that work to maintain or increase the positivity of the self-concept. Two primary motives are self-enhancement and self-protection. The model further asserts that during social thought these motives affect, and are affected by, various cognitive processes and structures. Different chapter sections demonstrate that the Egocentric Tactician Model is empirically grounded, has a broad explanatory scope, is generative, and differs from other models in describing how the self affects social thought.

Keywords: SelfSocial perceptionSelf-motivesSelf-enhancementSelf-protection

Humans differ from chimpanzees more because of delayed maturity and lower adult mortality than from differences in juvenile mortality or fertility

Davison RJ, Gurven MD (2021) Human uniqueness? Life history diversity among small-scale societies and chimpanzees. PLoS ONE 16(2): e0239170, Feb 22 2021. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239170

Abstract

Background: Humans life histories have been described as “slow”, patterned by slow growth, delayed maturity, and long life span. While it is known that human life history diverged from that of a recent common chimpanzee-human ancestor some ~4–8 mya, it is unclear how selection pressures led to these distinct traits. To provide insight, we compare wild chimpanzees and human subsistence societies in order to identify the age-specific vital rates that best explain fitness variation, selection pressures and species divergence.

Methods: We employ Life Table Response Experiments to quantify vital rate contributions to population growth rate differences. Although widespread in ecology, these methods have not been applied to human populations or to inform differences between humans and chimpanzees. We also estimate correlations between vital rate elasticities and life history traits to investigate differences in selection pressures and test several predictions based on life history theory.

Results: Chimpanzees’ earlier maturity and higher adult mortality drive species differences in population growth, whereas infant mortality and fertility variation explain differences between human populations. Human fitness is decoupled from longevity by postreproductive survival, while chimpanzees forfeit higher potential lifetime fertility due to adult mortality attrition. Infant survival is often lower among humans, but lost fitness is recouped via short birth spacing and high peak fertility, thereby reducing selection on infant survival. Lastly, longevity and delayed maturity reduce selection on child survival, but among humans, recruitment selection is unexpectedly highest in longer-lived populations, which are also faster-growing due to high fertility.

Conclusion: Humans differ from chimpanzees more because of delayed maturity and lower adult mortality than from differences in juvenile mortality or fertility. In both species, high child mortality reflects bet-hedging costs of quality/quantity tradeoffs borne by offspring, with high and variable child mortality likely regulating human population growth over evolutionary history. Positive correlations between survival and fertility among human subsistence populations leads to selection pressures in human subsistence societies that differ from those in modern populations undergoing demographic transition.

Grafting new functions (e.g., reading) onto older brain structures can improve even the skills (e.g., object recognition) for which the old infrastructure had originally evolved

Does Neuronal Recycling Result in Destructive Competition? The Influence of Learning to Read on the Recognition of Faces. Jeroen van Paridon et al. Psychological Science, February 25, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620971652

Abstract: Written language, a human cultural invention, is far too recent a development for dedicated neural infrastructure to have evolved in its service. Newly acquired cultural skills, such as reading, thus recycle evolutionarily older circuits that originally evolved for different, but similar, functions (e.g., visual object recognition). The destructive-competition hypothesis predicts that this neuronal recycling has detrimental behavioral effects on the cognitive functions for which a cortical network originally evolved. In a study with 97 literate, low-literate, and illiterate participants from the same socioeconomic background, we found that even after adjusting for cognitive ability and test-taking familiarity, learning to read was associated with an increase, rather than a decrease, in object-recognition abilities. These results are incompatible with the claim that neuronal recycling results in destructive competition and are consistent with the possibility that learning to read instead fine-tunes general object-recognition mechanisms, a hypothesis that needs further neuroscientific investigation.

Keywords: reading, face perception, literacy, neuroimaging, open data, open materials

Discussion

Our findings are incompatible with destructive competition and consistent with neuroimaging evidence (Hervais-Adelman et al., 2019) that learning to read may fine-tune object-recognition mechanisms, namely, that reading acquisition results in increased sensitivity to visual stimuli in addition to reading-related enhanced attentional and oculomotor capacities (Kastner et al., 2004; Skeide et al., 2017).

Importantly, the comparatively better object-recognition abilities of literates than illiterates appear to be directly related to reading acquisition. Such abilities are very unlikely to be a secondary effect of literacy, such as increased verbal working memory (Demoulin & Kolinsky, 2016; Smalle et al., 2019), general cognitive ability, or familiarity with test taking, because in the present study we regressed out common variance associated with these traits. To more directly assess causality, we recommend further investigation of the results from the present large-scale cross-sectional study with a longitudinal design (cf. Goswami, 2015; Huettig, Lachmann, et al., 2018). The positive relationship between reading ability and object-recognition memory in the present study casts serious doubts on the viability of the destructive-competition hypothesis. Whereas this hypothesis views the brain as a system with finite processing resources for which different functions are competing, the present findings raise the intriguing possibility that the brain, remarkably, is able to support new abilities in such a way that related older abilities can be enhanced rather than impaired. Further behavioral and neuroscientific research could explore this possibility in more detail, for instance, examining whether literates’ better object-recognition abilities are related to shared (neural) processing between face and word reading, as both skills require sophisticated foveal processing.

From 2016... This paper argues that panhuman cognitive tendencies explain, in part, the spread and recurrence of ideas about what provides evidence of reincarnation

The Cognitive Foundations of Reincarnation. Claire White. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Volume 28, Issue 3, Pages: 264–286. Aug 4 2016. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341381

Abstract: Anthropological records and psychological studies demonstrate the recurrence of ideas about how to determine the identity of reincarnated persons. These ideas are often incoherent with corresponding theological dogma about the process of reincarnation. Specifically, even though reincarnation is represented as a process of change, people often seek out and interpret particular similarities between the deceased and reincarnated agent as evidence that the two are one and the same person. This paper argues that panhuman cognitive tendencies explain, in part, the spread and recurrence of ideas about what provides evidence of reincarnation: specifically, representations of reincarnated agents are informed and constrained by everyday cognitive intuitions that govern representations of continued identity for intentional agents generally. The paper concludes that these constraints go some way towards explaining the recurrent features of reincarnation concepts and behaviors cross-culturally. 

Keywords: Reincarnation; Personal identity; Cognitive science of religion; Theological incorrectness.

III. General Discussion

This paper is underpinned by the following key question: why do people across the world judge particular types of physical and psychological similarities between the deceased and reincarnated agents as evidence of continued identity? This observation is especially perplexing because the continuity of these features explicitly contradicts the concept of reincarnation as entailing a bodily (and often psychological) change. The findings presented here, from trends observed in the anthropological record – including a quantifiable analysis of the existing reports in North America, a series of controlled studies with U.S. and Jain participants with different beliefs about the afterlife and a survey with western participants who believe they have lived before, suggests a role for the mundane processes of social cognition in explaining the cross-culturally recurrent features of reincarnation beliefs and associated practices. Namely, that despite representing reincarnation as a process of physical change and, in some instances, also subscribing to a view of the self in a process of constant psychological change, people everywhere represent reincarnated agents as retaining distinctive physical features and assuming an underlying psychological stability through the retention of episodic autobiographical memory. These processes are governed by intuitive expectations for agents everywhere, and in the face of explicit doctrine they do not simply “shut off”, but rather, facilitate and constrain so-called “religious” practices in predictable ways. In line with other research in the cognitive science of religion, there are thus cognitive, or natural, foundations to religious concepts. To be clear, the argument advanced here is not that such cognitive processes, in isolation, explain the recurrence of the use of these signs in reincarnation without reference to the sociohistorical processes that also give rise to, and facilitate them. Rather, the claim is that accounting for these representational biases contributes towards a better understanding, and ultimately, explanation, of the transmissive success of reincarnation concepts. Thus, acknowledging the role of the human mind can strengthen existing explanations of reincarnation that hinge upon other psychological or social processes. Take, for instance, the explanation of such practices in the anthropological record previously discussed, that they serve a purpose for the bereaved to have their deceased kin reincarnate to their clan or lineage (Obeyesekere 2002). It may be the case that, for example, these low-level cognitive constraints for human agents previously outlined (i.e., representational content biases), when combined with the strong motivation to identify kin, spread rapidly, especially when such ideas are reinforced by leading religious authorities or they have important consequences for the organization of society (e.g., see Gervais et al. 2011; Nichols 2004). Future programs of research should consider how cognition interacts with culture to produce the similarity, and differences, of reincarnation concepts and associated behaviors cross-culturally. The current research project has taken the first step towards identifying what some of the basic cognitive features in this ultimate explanatory story would be. 

The evidence from human intervention studies supports the use of low-calorie sweeteners in weight management

The effects of low-calorie sweeteners on energy intake and body weight: a systematic review and meta-analyses of sustained intervention studies. Peter J. Rogers & Katherine M. Appleton. International Journal of Obesity volume 45, pages464–478, Nov 9 2020. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-020-00704-2

Abstract: Previous meta-analyses of intervention studies have come to different conclusions about effects of consumption of low-calorie sweeteners (LCS) on body weight. The present review included 60 articles reporting 88 parallel-groups and cross-over studies ≥1 week in duration that reported either body weight (BW), BMI and/or energy intake (EI) outcomes. Studies were analysed according to whether they compared (1) LCS with sugar, (2) LCS with water or nothing, or (3) LCS capsules with placebo capsules. Results showed an effect in favour of LCS vs sugar for BW (29 parallel-groups studies, 2267 participants: BW change, −1.06 kg, 95% CI −1.50 to −0.62, I2 = 51%), BMI and EI. Effect on BW change increased with ‘dose’ of sugar replaced by LCS, whereas there were no differences in study outcome as a function of duration of the intervention or participant blinding. Overall, results showed no difference in effects of LCS vs water/nothing for BW (11 parallel-groups studies, 1068 participants: BW change, 0.10 kg, 95% CI −0.87 to 1.07, I2 = 82%), BMI and EI; and inconsistent effects for LCS consumed in capsules (BW change: −0.28 kg, 95% CI −0.80 to 0.25, I2 = 0%; BMI change: 0.20 kg/m2, 95% CI 0.04 to 0.36, I2 = 0%). Occurrence of adverse events was not affected by the consumption of LCS. The studies available did not permit robust analysis of effects by LCS type. In summary, outcomes were not clearly affected when the treatments differed in sweetness, nor when LCS were consumed in capsules without tasting; however, when treatments differed in energy value (LCS vs sugar), there were consistent effects in favour of LCS. The evidence from human intervention studies supports the use of LCS in weight management, constrained primarily by the amount of added sugar that LCS can displace in the diet.

Unattractive (vs. attractive) individuals were judged to be more likely to engage in purity violations compared to harm violations; the observed effect was driven by the upper half of the attractiveness spectrum

Klebl, Christoph. 2021. “Physical Attractiveness Biases Judgments Pertaining to the Moral Domain of Purity.” PsyArXiv. February 26. doi:10.31234/osf.io/3bnge

Abstract: Research on the Beauty-is-Good stereotype shows that unattractive people are perceived to have worse moral character than attractive individuals. Yet research has not explored what kinds of moral character judgments are particularly biased by attractiveness. In this work, we tested whether attractiveness particularly biases moral character judgments pertaining to the moral domain of purity, beyond a more general halo effect. Two pre-registered studies found that unattractive (vs. attractive) individuals were judged to be more likely to engage in purity violations compared to harm violations and that this was not due to differences in perceived wrongness of the violations (Studies 1 and 3). We also found that the observed effect was driven by the upper half of the attractiveness spectrum (Studies 2 and 3). The findings shed light on how physical attractiveness influences moral character attributions, suggesting that physical attractiveness particularly biases character judgments pertaining to the moral domain of purity.