U.S. Adults’ Attitudes toward Gay Individuals’ Civil Liberties, Moral Judgments of Homosexuality, Support for Same-sex Marriage, and Pornography Consumption

U.S. Adults’ Attitudes toward Gay Individuals’ Civil Liberties, Moral Judgments of Homosexuality, Support for Same-sex Marriage, and Pornography Consumption, Revisited. Paul J. Wright &Robert S. Tokunaga. The Journal of Sex Research, Nov 17 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2021.1999893

Abstract: Approximately a decade ago, Wright and colleagues published three studies probing the nature of the relationship between heterosexual U.S. adults’ attitudes toward homosexuality and pornography consumption. Adopting an “effects” perspective (while acknowledging the nonexperimental nature of their data), they reasoned that pornography use could either lead to more antagonistic attitudes (by consumers viewing homosexuality through pornography’s lens of traditional masculinity) or accepting attitudes (by consumers viewing homosexuality through pornography’s lens of sexual liberalism). Results of all three studies aligned with the latter explanation. The present study evaluated whether the findings from these studies were replicable in the current U.S. sociocultural climate. No evidence of attitudinal reversal was found. Pornography use still directly predicted moral acceptance of homosexuality and support for same-sex marriage and indirectly predicted these outcomes via a more nontraditional attitude toward sex. Pornography use was neither directly nor indirectly related to attitudes toward civil liberties for gay persons in the more recent data, however. Additionally, contrary to the earlier findings, associations were unmoderated by education, sex, and ethnicity. Possible reasons for these discrepant results are discussed and the limitations to causal inference posed by correlational data are emphasized.

Twitter users high in Agreeableness and Extraversion tended to have more followers, while those high in Neuroticism had less

“Are we tweeting our real selves?” Personality prediction of Indian Twitter users using deep learning ensemble model. Rhea Mahajan et al. Computers in Human Behavior, November 17 2021, 107101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.107101

Highlights

• Twitter data can provide predictive indicators of user behavior.

• We hypothesized personality of an individual is highly correlated with their online behavior.

• The study aims to predict the personality of Indian Twitter users.

• Deep learning ensemble model has been employed for the study.

• It is observed that nature of online interactions does not differ from real-world interactions.

Abstract: Social Networking Sites have significant potential to reveal valuable explicit as well as implicit statistics and patterns when deep learning is applied to their raw and unstructured data. Tweets posted by the users on their timeline not only reflect their mindset, their likes and dislikes but could also be used to unveil significant amount of information about many psychological aspects and behavior that may be hard to study directly. This paper aims to predict the personality of the 100 real-time Twitter users conforming to personality traits in the BIG 5 model by extracting features from their tweets using ensemble of CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) and BiLSTM (Bidirectional Long Short Memory). The finding of our experiment shows that our model performs slightly better than previous baselines methods achieving an accuracy 75.134% on testing data. We have further hypothesized that unrestricted data available on Twitter may contain features that can be used to predict the personality of its user. It was concluded that personality of Twitter users in the real world is reflected in their online behaviour, reinforcing the premise that the nature of online interactions does not significantly differ from that of real-world interactions. Overall, the study provides a deep insight into the impact of social media data in providing predictive indicators of user behavior.

Keywords: Social networking sitesTwitterDeep learningBiLSTMPersonality

People are more likely to believe things that are easier to process; foreign-accented speech is relatively difficult to process & people believe information less when it is delivered in a foreign accent rather than a native accent

Exposing Individuals to Foreign Accent Increases their Trust in What Nonnative Speakers Say. Katarzyna Boduch-Grabka, Shiri Lev-Ari. Cognitive Science 45 (2021) e13064, Nov 2021. DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13064

Abstract: People are more likely to believe things that are easier to process. Foreign-accented speech is relatively difficult to process, and prior research shows that, correspondingly, people believe information less when it is delivered in a foreign accent rather than a native accent. Here we show that a short exposure to foreign accent can reduce this bias, and that the reduction in bias is due to improvement in the processing of the accent. These results demonstrate how cognitive aspects of language processing can influence attitudes. The results also suggest that ensuring exposure to foreign accent can reduce discrimination against nonnative speakers.

Keywords: Accent; Fluency; Credibility; Communication

1.2. Processing fluency and accent

As described above, there is ample evidence that stimuli that are easier to process are perceived more favorably. This finding could have grave implications for interactions between native and non-native speakers. Languages differ in their sound inventories. This can lead non-native speakers to find it difficult to produce certain sounds in their second language because these sounds do not exist in their first language, or because the sounds are not contrastive in their first language. For example, Japanese speakers often produce English ‘l’ in a nonstandard manner that can be confused with ‘r’ because Japanese does not distinguish between these sounds (Bradlow, Pisoni, Akahane-Yamada, & Tohkura, 1997). Nonnative speakers might also use nonstandard stress or prosodic patterns because these differ from those in their native language (e.g., Magen, 1998). These deviations from standard production render foreign-accented speech harder to process even when it is fully understood (e.g., Munro & Derwing, 1995). The greater difficulty of processing foreign-accented speech could lead individuals to treat it less favorably. Indeed, when Lev-Ari and Keysar (2010) presented participants with trivia statements recorded by native versus foreign-accented speakers of a variety of foreign accents (e.g., Korean, Italian, Turkish), participants judged the statements as more likely to be true when they were produced by native speakers. This effect was obtained even though it was highlighted to participants that speakers were merely reading aloud sentences provided by the experimenter, without knowing whether these were true or not. In other words, all speakers were merely messengers without any control over the content of their speech, thus reducing the relevance of any prejudice as it is not the speaker’s honesty and knowledge that are evaluated. The lower belief in foreign-accented statement was hypothesized to be due to the greater difficulty in processing them.

In a follow up study, Lev-Ari and Keysar (2010) tested whether raising participants’ awareness to the source of their difficulty reduces the tendency to believe nonnative speakers less. Their prediction rested on literature that shows that raising individuals’ awareness to the source of an affective experience can prevent individuals from misattributing the affective experience to other sources (Schwarz & Clore, 1983). To test whether raising awareness to the source of the difficulty would eliminate its misattribution to lower credibility, Lev-Ari and Keysar (2010, exp. 2) asked participants to rate the relative ease of understanding each of the speakers, in addition to rating the veracity of the statements. This manipulation succeeded in reducing the bias against mildly accented speakers, but not against heavily accented speakers. It seems, then, that participants corrected for the difficulty of processing, but not sufficiently so for the heavily accented speakers. The reduction of the bias against mildly accented speakers once awareness to the difficulty was raised also provides some support for the hypothesis that the lower belief in foreign-accented speech is at least partly due to misattribution of the lower processing fluency. Since the publication of those studies, several studies examined whether people believe information delivered by nonnative speakers less. Several of these found supportive evidence. One of these studies demonstrated that it is not only native speakers, but also nonnative speakers, who believe information more when it is provided in a native rather than a foreign accent (Hanzlíková & Skarnitzl, 2017). Other studies examined people’s ability to detect when native and nonnative speakers tell the truth and when they lie. All these studies found that people have a truth-bias when evaluating native speakers, that is, they are more likely to assume that the speakers are telling the truth than lying (Castillo, Tyson, & Mallard, 2014; Elliott & Leach, 2016; Evans & Michael, 2014; De Silva & Leach, 2013; Leach & De Silva, 2013). In contrast, participants never have a truth bias when evaluating nonnative speakers, and they sometimes have a lie bias, that is, they are more likely to assume that the speakers are lying rather than telling the truth (Castillo et al., 2014; De Silva et al., 2013; Evans & Michael, 2014). These latter studies, however, were not concerned with processing fluency, and their results might be driven by prejudice. In contrast, a couple of studies failed to find an effect of foreign accent on truth judgment (Souza & Markman, 2013; Stocker, 2017; Wetzel et al., 2021). While the conflicting results might be due to methodological differences (e.g., use of a highly familiar foreign accent without testing whether it is harder to process, use of a single speaker per condition), the inconsistent results of the follow up studies suggest it is important to try to replicate the results of Lev-Ari and Keysar (2010).

Furthermore, while past research suggests that people believe information less when it is delivered in a foreign accent, there is no direct evidence to indicate that this difference is due to lower processing fluency. Confirming the underlying mechanism is important for both theoretical and applied reasons. First, it will help us understand how the experience of language processing can influence decision making. Understanding the source of bias can also enable us to understand where else it might surface and how to counteract it. The main goal of this study is therefore to test the underlying mechanism that leads listeners to believe information delivered in a foreign accent less. The manner by which the study tests it, using an intervention paradigm, also proposes one approach that could be taken to reduce the bias against nonnative speakers.

One way to further test whether the tendency to believe information less when it is delivered in foreign-accented speech is at least partly due to processing fluency is to test whether facilitating the processing of foreign accent can reduce the bias. It is well established that the difficulty of processing foreign-accented speech is reduced with more exposure to the accent (Clarke & Garrett, 2004). Furthermore, the benefit of exposure can generalize to new speakers, especially if individuals are exposed to multiple speakers (Bradlow & Bent, 2008). The benefit is due to the fact that individuals speak with a foreign accent because the sounds of their native language differ from those of their second language. For example, the “th” sound in “think” does not exist in German. Therefore, many German speakers produce “s” instead (e.g., Hanulíková & Weber, 2012). Exposure to several German speakers who substitute “s” for “th” allows the listener to adapt to the accent and correctly interpret words with this nonnormative pronunciation of “th” also when encountering unfamiliar German speakers. Furthermore, German is not the only language to not have the sound “th.” Therefore, exposure to foreign-accented speakers who produce “th” in a nonnormative way could also help the listener to later understand speakers of other languages, such as Hebrew, who also does not have this sound and produce it in a similar nonnormative way. Indeed, it has been found that exposure to several foreign accents can alleviate processing of other foreign accents (Baese-Berk, Bradlow, & Wright, 2013). If at least one of the reasons that listeners distrust information delivered in a foreign accent is because it is harder to process it, and if exposure to foreign accent facilitates its processing, it might be possible to reduce individuals’ bias against foreign-accented speech by exposing them to foreign accent. This is the goal of the current study.

It should be noted that one prior study attempted to examine a highly related question, whether familiarity can moderate the effect of foreignness on credibility by facilitating processing (Wetzel et al., 2021). It did so by comparing familiar native accent, unfamiliar native accent, familiar foreign accent, and unfamiliar foreign accent. That study did not find an effect of either foreignness or familiarity. Unfortunately, because that study only utilized one speaker for each accent condition, it is hard to draw conclusions from it. There are many idiosyncratic features that influence how credible one sounds (e.g., pitch, speech rate). These need to be controlled, either by using the same speaker for all conditions (difficult when testing accents), or by using several speakers per accent to reduce the effect of idiosyncratic differences. As the study used one speaker per accent, it is impossible to know whether the speakers of the different accent did not differ on other features that cue trustworthiness. Second, group effects are not present in a comparison of every two individuals from the two groups. For example, men are taller than women, but when selecting at random only one man and one woman, the height difference might not be present or reversed. In other words, even if speakers of an unfamiliar foreign accent are harder on average to understand than speakers of a familiar foreign accent, not all speakers of an unfamiliar foreign accent would be harder to understand than all speakers of a familiar f.oreign accent, and similarly, not all of them would be rated as less truthful. Furthermore, as the authors themselves acknowledged, it was not even clear whether the unfamiliar foreign accent in the study (Finnish accent) was any harder to process than the familiar foreign accent (German accent), as the two accents are quite similar. Therefore, we do not know at the moment whether the tendency to believe foreign-accented speech less can be attenuated by exposure

From 2020... Italy North-South gap: We show that the roots of the literacy gap that existed in 1861 can be traced back to Napoleonic educational reforms enacted between 1801 and 1814

Institutions and literacy rates: the legacy of Napoleonic reforms in Italy. M Postigliola, M Rota. European Review of Economic History, Volume 25, Issue 4, November 2021, Pages 757–779, https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heaa021

Abstract: The provincial gap in human capital at the time of Italy’s unification is a plausible explanation for the North–South divide of the following decades. We show that the roots of the literacy gap that existed in 1861 can be traced back to Napoleonic educational reforms enacted between 1801 and 1814. We use exogenous variation in provincial distance to Paris to quantify effects, linking the duration of Napoleonic control to human capital. If the south had experienced the same Napoleonic impact as the north, southern literacy rates would have been up to 70 percent higher than they were in 1861

Thinking of a trigger warning does not prompt preparation for trauma-related content

Unprepared: Thinking of a trigger warning does not prompt preparation for trauma-related content. Victoria M.E. Bridgland, Jorja F. Barnard, Melanie K.T. Takarangi. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, November 17 2021, 101708. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2021.101708

Highlights

• Participants recalled their most stressful/traumatic experience.

• Participants imagined a trigger warning or content related to this experience.

• Similar levels/types of coping strategies were reported in both conditions.

• Participants in the warning condition used fewer positive emotion words.

Abstract

Background and objectives: Trigger warnings have been described as helpful—enabling people to “emotionally prepare” for upcoming trauma-related material via “coping strategies.” However, no research has asked people what they think they would do when they come across a warning—an essential first step in providing evidence that trigger warnings are helpful.

Methods: Here, participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (n=260) completed one of two future thinking scenarios; we asked half to think about coming across a warning related to their most stressful/traumatic experience; the others thought about the actual content (but no warning) related to their most stressful/traumatic experience.

Results: The warning condition did not produce differences in coping strategies, state anxiety, or phenomenology (e.g., vividness, valence) relative to the content condition. Only one key difference emerged: participants who imagined encountering a warning used fewer positive words, when describing how they would react.

Limitations: Although measuring actual behavior was not our aim, hypothetically simulating the future may not capture what actual future behavior would look like (e.g., an intention-behaviour gap).

Conclusions: One potential explanation for the consistent finding in the literature that trigger warnings fail to ameliorate negative emotional reactions is that these warnings may not help people bring coping strategies to mind. Although, further empirical work is necessary to fully substantiate this potential interpretation.

Keywords: trigger WarningsContent warningsCoping strategiesTrauma

Zero-sum beliefs tend to be asymmetrical (the others gain at one’s own expense, but not vice versa), moderated by how threatened people feel by others’ success; reassuring people about their party’s strengths eliminates asymmetric zero-sum beliefs

Roberts, R., & Davidai, S. (2021). The psychology of asymmetric zero-sum beliefs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Nov 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000378

Zero-sum beliefs reflect the perception that one party’s gains are necessarily offset by another party’s losses. Although zero-sum relationships are, from a strictly theoretical perspective, symmetrical, we find evidence for asymmetrical zero-sum beliefs: The belief that others gain at one’s own expense, but not vice versa. Across various contexts (international relations, interpersonal negotiations, political partisanship, organizational hierarchies) and research designs (within- and between-participant), we find that people are more prone to believe that others’ success comes at their own expense than they are to believe that their own success comes at others’ expense. Moreover, we find that people exhibit asymmetric zero-sum beliefs only when thinking about how their own party relates to other parties but not when thinking about how other parties relate to each other. Finally, we find that this effect is moderated by how threatened people feel by others’ success and that reassuring people about their party’s strengths eliminates asymmetric zero-sum beliefs. We discuss the theoretical contributions of our findings to research on interpersonal and intergroup zero-sum beliefs and their implications for understanding when and why people view life as zero-sum. 

Check also Johnson, Samuel G. B., Jiewen Zhang, and Frank Keil. 2020. “Win–win Denial: The Psychological Underpinnings of Zero-sum Thinking.” PsyArXiv. April 30. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/04/winwin-denial-psychological.html

And The politics of zero-sum thinking: The relationship between political ideology and the belief that life is a zero-sum game. Shai Davidai, Martino Ongis. Science Advances Dec 18 2019, Vol. 5, no. 12, eaay3761. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/12/liberals-exhibit-zero-sum-thinking-when.html

Tell Ekman! What are commonly known as the six classic basic emotions do not reliably co-occur with their predicted facial signal

Durán, J. I., & Fernández-Dols, J.-M. (2021). Do emotions result in their predicted facial expressions? A meta-analysis of studies on the co-occurrence of expression and emotion. Emotion, Nov 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001015

Abstract: That basic emotions produce a facial signal would—if true—provide a foundation for a science of emotion. Here, random-effects meta-analyses tested whether happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, and surprise each co-occurs with its predicted facial signal. The first meta-analysis examined only those studies that measured full expressions through Facial Actions Coding System (FACS). Average co-occurrence effect size was .13. The second meta-analysis included both full and partial expressions, as measured by FACS or another system. Average co-occurrence effect size rose to .23. A third meta-analysis estimated the Pearson correlation between intensity of the reported emotion and intensity of the predicted facial expression. Average correlation was .30. Overall, co-occurrence and correlation were greatest for disgust, least for surprise. What are commonly known as the six classic basic emotions do not reliably co-occur with their predicted facial signal. Heterogeneity between samples was found, suggesting a more complex account of facial expressions.

Check also Research on Non-verbal Signs of Lies and Deceit: A Blind Alley. Tim Brennen and Svein Magnussen. Front. Psychol., December 14 2020. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/12/on-popular-paul-ekman-hypothesis-of.html

We also report men who believe that they are more successful at mating gaze more at male chests than less confident men & that women do gaze at sexualized body areas of men, specifically the hips and groin

Widman, D. R., Bennetti, M. K., & Anglemyer, R. (2021). Gaze patterns of sexually fluid women and men at nude females and males. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 15(4), 315–325. Nov 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000183

Abstract: Investigations of sexual fluidity have consistently found that women are more fluid than men. Several theories have been proposed to explain this sex difference. Two of these suggest that women are sexually fluid due to reproductive pressure from men. These theories suggest that women are fluid, in part, to satisfy male sexual behavior, either by engaging in and enhancing polygynous matings or allowing extrapair copulations for the men with those women the men’s mates select. This suggests that women, in their assessment of the attractiveness of other women, should assess female attractiveness as men do. The current study examined gaze patterns of heterosexual men and women while looking at nude male and female models. The results replicate the common findings that women are more fluid than men and that men gaze at the breasts of nude female models. We also report men who believe that they are more successful at mating gaze more at male chests than less confident men and that women do gaze at sexualized body areas of men, specifically the hips and groin. Finally, as hypothesized, more fluid women spend more time gazing at the breasts of nude female models, suggesting a male pattern of attractiveness assessment. 

Check also Widman, D. R., Bennetti, M. K., & Anglemyer, R. (2019). Gaze patterns of sexually fluid women and men at nude females and males. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, Sep 02 2019, https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/09/gaze-patterns-of-sexually-fluid-women.html

Sexual Growth Mindsets and Rejection Sensitivity in Sexual Satisfaction: Men reported higher sexual rejection sensitivity than women

Sexual Growth Mindsets and Rejection Sensitivity in Sexual Satisfaction. Rachel A. Cultice, Diana T. Sanchez, Analia F. Albuja. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, November 11, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075211054390

Abstract: Research suggests that having a sexual growth mindset (SGM), or believing that a person can become a better sexual partner over time, may improve sexual relationships. The present research investigated the impact of SGMs on a new sexual outcome: sexual rejection sensitivity. In Study 1, adults in romantic relationships completed measures of SGM and sexual rejection sensitivity from their own and from their partner’s perspective (N = 377; 49.9% women; Mage = 29.1 years, SDage = 12.2 years). Findings show that perceived partner, but not own, SGM is associated with lower sexual rejection sensitivity, and sexual rejection sensitivity mediated the link between perceived partner SGM and own sexual satisfaction. In Study 2, we replaced perceived partner SGM with actual partner SGM by recruiting both members of 104 different-sex romantic couples (Mage = 43.9 years, SDage = 14.5 years). Study 2 finds that partner, but not own, SGM was negatively associated with sexual rejection sensitivity. Further, sexual rejection sensitivity was negatively associated with sexual satisfaction in Study 1 and for women in Study 2. This work demonstrates the importance of sexual partners’ implicit beliefs about sexuality (perceived or reported) in understanding sexual outcomes.

Keywords: sexuality, romantic relationships, growth mindset, rejection sensitivity

Adults had positive reactions after talking to the emotionally responsive Replika chatbot, a chatbot, face to face with a human, or with a human online, & had fewest conversational concerns with a chatbot vs. FTF/online with a human

Is chatting with a sophisticated chatbot as good as chatting online or FTF with a stranger? Michelle Drouin et al. Computers in Human Behavior, November 16 2021, 107100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.107100

Highlights

• Adults had positive reactions after talking to the emotionally responsive Replika chatbot.

• Adults had similar positive emotions after chatting with a chatbot, FTF with a human, or with a human online.

• Strangers liked partners most when chatting FTF with a human vs. human online or with a chatbot.

• Strangers had fewest conversational concerns when speaking with a chatbot vs. FTF or online with a human.

Abstract: Emotionally-responsive chatbots are marketed as agents with which one can form emotional connections. They can also become weak ties in the outer layers of one's acquaintance network and available for social support. In this experiment, which was designed to study the acquaintance process, we randomly assigned 417 participants into three conditions: face-to-face (FTF) chat with a human, online chat with a human, and online chat with a commercially-available, emotionally-responsive chatbot, Replika. After a 20-min getting-acquainted chat, participants reported their affective state and relational evaluations of the chat. Additionally, all chats were recorded and text analyzed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program. In all conditions, participants reported moderate levels of positive emotions and low levels of negative emotions. Those who chatted FTF with a human reported significantly more negative emotions than those who chatted with a bot. However, those who chatted with a human also reported more homophily with and liking of their chat partner and that their partner was more responsive. Meanwhile, participants had fewest conversational concerns with the chatbot. These findings have implications for future computer-mediated interaction studies: conversations with chatbots appear to have different affordances and effects on chatter enjoyment and conversational concerns in getting-acquainted contexts. These results may help designers improve reception and marketability for chatbots in consumer markets.

Keywords: ChatbotsDyadic interactionsAffectComputer-mediated communicationConversational dynamicsHuman-computer interaction

The penis, more than the vulva, the male face, more than the female face, and in general the male sexual characteristics more than the female ones, are significantly more salient in the gender attribution process

Sex/Gender Attribution: When the Penis Makes the Difference. Stefano Federici, Alessandro Lepri & Eleonora D’Urzo. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Nov 15 2021. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-021-02152-z

Abstract: The present study aimed to replicate Kessler and McKenna’s (1978) ethnomethodological study that investigated how an individual attributes gender to a person. By administering figures depicted on overlays (Overlay Study), Kessler and McKenna found that the penis more than the vulva and the male sexual characteristics more than the female ones were significantly more salient in the gender attribution process. From all this, their adage is: “See someone as female only when you cannot see them as male.” Taking as a model Kessler and McKenna’s Overlay Study, we administered to 592 adults 120 new digital stimuli elaborated on realistic frontal images of human nudes to verify if the previously obtained results would be confirmed by using more realistic images. We found that the participants attributed male gender 86% of the time when the penis was shown, but only attributed female gender 67% of the time when the vulva was shown. All findings had strong statistical significance, confirming the findings of the Overlay Study that the penis makes the difference in gender recognition. Beyond an ethnomethodological approach, we have interpreted and discussed our results from the outlook of evolutionary and cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, concluding that the cultural stereotypes and prejudices that affect gender attribution might not just be a mere cultural product, but rather the consequence of evolved cognitive biases.

Discussion

We aimed to replicate Kessler and McKenna’s (1978) Overlay Study, which administered stylized drawings of the human body, by using realistic images taken from pictures of human models. We expected to find confirmation that primary sexual characteristics (genitals) would determine gender attribution (male/female) more than secondary/gender-linked sexual characteristics, and that male sexual characteristics would determine gender attribution more than female sexual characteristics, with a significantly stronger effect of the penis compared to the vulva, ceteris paribus. The results have disconfirmed the null hypothesis and substantially reconfirmed the results obtained in the previous Overlay Study. When the penis was shown in a picture, the participants attributed male gender 86% of the times when the penis was shown, but only 67% attributed female gender when the vulva was shown. In other words, female attribution when the vulva appeared in a human picture was about 1:200 (female/male) compared with male attribution when the human body showed a penis. Furthermore, the participants attributed male gender to neutral stimuli (3 male and 3 female variables) five times more often when the penis was displayed than when the vulva was shown. All findings had a strong statistical significance, leading us to substantiate the Kessler and McKenna’s (1978) adage, “See someone as female only when you cannot see them as male” (p. 158). Female gender attribution appears to be triggered only when every other male cue has been excluded. In other words, gender cues are neither equally powerful nor salient. Therefore, all other things being constant, a female cue is recognized as such only in the absence of male cues. Whereas a male gender cue most likely equals male, a female cue equals female with much less probability. In this sense, we have defined above the Freudian and ethnomethodological attribution of female gender as an apophatic process.

Unlike Kessler and McKenna’s ethnomethodological approach, which they used to explain the gender attribution as a purely cultural construction, we also use the interpretative model of evolutionary psychology, which has spread after the Overlay Study, mainly by Cosmides and Tooby (Cosmides, 1989; Cosmides & Tooby, 1992; Tooby & Cosmides, 1992). Evolutionary psychology overcomes any dichotomy between nature and nurture or biological and cultural. Psychological/cognitive mechanisms/processes and cultural products co-evolve, so that environment forms; environment is necessary for the emergence and activation of each mechanism/process. Therefore, given that behavior requires evolved psychological mechanisms combined with environmental input in a causal chain, beyond the ethnomethodological interpretive model that makes use of the cultural construction of gender (patriarchal and phallocentric), we provide an explanation of our findings from an evolutionary psychology approach as cognitive adaptations that guide human behavior to adapt to the environment.

Seen from a less dichotomous and more dialogic and circular approach to interrelations between nature and culture, gender attribution is neither just pre-programmed nor simply derived from the social environment. The fact that, in a phallocentric culture, a penis makes somebody a male and not a female, as Freud’s psychological theory of human development also taught, does not negate the fact that these evolved cognitive adaptations were guided by an adapted mind (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992). There is no doubt that, in patriarchal cultures, the female role is derived from the space left free by the male role, though still under patriarchal control. So we can read biological cues as cultural: “the only sign of femaleness is an absence of male cues” (Kessler & McKenna, 1978, p. 152). However, this does not contradict that what culture has expressed, strengthened, sedimented, socially stratified, and handed down through cultural products and memes may have evolved from cognitive processes that have guaranteed human survival (Barkow, 1992; Buss, 2001; Carruthers et al., 2006; Ji & Yap, 2016; Lumsden & Wilson, 1981). In case of ambiguity or complexity in the detection of gender cues, a cognitive bias has saved humans from a risky encounter with an aggressive male (Dimberg & Öhman, 1996; Dimberg et al., 2000; Navarrete et al., 2009). This is consistent with our data about the ability to recognize a masculine face as a face of a man—this attribution is 1000 times more likely than attributing a feminine face to a woman—or about the certainty in gender attribution, according to which participants stated they were less certain when they had to attribute female gender to a picture (as opposed to male gender). This finding would also rule out the null hypothesis for the second assumption (H2). A male face is an excellent predictor of male gender attribution (Jackson, 1992; Simpkins, 2014) and, if associated with the penis, as previously found by Kessler and McKenna (1978), can overshadow all other female cues (face or vulva).

Unlike Kessler and McKenna’s study, the present investigation also examined the pleasantness of the trans-images, that is, those with a balanced co-presence of male (= 3) and female (= 3) variables (Supplementary material, Tables S1 and S2). Of the participants, 98% found unpleasant the 20 neutral gender pictures, significantly more than how they felt about other pictures with unbalanced gender sexual characteristics. This can be explained in several ways that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. These cross-sex/gender/clothing pictures, more than others, might recall the image of transsexual individuals, thus triggering the widespread sense of transphobia (Hill & Willoughby, 2005; Killermann, 2017). It is equally likely that the strong ambiguity of these pictures could have triggered the so-called uncanny valley phenomenon, that is, the emotional response to a humanoid whose resemblance to a human being is confusing (Mori, 1970). These 20 stimuli, more than others, confused respondents because they did not allow a clear dichotomous gender attribution (humanoid: human = picture with balanced co-presence of gender characteristics: picture with non-balanced co-presence of gender characteristics; MacDorman et al., 2009). In addition, processing facilitation increases positive affect (Winkielman & Cacioppo, 2001), also described as the pleasure of cognitive ease (Kahneman, 2011) or feeling of familiarity (de Vignemont, 2018). This uncanny valley/transphobia effect, caused by neutral stimuli, can also be explained using, once again, signal detection theory (Spackman, 1989). The perturbing effect (uncanny valley/transphobia) occurs when an individual cannot recur to a simplifying heuristic—to a rule of thumb, as (Kahneman, 2011) wrote—to make a difficult judgment about the gender of a person, due to the co-presence of salient male and female cues of sexual characteristics, for example, people with intersex or transsexual characteristics (in our study, the neutral stimuli).

Characteristics of the Sample

Based on the results, the main sociodemographic variables of the participants, treated independently, did not significantly affect the responses on the Adult Gender Attribution Test. The sample was mostly young adults (about 19 years of age), certainly due to the fact that the recruitment took place on a university campus. Of the participants, 97% identified themselves in the male/female binary gender mode among Facebook’s 58 gender options. We have no official data on the transgender population in Italy: While we are writing this work, the first demographic survey is underway in Italy (see: www.studiopopolazionespot.it/). According to the demographic study on transgender and gender non-binary people in the United States by (Nolan et al., 2019), the range of estimated prevalence is 0.39–2.7%. Therefore, transgender non-binary people among the participants of this study (2.9%) seem to be slightly higher than the U.S. range. Less than 1% of males (sex assigned at birth) did not see/define themselves as a man, choosing another gender identity. By contrast, 3% of females did not feel like a woman; this was significantly different from males. The males had remained more “loyal” to their cisgender identity, that is, their sex assigned at birth aligns with their gender identity and gender expression (Killermann, 2017), compared with their female counterparts. Put another way, “I’m a male, so I’m a man.” This increased female trans-sexuality that appears in our sample is in line with what has already been found in several studies (Baumeister, 2000; Lehmiller, 2018): Women’s sexual behavior is more variable (flexible) than men’s over the course of their lives.

Regarding sexual orientation, our sample does not seem to match the survey data reported by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT, 2012) on the homosexual population. ISTAT found that about 2.4% of the Italian population declared themselves to be homosexual or bisexual and 77% heterosexual. Conversely, 84% of our participants affirmed themselves to be exclusively heterosexual and 4% homosexual or bisexual. The difference can be explained by the fact that the survey of sexual orientation was conducted with different metrics. In fact, ISTAT percentages refer to a breakdown of the population into categories that include both sexual orientation (hetero, gay, and bisexual) and gender identity (transgender and other identity).

Regarding religious affiliation, the Catholic affiliation of participants was lower (53%)—but higher than no religion (42%)—than the Italian average among a student population aged between 18 and 34 (respectively, about 61% and 36%), according to Ipsos Public Affairs (2017). Addressing a sexually explicit issue seems to attract more people without religious affiliation and with a left-wing political orientation (33%).

Limits of the Study

We will discuss what we consider to be the most relevant limitation of the study below.

1. 1.

   Generalizability of the results (Kukull & Ganguli, 2012). Although the research is based on a large number of participants, due to the characteristics of the sample (e.g., the prevalence of university students) and the recruitment context (i.e., a university campus), the results may not be generalizable, for example, to the Italian population.

2. 2.

   Social desirability (Babbie, 2010). Whenever we ask people for information, they answer through a filter of what will make them look good. This is especially true when participants are asked to respond to extremely sensitive topics such as sexuality. For example, a respondent was convinced that the test was intended to measure attitudes toward transgender people—despite the fact that, to prevent any misunderstanding about the purposes of the research, the information sheet expressly stated that the study did not concern transphobia, “gender theories,” or queer theories. That person could have answered the question, “How pleasant is the picture you have just seen?” with a higher score of pleasantness, so as not to appear as a moralistic transphobic, intolerant person. This limit of explicit measures on sexuality (Baumeister, 2000) could be overcome by using procedures of implicit gender attribution (Wittenbrink & Schwarz, 2007), knowing that gender attribution is processed below the level of consciousness (subliminally; Ito & Urland, 2003; Sapolsky, 2017).

3. 3.

   Ecological experimental context. Although the purpose of our study was to replicate the Overlay Study with more realistic stimuli, this does not mean that the environmental setting and nature of the stimuli were entirely ecological. For example, a more ecological gender-attribution process could have been observed in how an individual attributes the gender of a live person in their presence. Now, if it is true that gender attribution is processed by an evolved mental module to solve a specific adaptive problem (e.g., recognition of an aggressive male), the specificity of these cognitive modules is extremely dependent on the context (Fodor, 1983). As evolutionary psychology teaches us, an innate psychological mechanism is not equally effective in solving a logical abstraction of the same problem, for example, in solving the same problem through the solution of abstract syllogism (Cosmides, 1989; Cosmides & Tooby, 1992, 1994).

4. 4.

   Cross-cultural method. The presented experimental design did not include a comparison between samples from different cultures. However, comparing different cultures would allow us to investigate whether the process of gender attribution can be ascribed more to human universals (Atran, 1998; Brown, 1991)—that is, to the effect of evolved psychological mechanisms—rather than to the influence of memes.

5. 5.

   Replication of the Overlay Study. We decided to exclude in the Adult Gender Attribution Test one question that was included in the original study: “How would you change the figure to make it into the other gender?” (Kessler & McKenna, 1978, p. 146). This question should have been presented below each of the 120 stimuli and would have enabled us to analyze relevant qualitative information. Our choice was dictated by the fact that we did not want to increase the time needed to complete the test, especially because it was administered online (which would have compromised the reliability of the data we wanted to collect).

During the review process of the present study, one of the reviewers pointed out to us that we should have acknowledged in some way that sex is not binary, as follows:

Some people with XY chromosomes never develop a penis because they have an insensitivity to androgens. Some people are intersex. Some have too many or too few sex chromosomes. And as we learn more about the variations in the biology of people that impact their sex and gender identity it is important to understand sex/gender as cultural. If a penis is what makes someone male, then are sex reassignment surgeries to either add a penis (for transgender men) or remove a penis (for transgender women) more common than the addition or removal of a vulva?

We fully agree with the reviewer’s assertion that sex is not binary, and that reality (biology) is more complex than how psychological mechanisms, evolved to solve adaptive problems related to survival, lead us to think fast (about fast and slow thinking, see Kahneman, 2011). We feel differently about gender transition. Counterintuitively, in our view, a female-to-male transition is easier than a male-to-female transition for two patriarchal cultural reasons: (1) the male androcentric model is socially better defined and aspired to than the female model and thus easier to adopt; and (2) a male-to-female transition involves a more serious transgression of power hierarchies than vice versa and thus is socially more difficult to accept. However, this issue is far beyond the scope of this study and deserves empirical verification that this study does not provide.

Gender differences in how people lied about personal qualities were larger in more gender egalitarian countries, probably because there is less gender-atypical (relative to gender-typical) deceptive self-presentation in these countries

Gender Gaps in Deceptive Self-Presentation on Social-Media Platforms Vary With Gender Equality: A Multinational Investigation. Dasha Kolesnyk, Martijn G. de Jong, Rik Pieters. Psychological Science, November 15, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976211016395

Abstract: Deceptive self-presentation on social-media platforms appears to be common. However, its prevalence and determinants are still largely unknown, partly because admitting such behavior is socially sensitive and hard to study. We investigated deceptive self-presentation from the perspective of mating theories in two key domains: physical attractiveness and personal achievement. A truth-telling technique was used to measure deceptive self-presentation in a survey of 12,257 adults (51% female) across 25 countries. As hypothesized, men and women reported more deceptive self-presentation in the domain traditionally most relevant for their gender in a mating context. However, contrary to lay beliefs (N = 790), results showed larger gender differences in deceptive self-presentation in countries with higher gender equality because there is less gender-atypical (relative to gender-typical) deceptive self-presentation in these countries. Higher gender equality was also associated with less deceptive self-presentation for men and women worldwide.

Keywords: mating theories, self-presentation, gender differences, randomized response, cross-cultural survey

Discussion

This study is the first to assess the universality of gender differences in deceptive self-presentation on social-media platforms across countries using a truth-telling mechanism to add to the veracity of participants’ responses. Data from 25 countries (N = 12,257) revealed that men and women engaged in deceptive self-presentation primarily about qualities that are traditionally important for evaluations by the opposite sex. Specifically, women were more likely to practice deception about their physical appearance on social-media platforms than men were: Average prevalence rates were 18% for men and 20% for women. In contrast, men were more likely to practice deception about their personal achievement on social-media platforms than women were: Average prevalence rates were 14% for men and 10% for women. These gender differences were partially consistent with lay beliefs and with previous research on the deceptive self-presentation strategies used by genders in mating contexts (Toma et al., 2008; Toma & Hancock, 2010; Tooke & Camire, 1991), but they went beyond these as well.

Across countries, we expected higher levels of countries’ gender equality to be associated with lower deceptive self-presentation in both domains (Hypothesis 2). Mating perspectives agree that gender differences in mating preferences, and thus in mating strategies, are contingent on the social context (Buss & Schmitt, 2019; Eagly & Wood, 2013). Our expectation was based on the idea that because gender equality is associated with more freedom in mating choices (Schmitt, 2005), the overall motivation to engage in deceptive self-presentation is reduced. Higher gender equality indeed led to lower deceptive self-presentation in the domain of physical appearance, but gender equality did not affect deceptive self-presentation in the domain of personal achievement. This is consistent with the notion that women’s preference for a partner with equal or higher access to resources remains even when women’s socioeconomic status increases (Townsend, 1989).

Further, the magnitude of gender differences in deceptive self-presentation varied with the level of gender equality in countries. Prior research has found that higher levels of gender equality and country development can sometimes amplify and sometimes attenuate gender differences in mating behavior and preferences (Schmitt, 2015). In our first study, people’s lay beliefs favored the attenuation hypothesis. In contrast, our large-scale cross-national study supported the amplification of gender differences because of higher levels of national gender equality. Specifically, our data indicated that with higher gender equality, the prevalence of gender-atypical deceptive self-presentation dropped more sharply than the prevalence of gender-typical deceptive self-presentation did. That is, the drop in deceptive self-presentation about physical attractiveness associated with gender equality was significantly larger for men than for women. The reverse pattern emerged for deceptive self-presentation about personal achievement: The drop in countries with high gender equality was large for women, but there was no significant drop for men.

The findings are consistent with the notion that gender equality does not make gender differences larger or smaller but that it facilitates the expression of ingrained gender predispositions (Schmitt et al., 2008; Schwartz & Rubel-Lifschitz, 2009). That is, whether gender differences are larger or smaller depends on whether lack of gender equality suppresses or enhances gender differences for a specific behavior. In the case of deceptive self-presentation on social-media platforms about one’s physical attractiveness and personal achievement, it appears that lack of gender equality enhances gender-atypical lies. In other words, a more restrictive mating environment forces people to engage in deceptive self-presentation even in the domains that are less central for them in mating competition from an evolutionary perspective, and gender gaps are attenuated. Further research could examine whether the same pattern holds for other deceptive self-presentation strategies (Tooke & Camire, 1991) specific to either intrasexual or intersexual competition, such as deceptive self-presentation about one’s promiscuity as opposed to one’s committed relationships.

It is important to note that higher gender equality was associated with lower deceptive self-presentation on social-media platforms in the domain of physical attractiveness for men and women worldwide, potentially decreasing the negative effects of social-media consumption on body satisfaction and body image (Fardouly & Vartanian, 2015). Furthermore, gender differences in the prevalence of deceptive self-presentation across the globe were statistically significant but not very large in an absolute sense (2% difference for physical attractiveness and 4% difference for personal achievement). This might be due to changes in labor division worldwide. Eagly and Wood (2013) proposed that because of higher involvement of women in the workforce, men in recent years have been placing more value on their mate’s financial prospects, whereas women find the mate’s physical appearance more important.

Our study addressed calls to examine how the Internet and online behavior in general shape social life and “may change our mating psychology in many ways” (Buss & Schmitt, 2019, p. 104). Future cross-national research could compare our estimates of deceptive self-presentation on social-media platforms with the deceptive self-presentation rates of comparable off-line behaviors, such as résumé tampering or the purchase of imitation brands. Higher deceptive self-presentation rates on online social-media platforms than in off-line behavior could support the prediction of matching theories that exposure to a larger number of successful and attractive peers on social-media platforms can decrease satisfaction with oneself (Li et al., 2018) and thereby stimulate a need to engage in deceptive self-presentation.

Political correctness: We may feel pressure to publicly espouse views on a set of sensitive socio-political topics that we may not privately hold & such misrepresentations may render public discourse less vibrant & informative

Political Correctness, Social Image, and Information Transmission. Luca Braghieri, January 9, 2021. https://drive.google.com/file/d/15GyR5ploSF9LtDmKw4tu4xtr_ojEGYcr/view

Abstract: A prominent argument in the debate about political correctness is that people may feel pressure to publicly espouse views on a set of sensitive socio-political topics that they may not privately hold, and that such misrepresentations may render public discourse less vibrant and informative. This paper provides a formalization of the argument in terms of social image and evaluates it experimentally in the context of college campuses, where the debate about political correctness has been particularly heated. The results of the experiment show that: i) social image concerns indeed drive a wedge between the sensitive socio-political attitudes that college students report in private and in public; ii) public utterances are less informative than private utterances according to a host of measures of informativeness suggested by the theoretical model; iii) information loss is exacerbated by the fact that the natural audience in the environment, namely other college students, are partially naive about the ways in which social image concerns distort their peers’ public statements. 

Being exposed to tearful faces evokes the intention to support the crier (compared to seeing the same face without tears); support ratings by female participants and for female targets were stronger

Tears evoke the intention to offer social support: A systematic investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotional crying across 41 countries. Janis H. Zickfeld et al. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 95, July 2021, 104137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104137

Abstract: Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and likely uniquely human phenomenon. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue by evoking social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were conducted almost exclusively on participants from North America and Europe, resulting in limited generalizability. This project examined the tears-social support intentions effect and possible mediating and moderating variables in a fully pre-registered study across 7007 participants (24,886 ratings) and 41 countries spanning all populated continents. Participants were presented with four pictures out of 100 possible targets with or without digitally-added tears. We confirmed the main prediction that seeing a tearful individual elicits the intention to support, d = 0.49 [0.43, 0.55]. Our data suggest that this effect could be mediated by perceiving the crying target as warmer and more helpless, feeling more connected, as well as feeling more empathic concern for the crier, but not by an increase in personal distress of the observer. The effect was moderated by the situational valence, identifying the target as part of one's group, and trait empathic concern. A neutral situation, high trait empathic concern, and low identification increased the effect. We observed high heterogeneity across countries that was, via split-half validation, best explained by country-level GDP per capita and subjective well-being with stronger effects for higher-scoring countries. These findings suggest that tears can function as social glue, providing one possible explanation why emotional crying persists into adulthood.

Keywords: Emotional cryingEmotional tearsAttachmentCross-culturalSocial support