Those who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours (spatial distance, hygiene) & support for public health policies (closing bars/restaurants), at least Apr-May 2020

National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic. Jay J. Van Bavel et al. Nature Communications volume 13, Article number: 517. Jan 27 2022. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27668-9

Abstract: Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = −0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics.

Discussion

Our research suggests that national identities might play an important role in the fight against a global pandemic. Following World War II, early work in social psychology had a tendency to focus on the negative side of nationalism and leadership persuasion, such as destructive obedience to authority54 and group conformity to incorrect beliefs held by others55. In the decades since then, research on social identity10 and a “social cure” approach to mental health56 has revealed that there is also a pro-social side to group identity. Based on this latter perspective we predicted, and found, that NI was positively associated with support for and engagement with public health behaviours around the globe.

In two global studies combining person-level and country-level analyses, the strength of national identity robustly predicted public health support, operationalized as behavioural health intentions (i.e., physical distance and physical hygiene), support for COVID-19 policy interventions, and reduced physical movement patterns during the pandemic. We found this pattern with self-report measures at the person-level and using measures of actual mobility at the country level. The fact that national identity is associated with large-scale behaviour in real life provides ecologically valid evidence for our main hypothesis. Taken together, these results are consistent with our hypothesis that NI is related to greater behaviour change in compliance with public health policies. We note that the results showing a decline in mobility should be treated with caution, as in the mobility report location accuracy and the categorization of places can vary between countries. In short, people who identified more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement with critical public health measures around the globe.

These results are consistent with the social psychological literature on the benefits of identifying with one’s social groups. They also underscore a potential benefit of NI, which might be salient during a national or global health crisis23. Our research provides evidence that this form of identification might help to understand public health behaviours. However, work in the United States has found that threats to national identity can lead to less support for public health initiatives57. As such, mobilizing people around a shared national identity might require considerable nuance. Future work should examine the impact of different types of identity appeals during a pandemic and isolate the causal influence of national identity on real behaviour.

There is reason to believe that other forms of group identification can undercut public health. For instance, partisanship within countries (i.e., when people strongly identify with a specific political party) is associated with risky behaviour25,26,58. For example, one study that used geo-tracking data from 15 million smartphones in the US found that counties that voted for a Republican (Donald Trump) over a Democrat (Hillary Clinton) exhibited 14% less spatial distancing during the early stages of the pandemic26. These partisan gaps in distancing predicted subsequent increases in infections and mortality in counties that voted for Donald Trump. Moreover, partisanship was a stronger predictor of distancing than many other economic or social factors (e.g., county-level income, population density, religion, age, and state policy). This may be due to leadership, social norms, and media consumed by people from different identity groups. As such, stronger group identification is not always associated with engagement in public-health behaviour.

It is tempting to conclude that PI might account for these relationships. However, we found that right-wing PI had a positive, moderate correlation with both NI and NN, but very weak correlations with support with public health measures in our multi-country sample. Specifically, right-wing political beliefs were associated with less support for COVID-19 public health policies, compared to left-wing political beliefs. This relationship between political beliefs and compliance has been observed in several countries (e.g., refs. 48,49,59). Similarly, while NI and NN were associated positively with support for public health measures, right-wing PI was negatively associated with these outcomes. This suggests that a collective identity might be associated with valuing the protection of the entire group during a pandemic, even after adjusting for their ideological differences.

It is also important to note that the relationship between national identity and public health support was distinct from NN. In past research, NN has predominantly been linked to problematic attitudes towards both out-group and in-group members38,40,60. However, we found that NN was positively associated with self-reported physical hygiene and support for COVID-19 preventative policies (cf. ref. 42). Still, these effects were much smaller than those for national identity and depended on the context. Future work should thus carefully consider cross-national differences in human development as well as social norms associated with national identity.

Our evidence suggests that national identity may have modest predictive value for people’s endorsement of and adherence to public health measures in the context of a pandemic. This information may be leveraged to create a sense of inclusive nation-based in-groups, potentially increasing engagement with recommended policies. Political and public health leaders might develop effective communication strategies to appeal to a sense of NI. Indeed, this might be particularly helpful in highly polarized countries where adherence to public health recommendations has become a partisan issue (see ref. 26). For instance, Canadian leaders across the political spectrum adopted similar messaging about the serious risks of the current pandemic which resulted in a rare moment of cross-partisan consensus among the public61. Such recategorizations to overarching inclusive national groups (e.g., ref. 62) may be effective for preventing unhealthy behaviours. As such, leaders who wish to inspire public health behaviour might benefit from connecting the issue to feelings of national identity. Framing these messages at the level of the nation rather than, for instance, a partisan group, region, or municipality also makes sense when the response requires national coordination22,63.

However, the effective application of these appeals requires future research as national identity is also implicated in intergroup conflict. This is more likely in the case of NN36,60, which tends to be associated with lower solidarity with other groups in crisis (e.g., ref. 64). In the absence of collective narcissism, national identity could reflect not only concerns about protecting one’s own country, but also into concern for other nations. Indeed, prior research has found that NI is associated with more positive attitudes towards other nations—especially when adjusting for NN37,45. Thus, the nature of national identity might be an important determinant of the effectiveness of identity and the potential for international cooperation. In addition, it could turn out that a commitment to cosmopolitanism or other supranational identities and ideologies may play a role that bolsters what we have seen in the case of national identity65.

One major strength of our paper is the scope of nations we included in our samples. The first study included data from 67 nations and the second study included data from 42 countries. The vast majority of published research in psychology and social sciences has been conducted in so-called WEIRD cultures66, typically restricted to the narrow western and educational setting of American or European university students, and non-representative participants from industrialized, rich and democratic countries. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, is a truly global issue underscoring the importance of gathering samples outside these WEIRD cultures. Moreover, it was striking to see that the same person-level association between NI and our public health measures was in the same direction in almost every country we studied. Although we managed to collect data from a wide variety of countries and territories, we were unable to obtain samples from every nation (especially in Africa and the middle east). As such, we encourage future research in these countries to see if the same dynamics are at play.

Another element of our paper was an attempt to collect representative or stratified samples in Study 1. While most studies in psychology focus on convenience samples (e.g., undergraduate or MTurk participants), it is important to gather samples that are more diverse with regards to gender, age, and other key risk factors during a pandemic. Collecting representative samples affords the opportunity to help make better generalizations to the wider population within each country as well as the broader sample of countries around the globe. Due to funding constraints, we were not able to obtain representative samples from most nations. As such, we are unable to make strong generalizations about the populations in those countries. But note that we did directly compare the findings in more vs. less representative samples and found no significant difference in the overall relationship between NI and all three public health measures (see Supplementary Information for details).

This research was correlational and conducted during the early phase of the pandemic. Although a causal relation between NI and public health behaviour makes sense from a theoretical perspective, we cannot rule out the possibility that public health behaviour causes NI, or that both are caused by a third variable (e.g., ref. 23). Moreover, we have no evidence whether this pattern would apply during later stages of the current or future pandemics. Indeed, national identity may increase during times of crisis as people recognize their duty as citizens to help respond to this issue. We encourage future work to experimentally manipulate the salience of NI or frame health messages in a way that highlights the link between identification and the public health measures. Another limitation is the exclusive focus on national groups rather than, for instance, identification with a city, region, religion, or ethnic group—or, for that matter, all of humanity. Some research suggests that local leaders may be ineffective if their advice contradicts a national leader (see ref. 26). In the current pandemic, nations have been among the most important actors for implementing policy or promoting national health guidelines, but sub-national units and international organizations such as the World Health Organization also play an important role.

The COVID-19 pandemic spreading across the world is one of the most devastating global health crises of the past century. Until a verifiably safe and effective vaccine or therapeutic treatment is universally administered, efforts to inspire collective action for greater compliance with public health measures remain a central challenge when mitigating the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (e.g., spatial distancing, physical hygiene, and support for health policies). Moreover, understanding social identity and collective behaviour likely plays a key role in vaccination efforts67. Our large-scale studies suggest that identification with one’s nation is positively associated with support for and engagement in critical behavioural public health measures. Understanding the role of social identity appears to be an important issue when addressing public health crises.

The relationship between infidelity risk and oral sex: An independent replication of Pham and Shackelford (2013) and Pham et al. (2013)

The relationship between infidelity risk and oral sex: An independent replication of Pham and Shackelford (2013) and Pham et al. (2013). Rebecca B. Koessler et al. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 189, April 2022, 111496. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111496

Highlights

• Oral sex has been suggested to be an adaptation to detect unfaithful partners.

• Oral sex has been shown to be related to partner infidelity risk for men, not women.

• Only null results regarding this association were replicated for women.

• A statistical error was identified in the original article.

• Support for this proposed evolutionary explanation of oral sexual behavior is mixed.

Abstract: In two studies, Pham and Shackelford (2013) and Pham et al. (2013) analyzed the relations between oral sexual behavior and partner infidelity risk in heterosexual couples. They found that indicators of partners' risk of infidelity were significantly associated with men's, but not women's interest in, and time spent performing oral sex after controlling for relationship length, relationship satisfaction and duration of sexual intercourse. We conducted a preregistered close replication of the methods and analyses of these studies using two distinct samples. In both samples, partner infidelity risk was not significantly associated with greater interest in and duration of oral sex for men or for women. The associations between infidelity risk and oral sexual behaviors were not significantly different between men and women, consistent with the original research. Exploratory analyses showed participants who suspected their partners of being unfaithful had significantly lower scores on the partner infidelity risk measure than those who did not hold those suspicions in Sample 1, while no significant difference emerged in Sample 2. These findings challenge the validity of the original partner infidelity risk measure. Overall, the current study offers contradictory evidence for the proposed evolutionary explanation for the adaption of oral sexual behaviors in humans.

Keywords: Infidelity riskOral sexReplication

Through improving the contractual structure, the China Fortune Land Development Co. model has been approved to be a more efficient way than traditional PPPs to promote large-scale comprehensive developments by reducing transaction costs

Rising private city operators in contemporary China: A study of the CFLD model. Yongli Jiao, Yang Yu. Cities, Volume 101, June 2020, 102696. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2020.102696

Highlights

• Through improving the contractual structure, the CFLD model has been approved to be a more efficient way than traditional PPPs to promote large-scale comprehensive developments by reducing transaction costs.

• We can reconsider and reexplain the urbanization process in China from the perspective of transaction cost economics.

• China’s market reform is characterized by the dual-track structure in which the state-led and grassroots reforms co-exist. And we summarize the interactive mechanism of the state-led and grassroots reforms as “ex ante hands-off, ex post endorsement”.

• The emergence of the CFLD model means that China’s market reform has reached the core of planned economic system and market forces have extended from private goods to public goods.

Abstract: In the past decade, with the rise of private investment in urban development in China, there has been a profound transformation from government-led to market-led urban growth. These changes have created a boom in private city operators who have become involved in large-scale urban development and established long-term close public-private partnerships with local governments, integrating and optimizing all of the resources in a city or region. In this new business environment, China Fortune Land Development Co., Ltd. (CFLD) has undoubtedly been the earliest and most successful private city operator. This study uses the framework of transaction costs to analyze the CFLD model in detail, using the case of Gu'An New Industry City. We illustrate how it has reduced the principal-principal problem, the firm hold-up problem, and the government-led hold-up problem, the three types of transaction costs inherent in public-private partnerships, by improving the contractual structure. We believe it will become a far-reaching institutional innovation as an alternative to the land finance system to promote urbanization in contemporary China and beyond.

Keywords: Private city operatorTransaction costsContractual structurePublic-private partnershipsThe CFLD modelGu'An New Industry City

Social Status Predicts Different Mating and Reproductive Outcomes for Men and Women in China: Evidence from the 2010-2017 CGSS Data

Social Status Predicts Different Mating and Reproductive Outcomes for Men and Women in China: Evidence from the 2010-2017 CGSS Data. Yikang Zhang, Pekka Santtila. Research Square Pre-Prints, Jan 18 2022. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1005378/v1

Abstract: Evolutionary psychological theories posit that higher social status is conducive to men’s reproductive success. Extant research from historical records, small scale societies, as well as industrialized societies, support this hypothesis. However, the relationship between status difference between spouses and reproductive outcomes has been investigated less. Moreover, even fewer studies have directly compared the effect of status and status difference between spouses on reproductive outcomes in men and women. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) conducted between 2010 and 2017 (N = 55,875; 28,931 women) and operationalizing social status as standardized income and educational level (compared with same-sex peers), we examined how social status and relative status between spouses impact men’s and women’s mating and reproductive outcomes. We found that (1) men with higher social status were more likely to have long-term mating (being in a marriage and/or not going through marriage disruption) and reproductive success, mainly through having a lower risk of childlessness; (2) women with higher social status were less likely to have mating and reproductive success; and (3) relative status between spouses had an impact on the couple’s reproductive success so that couples, where the husband had higher status compared to the wife, had higher reproductive success. Thus, social status positively impacted men’s reproductive success, but relative status between spouses also affected mating and impacted childbearing decisions. 

Keywords: Social status, Mating success, Reproductive Success, Fertility

DISCUSSION

We utilized the 2010-2017 CGSS data to examine how social status is associated with Chinese men and women's mating and reproductive outcomes. In our analyses, due to the rapid expansion of education over the last few decades in China, we used statistical operations to separate the effect of standardized educational level (among same-sex peers) and absolute educational attainment. The results suggest that social status measured by standardized education level and income still predict reproductive success in terms of marital status and whether there are offspring in contemporary China. Furthermore, relative social status between spouses predicted the likelihood of having children and age at marriage among first-time married couples.

Effects of Social Status on Mating and Reproductive Outcomes

After isolating the effect of absolute educational attainment, men with a higher social status than their peers in terms of standardised education and income were more likely to be in a long-term relationship and stay in it. This result is consistent with the evolutionary hypothesis that higher social status is conducive to men’s mating success. In contrast, for women, social status had the opposite effect. However, the results do not warrant the conclusion that higher social status women have lower long-term mate value in the eyes of men. Although educated women have been perceived as less desirable, especially in cultures holding traditional gender roles (Bertrand, Cortes, Olivetti, and Pan 2020, Hwang 2016), this decreased desirability may reflect the status concerns of men rather than the low mate value of high- social status women.

Furthermore, past research has suggested that women exhibit greater hypergamy than men (Van Den Berghe 1960). Therefore, women with higher income may tend to choose from men who earn more than they do, and as a result, they face a much smaller mating pool, increasing the difficulty of finding a suitable long-term mate. On the other hand, men may also prefer women who have equal or lower social status compared with themselves, which has been a successful reproductive strategy in the past (Bereczkei and Csanaky 1996). The penalty educated women face in the mating market (Bertrand, Cortes, Olivetti, and Pan 2020, Hwang 2016) may result from social status concerns men may have (i.e., men may prefer to have partners who have relatively lower social status).

As for reproductive outcomes, a higher standardised income and education level were associated with more children for men. However, closer examination revealed that standardised education and income were only significant in predicting the first child for men. For women, a higher social status was associated with a decreased likelihood of having children. Combined with previous studies showing that the social status-fertility relationship is primarily driven by the high risk of childlessness among lower social status men (Kolk and Barclay 2021), the current results suggest that social status, in terms of income and standardized education level, positively contribute to men’s but not women’s reproduction. This is done through mating success and a better chance at transitioning to parenthood instead of having more offspring in an industrialized societal setting. Moreover, the current results are consistent with previous studies in Western populations (Hopcroft 2006, Fieder and Huber 2007, Hopcroft 2021), suggesting that Chinese data are an appropriate and integral part of evolutionary demographic research. However, it is also important to note that fertility is a complex issue that is not only influenced by an individual's social status but also societal changes (Newson et al., 2007), culture (McQuillan 2004), social welfare (Mills et al. 2011), and family planning policies (Liu and Liu 2020). Specifically, the way in which social status is associated with fertility change depending on regional or national social policies. For example, in more recent cohorts in Nordic countries, the negative relationship between women's educational level and fertility is diminishing due to social welfare reforms (Jalovaara et al., 2019).

Relative Status between Spouses for Predicting Mating and Reproductive Outcomes

Men who married relatively lower-social status women entered their marriages earlier and married a younger wife compared with those who married relatively high-social status women. This result is consistent with our hypothesis that men may make a trade-off between their partners’ social status (relative to themselves) and availability, as well as fecundity. However, as women do not necessarily prefer younger men as mates, we did not hypothesize a relationship between women’s status relative to their partner and their partner’s age. From Figure 1, it is clear that women with a higher social status than their spouses married later and had older spouses. However, after controlling for their own age, we did find a weaker but significant negative effect of educational difference on the partner’s age for women. Therefore, though women with relatively higher social status compared with their spouses had older spouses, this pattern is mainly driven by the fact that higher social status women enter marriage at an older age.

For reproductive outcomes, men who had higher relative social status than their spouses were more likely to have children. On the other hand, women were less likely to have children if their relative social status was higher. Notably, this pattern was significant after controlling for the couple's household income and average educational level, suggesting that relative social status in terms of resource potential may impact women’s childbearing decisions. In Figure 1, it is easy to see that besides hypergamy, homogamy is also associated with higher reproductive success. This is consistent with previous research, suggesting that both hypergamy and homogamy are successful strategies (Bereczkei and Csanaky 1996). The current results indicate that the relative social status difference between partners is more useful in predicting reproductive outcomes.

One may be concerned that the observed relationship could be explained solely by women, not men, being more likely to stop their education after having their first child and, thus, having a lower education level than their husbands. Another mechanism for this phenomenon, that does not require an evolutionary strategic explanation, would be personality differences. That is, women with stronger career motivations may devote more energy to advancing their social status and are, thus, less likely to have children. Both hypotheses would receive additional support if the observed phenomenon were present only in cases with a higher educational background. However, using only cases where education was no higher than high school or its equivalent (i.e., a subset where childbirth conflicts less with pursuing an education and a career), we replicated the findings that if the male partner has a relatively higher social status, the couple will have higher fertility (see Table S6 in supplementary materials). As for evolutionary explanations, whether the relationship is because women are more likely to bear children if their partner has a relatively higher social status or because women’s relative social status versus their partner’s is simply a more accurate way to measure social status within a subpopulation, demands further research. If the former is true, investigating whether this pattern is driven by a worse relationship associated with hypogamy (Kaukinen 2004) could also be a research topic of both theoretical and practical value. It could inform policymaking that may ameliorate the fertility decline, such as promoting a culture where social status is less determined by personal income and education and more associated with aspects of familial and social life.

Limitations and Future Directions

Though the CGSS data provided us with a large representative sample with several mating and reproductive success measures, it has several limitations. First, in measuring reproductive success, most of the surveys in CGSS did not differentiate between biological versus non-biological children, nor did the measurements exclude children who were deceased before reaching the age of reproduction. Second, the surveys were not linked with official records. Thus, the data could suffer from inaccurate self-reporting, especially for men’s reproductive success (Hopcroft 2021), which is also supported by the current analysis that, on average, women (M = 1.57, SD = 1.06) had significantly more children than men (M = 1.43, SD = 1.04), F (1, 55653) = 256.6, p <.001. Third, income from the previous year is not an accurate measure of social status compared with wealth. This might explain the fact that standardized education was a slightly better predictor in our models. Finally, the analyses only provide correlational, but not causal, evidence due to its cross-sectional design. These limitations should be noted when making inferences.

As for the analyses, to make the current research more focused and concise, we controlled regional and ecological differences with random intercepts for rural and urban areas for each provincial region. However, it is well acknowledged that in China, rural-urban dualism (Zhang, Sun, and Liu 2021) and ecological features such as agricultural style (Talhelm and English 2020) impact behavioural patterns. Therefore, how these differences are reflected in reproductive decisions and outcomes should be conceptualized and examined.

Regarding the interpretations of the findings, especially for the sex differences found in our research, we should consider the cultural and demographical differences between China and other regions. For example, the sex ratio bias in China could also be a causal factor for the above results. Because the sex ratio is biased toward men, women would, in theory, have more bargaining power in the mating market, biasing both sexes toward high investment. The potential influence of the family planning policy should also be taken into consideration. The fact that social status only positively predicted the likelihood of having the first child for men could result from the former one-child policy in China rather than reflect an inherent feature of the social status-reproduction relationship.

Studying the relationship between social status and reproductive success is only part of the picture. Thus, researchers should also integrate findings from other areas of evolutionary science — for example, the study of personality and individual differences conferring social status (Durkee, Lukaszewski and Buss 2020), and behavioural genetics that links traits and genes (for a recent review, see Harden 2021). Specifically, recent research examining how the education-reproduction link could influence human population genetics found that because of the negative relationship between education and reproduction, selection has favoured genetic variants associated with low educational attainments (Beauchamp 2016; Kong et al. 2017). Future research could extend our understanding by investigating the relationships between social status-conferring traits (phenotypes), genetics, and educational and financial achievements together and contextualizing the observed patterns by incorporating cultural and ecological factors.

Early Concepts of Intimacy: Young Humans Use Saliva Sharing to Infer Close Relationships

Thomas, Ashley J., Brandon M. Woo, Daniel Nettle, Elizabeth Spelke, and Rebecca Saxe. 2022. “Early Concepts of Intimacy: Young Humans Use Saliva Sharing to Infer Close Relationships.” PsyArXiv. January 20. doi:10.31234/osf.io/xgfp7

Abstract: Across human societies, people form ‘thick’ relationships, characterized by strong attachments, obligations and mutual responsiveness. People in thick relationships engage in distinctive interactions, like sharing food utensils or kissing, that involve sharing saliva. Here we show that children, toddlers, and infants infer that dyads who share saliva (compared to other positive social interactions) have a distinct relationship. Children expect saliva sharing to happen in nuclear families. Toddlers and infants expect that people who shared saliva will respond to one another in distress. Parents confirm that saliva sharing is a valid cue of relationship thickness in their children’s social environments. The ability to use distinctive interactions to infer categories of relationships thus emerges early in life, without explicit teaching, allowing young humans to rapidly identify close relationships, both within and beyond families.

Contrary to our expectations, a longitudinal study shows that people's focus on money decreased during the pandemic

Has the COVID-19 pandemic made us more materialistic? The effect of COVID-19 and lockdown restrictions on the endorsement of materialism. Olaya Moldes, Denitsa Dineva, Lisbeth Ku. Psychology & Marketing, January 24 2022. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21627

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in the factors that typically facilitate the endorsement of materialistic values (e.g., higher media consumption, stress and anxiety, loneliness, death anxiety, and lower moods). In this paper, we examine how contextual changes affecting the antecedents of materialism influence its advocacy with a mixed-method approach. First, a correlational study (Study 1) suggests that increases in media consumption and stress and anxiety during the pandemic predicted current levels of materialism, however, these effects were limited. Second, contrary to our expectations, a longitudinal study (Study 2) shows that people's focus on money decreased during the pandemic. Last, a social media content analysis (Study 3) reveals a downward trend in users’ online discourses about consumption-related behaviors, but an upward trend in brands promoting spending as a way to attain well-being. The observed effects could fuel deeper societal change in the labor market and in consumer behavior, and have further implications for individual and societal well-being in a post-pandemic world. We recommend future interventions aimed at diminishing materialistic attitudes to examine the effects of decreasing media consumption and to explore how other factors introduced by the pandemic (e.g., a health or well-being focus) might moderate its advocacy.

Despite our fluency in reading human faces, sometimes we mistakenly perceive illusory faces in objects; there is a strong bias to perceive illusory faces as male rather than female

Illusory faces are more likely to be perceived as male than female. Susan G. Wardle et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 1, 2022 119 (5) e2117413119; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2117413119

Significance: Face pareidolia is the phenomenon of perceiving illusory faces in inanimate objects. Here we show that illusory faces engage social perception beyond the detection of a face: they have a perceived age, gender, and emotional expression. Additionally, we report a striking bias in gender perception, with many more illusory faces perceived as male than female. As illusory faces do not have a biological sex, this bias is significant in revealing an asymmetry in our face evaluation system given minimal information. Our result demonstrates that the visual features that are sufficient for face detection are not generally sufficient for the perception of female. Instead, the perception of a nonhuman face as female requires additional features beyond that required for face detection.

Abstract: Despite our fluency in reading human faces, sometimes we mistakenly perceive illusory faces in objects, a phenomenon known as face pareidolia. Although illusory faces share some neural mechanisms with real faces, it is unknown to what degree pareidolia engages higher-level social perception beyond the detection of a face. In a series of large-scale behavioral experiments (ntotal = 3,815 adults), we found that illusory faces in inanimate objects are readily perceived to have a specific emotional expression, age, and gender. Most strikingly, we observed a strong bias to perceive illusory faces as male rather than female. This male bias could not be explained by preexisting semantic or visual gender associations with the objects, or by visual features in the images. Rather, this robust bias in the perception of gender for illusory faces reveals a cognitive bias arising from a broadly tuned face evaluation system in which minimally viable face percepts are more likely to be perceived as male.

Keywords: face perceptiongenderbiaspareidoliaface evaluation

Both men and women self-presented as more sensitive to sexual disgust in the presence of the female attractive experimenter

“May I present you: my disgust!” – Declared disgust sensitivity in the presence of attractive models. Michal Mikolaj Stefanczyk et al. British Psychological Society, January 24 2022. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12556

Abstract: Disgust sensitivity differs among men and women, and this phenomenon has been observed across numerous cultures. It remains unknown why such sex differences occur, but one of the reasons may relate to differences in self-presentation. We tested that hypothesis in an experiment comprising 299 participants (49% women) randomly allocated into three groups. Each group completed the Three Domains Disgust Scale (TDDS) and rated how disgusting they found olfactory, visual, gustatory, and tactile disgust elicitors either when a male experimenter was present, a female experimenter was present, or no experimenter was present. We hypothesised that male participants in the female experimenter group would declare decreased levels of disgust sensitivity, and female participants in the male experimenter group would declare increased levels of disgust sensitivity. Results showed that despite sex differences in pathogen and sexual disgust, attractive experimenters did not evoke any differences in declared disgust across groups with one exception–both men and women self-presented as more sensitive to sexual disgust in the presence of the female experimenter. We discuss our findings in the light of evolutionary and social theories.

Neuropsychological tasks that involve imagery: Only minimal differences between individuals with congenital aphantasia and those with typical imagery on those tests

Only minimal differences between individuals with congenital aphantasia and those with typical imagery on neuropsychological tasks that involve imagery. Zoë Pounder et al. Cortex, January 24 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2021.12.010

Abstract: Aphantasia describes the experience of individuals who self-report a lack of voluntary visual imagery. It is not yet known whether individuals with aphantasia show deficits in cognitive and neuropsychological tasks thought to relate to aspects of visual imagery, including Spatial Span, One Touch Stocking of Cambridge, Pattern Recognition Memory, Verbal Recognition Memory and Mental Rotation. Twenty individuals with congenital aphantasia (VVIQ < 25) were identified and matched on measures of age and IQ to twenty individuals with typical imagery (VVIQ > 35). A group difference was found in the One Touch Stocking of Cambridge task for response time, but not accuracy, when the number of imagined moves that participants had to hold in their heads to complete the task increased. Similarly, a group difference in response time was apparent in the mental rotation task, but only in the subgroup of aphantasic participants who reported a severe deficit in visual imagery (VVIQ score of 16). These results suggest that the cognitive profile of people without imagery does not greatly differ from those with typical imagery when examined by group. In addition, the severity of aphantasia (and VVIQ criterion) may be an important factor to consider when investigating differences in imagery experience. Overall, this study raises questions about whether or not aphantasia represents a difference in cognitive function or in conscious experience.

Keywords: Aphantasiavisual imageryspatial imageryneuropsychology

A neurologist, at age 55, developed an irrepressible urge to rhyme after a series of strokes and seizures; on recovery, he described the emergence of an irresistible urge to rhyme, even in thought and daily speech

The neurologist who could not stop rhyming and rapping. Mario F. Mendez. Neurocase, Jan 23 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/13554794.2022.2027455

Abstract: A neurologist, at age 55, developed an irrepressible urge to rhyme after a series of strokes and seizures. His strokes included right posterior cerebellar and right thalamic infarctions, and his subsequent focal-onset seizures emanated from the left frontotemporal region. On recovery, he described the emergence of an irresistible urge to rhyme, even in thought and daily speech. His pronounced focus on rhyming led him to actively participate in freestyle rap and improvisation. This patient’s rhyming and rapping may have been initially facilitated by epileptiform activation of word sound associations but perpetuated as compensation for impaired cerebellar effects on timed anticipation.

Keywords: Rhymerapepilepsyrhythmbrainvascular cognitive impairment

Whose Life Do You Save? Factors Associated With Gender Differences in Altruism Toward Romantic Partners Versus Genetic Relatives

Whose Life Do You Save? Factors Associated With Gender Differences in Altruism Toward Romantic Partners Versus Genetic Relatives. Carlos Hernández Blasi. Psychological Reports, January 23, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941211050010

Abstract: This study explored potential gender differences in altruism in three hypothetical life-or-death situations in which a romantic partner and a relative (an offspring, a sibling, and a cousin) were involved. Specifically, 200 college students (93 men) responded to a 24-item questionnaire: 12 items focused on the three romantic partner versus relative life-or-death dilemmas; 12 items served as control items and focused on three relative versus relative life-or-death dilemmas (sibling vs. offspring; sibling vs. cousin; cousin vs. offspring). For each main dilemma, four different versions were created by varying the ages of both romantic partners and genetic relatives. Overall, the participants saved their offspring and siblings more often than their romantic partners, and their romantic partners more often than their cousins. In all three dilemmas, the proportion of women who saved their genetic relative over their romantic partner was significantly higher than the proportion of men, with the age of both romantic partners and relatives playing a role. Romantic partners were significantly saved more often when pitted against their cousins than when pitted against their siblings, and when pitted against their siblings than when pitted against their offspring. Young adult males and females exhibit minor, but significant and consistent, gender differences in their altruistic tendencies toward relatives in hypothetical critical situations in which other close non relatives, namely romantic partners, are also involved.

Keywords: Altruism, gender differences, family, romantic partners, youth, evolution

Although the US has historically been a highly-residentially mobile nation, yearly moves are halved from rates in the 1970s and quartered from rates in the late 19th century; 50% of Americans want to move - but can't

The cultural dynamics of declining residential mobility. Buttrick, N., & Oishi, S. American Psychologist, 76(6), 904–916. Jan 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000881

We discuss the cultural power of changes in nation-level residential mobility. Using a theoretically informed analysis of mobility trends across the developed world, we argue that a shift from a culture full of people moving their residence to a culture full of people staying in place is associated with decreases, among its residents, in individualism, happiness, trust, optimism, and endorsement of the notion that hard work leads to success. We use the United States as a case study: Although the United States has historically been a highly-residentially mobile nation, yearly moves in the United States are halved from rates in the 1970s and quartered from rates in the late 19th century. In the past four decades, the proportion of Americans who are stuck in neighborhoods they no longer wish to live in is up nearly 50%. We discuss how high rates of mobility may have originally shaped American culture and how recent declines in residential mobility may relate to current feelings of cultural stagnation. Finally, we speculate on future trends in American mobility and the consequences of a society where citizens increasingly find themselves stuck in place.

Public Significance Statement—This article examines the role that residential mobility may play in shaping cultural values. We discuss how residential mobility may foster an ethos built on dynamism, optimism, and the belief that hard work leads to success; we examine the relationship between shifting levels of mobility and feelings of optimism, well-being, trust, and individualism; and we speculate about how American culture, one specifically formed by mobility, may continue to change as more and more residents find themselves stuck in place.

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They argue that "declining residential mobility (being “stuck”) decreases individualism, happiness, trust, optimism & belief in the hard work equals success." (from one of the authors' tweet, https://twitter.com/NickButtrick/status/1485207997005582340)

These authors claim that Low Socioeconomic Status Is Associated with a Greater Neural Response to Both Rewards and Losses

Low Socioeconomic Status Is Associated with a Greater Neural Response to Both Rewards and Losses. Stuart F. White, Robin Nusslock, Gregory E. Miller. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 1–13. Jan 20 2022. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01821

Abstract: Low socioeconomic status (SES) has been associated with distinct patterns of reward processing, which appear to have adverse implications for health outcomes, well-being, and human capital. However, most studies in this literature have used complex tasks that engage more than reward processing and/or retrospectively studied childhood SES in samples of adults. To clarify how SES relates to the development of reward processing tendencies, we measured income-to-poverty ratio (IPR) in 172 youth who subsequently underwent functional MRI while completing a passive avoidance task to assess neural responses to reward and loss information. Participants were 12–15 years old (mean = 13.94, SD = .52; 65.7% female) from a sample broadly representative of the Chicago area in terms of SES (IPR range = 0.1–34.53; mean = 3.90; SD = 4.15) and racial makeup (40.1% European-American; 30.8% Black; 29.1% Hispanic). To the extent they had lower IPR, children displayed a trend toward worse behavioral performance on the passive avoidance task. Lower IPR also was associated with a greater response in attention brain regions to reward and loss cues and to reward and loss feedback. Lower IPR also was associated with reduced differentiation between reward and loss feedback in the ventromedial prefrontal and parietal cortex. The current data suggest that both increased salience of reward/loss information and reduced discrimination between reward and loss feedback could be factors linking SES with the development of human capital and health outcomes.

From 2010... Beliefs About Cognitive Gender Differences: Accurate for Direction, Underestimated for Size

From 2010... Beliefs About Cognitive Gender Differences: Accurate for Direction, Underestimated for Size. Diane F. Halpern, Carli A. Straight & Clayton L. Stephenson. Sex Roles volume 64, pages 336–347. Nov 7 2010. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-010-9891-2

Abstract: Although stereotype accuracy is a large, and often controversial, area of psychological research, surprisingly little research has examined the beliefs people have about gender differences in cognitive abilities. This study investigates the accuracy of these beliefs in a sample of 106 highly educated U.S. adults. Participants provided estimates of male and female performance for 12 cognitive tasks and games. These estimates were compared with published data on gender differences on the same 12 cognitive tasks and games. Results showed that participants were generally accurate about the direction of gender differences, but underestimated the size of gender differences.

Asks whether Is It Morally Bad to Prefer Attractive Partners; this poster, an ugly guy, although clearly disfavored by others because of this preference for beauty, thinks it is not morally bad that others prefer the cute ones (said with clear sadness :-( )

Is It Bad to Prefer Attractive Partners? William D’Alessandro. Forthcoming in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association. Archived Jan 17 2022, contents seem to be from 2018. https://philarchive.org/archive/DALIIB

1 The issue

In a variety of ways, our society favors attractive people and disfavors unattractive people. Social scientists have observed, for instance, that cuter children get more positive attention from their school teachers (Adams & Cohen 1974), that better-looking defendants are treated more leniently by the justice system (Mazzella & Feingold 1994), and that beautiful people are generally perceived as more honest, kind, competent and friendly (Jackson et al. 1995).

These forms of discrimination deserve to be discussed more widely and taken more seriously than they usually are. But treatments of “lookism” by philosophers have condemned most forms of the practice in unambiguous terms (cf. (Chambers forthcoming), (Davis 2007), (Mason 2021), (Minerva 2017). And rightly so: it’s easy to see that cuter kindergartners aren’t entitled to a better educational experience, that ugly convicts don’t deserve harsher punishments, and so on. 

Treating people differently in these ways for these reasons is bad, just as it would be morally unacceptable to favor white students or wealthy defendants.

There’s another type of lookist discrimination, however, that’s both extremely common and widelycondoned by people of all moral persuasions. The attitude I’m talking about is the preference for attractive sexual and romantic partners. Of course, it would be an understatement to say that we merely tolerate this type of discrimination. It’s not only acceptable but thoroughly normal, and in fact normative, in the sense that we expect people to prefer attractive partners and deviant preferences are often met with surprise and disapproval. This impression survives empirical scrutiny: as one researcher writes, “abundant evidence has been collected to show that people clearly prefer physically attractive potential partners over less attractive potential partners” (Greitemeyer 2010: 318).

Philosophers have yet to give this phenomenon much thought. This paper sets out do so, by trying to answer the question posed in the title: Is it morally bad to prefer attractive partners? Or is this a form of discrimination we should accept, and perhaps even promote?

I consider arguments for both views. In broad strokes, I think there’s at least one strong argument that preferring attractive partners is bad. The idea is that choosing partners based on looks seems essentially similar to other objectionable forms of discrimination. In particular, a case can be made that the preference for attractive partners is both unfair and harmful to a significant degree.

Early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US: The adverse mental health impact of risk perception and expected infection severity appeared to be much stronger for Republicans than Democrats

The interplay between partisanship, risk perception, and mental distress during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Soyoung Kwon. Psychology, Health & Medicine, Jan 20 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2022.2029916 

Abstract: COVID-19 is a profoundly partisan issue in the U.S., with increasing polarization of the Republicans’ and Democrats’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their precautionary actions to reduce virus transmission. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether and how partisan gaps in many aspects of the pandemic are linked to mental health, which has increasingly been a major concern. This study examined the association between political partisanship and mental health by assessing the mediating and moderating relationships between risk perception, expected infection severity of COVID-19, and partisanship in terms of mental health during the early stages of the pandemic. The data were drawn from a cross-sectional web survey conducted between March 20 and 30, 2020, with a sample of U.S. adults (N = 4,327). Of those participants, 38.9% and 29.6% were Democrats and Republicans, respectively. The results indicate that Democrats were more likely to experience COVID-induced mental distress than Republicans, and higher risk perception and expected infection severity were associated with mental distress. Furthermore, risk perception and expected infection severity of COVID-19 mediated approximately 24%–34% of the associations between political partisanship and mental distress. Finally, the adverse mental health impact of risk perception and expected infection severity appeared to be much stronger for Republicans than Democrats. The findings suggest that political partisanship is a key factor to understanding mental health consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S.

Keywords: Partisanshipmental distresspandemicrisk perception

Across all model specifications, high-income individuals were more likely to donate their money and volunteer their time than low-income individuals; were more likely to engage in prosocial behavior under high (vs. low) income inequality

The Link Between Income, Income Inequality, and Prosocial Behavior Around the World - A Multiverse Approach. Lucía Macchia and Ashley V. Whillans. Social Psychology Vol. 52, No. 6, January 10, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000466

Abstract. The questions of whether high-income individuals are more prosocial than low-income individuals and whether income inequality moderates this effect have received extensive attention. We shed new light on this topic by analyzing a large-scale dataset with a representative sample of respondents from 133 countries (N = 948,837). We conduct a multiverse analysis with 30 statistical models: 15 models predicting the likelihood of donating money to charity and 15 models predicting the likelihood of volunteering time to an organization. Across all model specifications, high-income individuals were more likely to donate their money and volunteer their time than low-income individuals. High-income individuals were more likely to engage in prosocial behavior under high (vs. low) income inequality. Avenues for future research and potential mechanisms are discussed.

Check also Does economic inequality moderate the effect of class on prosocial behavior? A large-scale test of a recent hypothesis by Côté et al. Hagen von Hermanni, Andreas Tutic. PLOS, August 9, 2019. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/08/cote-et-al-argue-that-societies-with.html

Almost half of the participants had felt pressured to orgasm; most common action in response was to fake the orgasm

Orgasm Coercion: Overlaps Between Pressuring Someone to Orgasm and Sexual Coercion. Sara B. Chadwick & Sari M. van Anders. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Jan 20 2022. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-021-02156-9

Abstract: Trying to ensure that a partner orgasms during sex is generally seen as positive, but research has yet to assess how this might involve pressuring partners to orgasm in coercive ways. In the present study, we tested whether pressuring a partner to orgasm is a coercive behavior by assessing how this behavior overlaps with sexual coercion (i.e., pressuring someone into having sex). Participants of diverse gender/sex and sexual identities (N = 912, M age = 31.31 years, SD = 9.41) completed an online survey that asked them whether they had ever felt pressured by a partner to orgasm, to describe what partners have said or done to pressure them, and to answer a series of questions about the most recent incident in which this occurred. Mixed quantitative and qualitative results showed that orgasm pressure tactics were analogous to sexual coercion tactics and that being pressured to orgasm was associated with experiencing sexual coercion, faking orgasms, and negative psychological and relationship outcomes. Together, findings challenge the assumption that trying to ensure a partner’s orgasm occurrence is necessarily positive and demonstrate that orgasm coercion exists.

Relationship satisfaction is but one factor that contributes to whether a couple stays together or separates; other factors include investment, perception of alternatives, and commitment

Development of Relationship Satisfaction Across the Life Span: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Janina Larissa Bühler email the author, Samantha Krauss, Ulrich Orth. Psychological Bulletin, 147(10), 1012-1053, Jan 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000342

Abstract: Previous research has not led to any agreement as to the normative trajectory of relationship satisfaction. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we summarize the available evidence on development of relationship satisfaction, as a function of age and relationship duration. Data came from 165 independent samples including 165,039 participants. In the analyses, we examined cross-sectional information on mean level, that is, the percent-of-maximum-possible (POMP) score at the first assessment, and longitudinal information on mean change (i.e., change in POMP scores per year). The mean age associated with effect sizes ranged from 20 to 76 years and the mean relationship duration from 3 months to 46 years. Results on mean levels indicated that relationship satisfaction decreased from age 20 to 40, reached a low point at age 40, then increased until age 65, and plateaued in late adulthood. As regards the metric of relationship duration, relationship satisfaction decreased during the first 10 years of the relationship, reached a low point at 10 years, increased until 20 years, and then decreased again. Results on mean change indicated that relationship satisfaction decreased within a given relationship, with the largest declines in young adulthood and in the first years of a relationship. Moderator analyses suggested that presence of children and measure of relationship satisfaction explained variance in the mean level. Except for these two moderators, the pattern of findings held across characteristics such as birth cohort, sample type, country, ethnicity, gender, household shared with partner, marital status, relationship transitions, and dyadic data.

Public Significance Statement: This systematic review and meta-analysis provides a robust picture of normative development of relationship satisfaction across the life span, focusing on the role of age and relationship duration in describing this pattern. On average, results indicated both decreases and increases in relationship satisfaction across the life span, but trajectories differed systematically between the time metrics. Specifically, the findings showed a U-shaped trend for age and a more complex, dynamic pattern for relationship duration.

Keywords: relationship satisfaction, life-span development, longitudinal studies, meta-analysis

Is There a Reason to Worry?

The meta-analytic evidence on a decline in relationship satisfaction—particularly in young adulthood and in relationships with a duration of less than 10 years—raises the important question of whether there is reason to worry. Do couples unavoidably become less satisfied in their relationship over the years? And does declining relationship satisfaction automatically lead to relationship dissolution?

First, it is crucial to emphasize that the present findings show the average trajectory across a large number of individuals. Clearly, the development of relationship satisfaction is characterized by a large degree of interindividual (or between-couple) variability, as evident from many primary studies (e.g., Bühler et al., 2020; Mund et al., 2015). Research has identified a number of key individual differences that account for variability in relationship development and that may soften or aggravate the decline of relationship satisfaction (e.g., couple members’ personality; e.g., Karney & Bradbury, 1995; McNulty, 2016). Hence, individuals and couples may well deviate from the average trajectory of relationship satisfaction.

Second, although classic theories on romantic relationships considered declining relationship satisfaction as the major reason why couples separate (Gottman & Levenson, 1992; Lewis & Spanier, 1982), research has questioned this assumption. Instead, as described in the investment model (Rusbult, 1980, 1983), relationship satisfaction is but one factor that contributes to whether a couple stays together or separates. Other factors include investment, perception of alternatives, and commitment. Consequently, although relationship satisfaction may decrease—especially in young adulthood and at the beginning of the relationship—commitment may increase and bond the couple together.

Third, relationship satisfaction mainly declined from age 20 to 40 years and during the first 10 years of relationships but the absolute level of relationship satisfaction at the low points was still relatively high. Indeed, mean POMP scores never went below 77% (of the maximum possible), neither as a function of age nor as a function of relationship duration. Hence, even individuals with lower scores in relationship satisfaction were fairly satisfied with their romantic relationship. These findings might contribute to understanding why the association of relationship satisfaction and relationship stability is often much weaker than expected (Karney & Bradbury, 1995).

Relative to right-wing authoritarians, left-wing ones were lower in dogmatism & cognitive rigidity, & higher in negative emotionality; LWA powerfully predicts behavioral aggression and is strongly correlated with participation in political violence

Costello, T. H., Bowes, S. M., Stevens, S. T., Waldman, I. D., Tasimi, A., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2022). Clarifying the structure and nature of left-wing authoritarianism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 122(1), 135–170, Jan 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000341

Authoritarianism has been the subject of scientific inquiry for nearly a century, yet the vast majority of authoritarianism research has focused on right-wing authoritarianism. In the present studies, we investigate the nature, structure, and nomological network of left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), a construct famously known as “the Loch Ness Monster” of political psychology. We iteratively construct a measure and data-driven conceptualization of LWA across six samples (N = 7,258) and conduct quantitative tests of LWA’s relations with more than 60 authoritarianism-related variables. We find that LWA, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation reflect a shared constellation of personality traits, cognitive features, beliefs, and motivational values that might be considered the “heart” of authoritarianism. Relative to right-wing authoritarians, left-wing authoritarians were lower in dogmatism and cognitive rigidity, higher in negative emotionality, and expressed stronger support for a political system with substantial centralized state control. Our results also indicate that LWA powerfully predicts behavioral aggression and is strongly correlated with participation in political violence. We conclude that a movement away from exclusively right-wing conceptualizations of authoritarianism may be required to illuminate authoritarianism’s central features, conceptual breadth, and psychological appeal.

Dehumanization: trends, insights, and challenges

Dehumanization: trends, insights, and challenges. Nour S. Kteily, Alexander P. Landry. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, January 15 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.12.003

Highlights

To deny or overlook the humanity of others is to exclude them from one of the core category memberships that all people share. Still, research suggests that individuals engage in dehumanization surprisingly often, both in subtle ways and, in certain contexts, by blatantly associating other groups with ‘lower’ animals.

We review evidence highlighting the plethora of distinct ways in which we dehumanize, the consequences dehumanization imposes on its targets, and intervention efforts to alleviate dehumanization.

We provide a framework to think about different operationalizations of dehumanization and consider how researchers’ definitions of dehumanization may shape the conclusions they draw about key questions such as the association between dehumanization and violence.

We address a number of theoretical challenges to dehumanization research and lay out several important questions dehumanization researchers need to address in order to propel the field further forward.

Despite our many differences, one superordinate category we all belong to is ‘humans’. To strip away or overlook others’ humanity, then, is to mark them as ‘other’ and, typically, ‘less than’. We review growing evidence revealing how and why we subtly disregard the humanity of those around us. We then highlight new research suggesting that we continue to blatantly dehumanize certain groups, overtly likening them to animals, with important implications for intergroup hostility. We discuss advances in understanding the experience of being dehumanized and novel interventions to mitigate dehumanization, address the conceptual boundaries of dehumanization, and consider recent accounts challenging the importance of dehumanization and its role in intergroup violence. Finally, we present an agenda of outstanding questions to propel dehumanization research forward.

Keywords: dehumanizationmoralityprejudiceaggressionconflict

Concluding remarks

Dehumanization has attracted renewed and widespread interest amidst prominent examples of overtly dehumanizing rhetoric and rising hate crimesxii. We reviewed advances in research on subtle dehumanization, highlighting new conceptualizations ranging from the ways we visually process faces to our attributions of individuals’ psychological (versus physiological) needs. We also highlight the revived scholarly attention to blatant forms of dehumanization in which individuals openly liken some groups to lower animals, noting that such dehumanization may be more prevalent than previously assumed, and documenting its stronger association (versus subtle dehumanization) with hostile attitudes and behaviors. Additionally, we point to new work on the experience of being dehumanized and on intervention efforts that seek to reduce the prevalence of dehumanization. Despite its growth, dehumanization research has recently faced several important challenges, with scholars wondering whether certain conclusions may have been overstated and questioning the role of dehumanization in facilitating violence. We use these debates to advance a broader perspective on dehumanization, arguing that several of the critiques arrive at their conclusions on the basis of operationalizations of dehumanization that may not capture the breadth of the phenomenon. Still, these challenges place an onus on dehumanization researchers to better specify the contours of psychological processes underlying dehumanization and to clarify its causal contributions to violent conflict (see Outstanding questions). By rising to this challenge, dehumanization researchers will be better positioned to help address one of the most pressing issues of our time.

Outstanding questions

To what extent are the various measures of dehumanization inter-related? For example, how closely associated are the tendency to downplay a target’s capacity for agency and experience; the tendency to process a target’s face using featural (versus holistic) processing; and the tendency to consider a target group ‘savage’ or ‘unevolved’, like lower animals? Under what conditions are these associations stronger versus weaker? Can they be considered interchangeable measures of a singular underlying construct, or is it more useful to think of them as assessing distinct aspects of a multifaceted phenomenon?

Under what conditions are dehumanization and dislike more likely to converge versus diverge? Given that they appear to be less associated among children versus adults, how (and why) does the degree of convergence develop over time?

What is the full set of traits and qualities that comprise individuals’ concept of an ‘ideal human’? What comes spontaneously to mind when individuals are asked to define membership in the human category and to what extent are the relevant traits desirable versus undesirable? Which attributions carry particular weight in influencing perceptions of humanness?

What is the threshold at which falling short of the human ideal becomes meaningful and precisely how do the consequences of slipping away from the human ideal track with distance from it? Although this remains an (testable) empirical question, we posit that the consequences may not track linearly; there may be a particular ‘hump’ at the threshold at which the target is seen to cross from just within the category human (even if at its ‘lower limits’) to just outside it.

How does dehumanization contribute to violent aggression? Is this association causal? Does dehumanization precede violence, follow violence, or both? To what extent are the answers to these questions dependent on the type of dehumanization assessed? Experiments and longitudinal studies (perhaps leveraging natural language at scale) considering multiple forms of dehumanization and aggression would be ideal to address these questions.

Sexual satisfaction did not change significantly before retirement, but decreased afterards; women showed higher levels of sexual satisfaction as well as a more positive development of both pre- and post-retirement sexual satisfaction

Henning, Georg, Dikla Segel-Karaps, Marcus P. Björk, Pär Bjälkebring, and Anne I. Berg. 2022. “Retirement and Sexual Satisfaction.” PsyArXiv. January 21. doi:10.31234/osf.io/68r4w

Abstract: Although interest in sexuality in older age has increased over the last decades, few studies have focused on longitudinal change in sexual satisfaction around retirement age. In the present study, we studied change in sexual satisfaction across retirement in a sample of Swedish older adults with a partner. Our analyses were based on n = 759 participants (359 male, 400 female) from the Health, Aging, and Retirement Transitions in Sweden (HEARTS) study. The HEARTS study is an ongoing longitudinal study with annual measurements. For this study, we used five waves spanning over a period of four years. On average, sexual satisfaction did not change significantly before retirement, but decreased after retirement. Interestingly, women showed higher levels of sexual satisfaction (compared to men) as well as a more positive development of both pre- and post-retirement sexual satisfaction. Individuals with higher relationship satisfaction had a higher sexual satisfaction until retirement, but their sexual satisfaction also decreased faster after retirement whereas those with lower relationship satisfaction showed a stable but lower sexual satisfaction. In conclusion, the transition to retirement significantly impacts sexual satisfaction in several important ways, further studies on the impact of retirement and other late life stage transitions is warranted.