Gender differences in competitiveness, with men more willing to enter competitions than women, are larger in more gender egalitarian countries

When do we observe a gender gap in competition entry? A meta-analysis of the experimental literature. Eva Markowsky, Miriam Beblo. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 198, June 2022, Pages 139-163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.03.030

Abstract: This paper systematizes the experimental evidence on gender differences in competition preferences with a meta-analysis of 110 studies and 409 effect sizes on observed or residual gender gaps in experimental tournament entry. Our meta-summary confirms that, across all studies, men choose a tournament scheme 13 percentage points more often than women, which is only about a third of the gap found in Niederle and Vesterlund's (2007) seminal paper. Our meta-regression analysis reveals that larger gender differences are indeed prevalent in studies that most closely apply the Niederle-Vesterlund design, i.e., differences are largest in lab experiments with student subject pools and when math tasks are involved, but almost negligible for other age groups, verbal tasks, and in field-like environments. Experimental interventions such as information treatments or affirmative action measures prove very effective in reducing or even eliminating the gender gap. Although some measures of risk preferences and confidence are systematically related to the estimated residual gender gap in tournament entry, they do not eradicate competitiveness as a distinct trait. Finally, higher gender equality at the country level seems to go along with larger differences in women's and men's competition preferences.

Keywords: CompetitivenessGenderExperimentsMeta-analysis

JEL: J16 (Economics of Gender)D91 (Role and effects of psychologicalemotionalsocialand cognitive factors on decision making)C9 (Design of experiments)

1. Introduction

When Jane Fraser became CEO of Citigroup in February 2021, the number of female CEOs in the Fortune 500 increased to 37, resulting in a women's share of all top-level executives in the largest corporations in the United States of just over 7% (Ghosh 2021).1 This strikingly low number illustrates a common observation: Despite recent progress towards gender equality in the work place, women are still significantly underrepresented in leadership positions. The imbalance is not limited to private corporations but noticeable in the public sector as well, although to a somewhat lesser extent (DeHart-Davis et al. 2020; Cotroneo et al. 2021). In academia, similar patterns exist where women's representation diminishes throughout academic careers (e.g., European Commission 2019). To this day, in every sector of the labor market, climbing the career ladder to the very top seems to be much less likely for women than it is for men.

The idea that this gender imbalance may be driven by the work environment in high profile jobs, with high levels of competitive pressure, has garnered significant attention (e.g., Sandberg 2013, Bertrand 2011). A rather new branch of experimental literature in economics seems to confirm that women perform less well in highly competitive environments and that they are more inclined to avoid competition than men, who, in turn, tend to compete too much (Niederle 2017). We contribute to this field of research by systematizing the experimental evidence on gender differences in willingness to compete in a quantitative meta-analysis that assesses the size of the gap as well as its moderators.

The concept of competitiveness is commonly thought of as a trait comprising observable and unobservable latent components – among them risk and feedback aversion, (over)confidence, ability to perform under pressure and the willingness to enter a competition. Shurchkov & Eckel (2018: 488) argue that the latter represents a “revealed ‘preference for competition’”, making it an obvious choice for experimental investigations of competitiveness. Niederle & Vesterlund (2007) were the first to investigate these gender differences systematically in a laboratory experiment. In their seminal paper, university students perform a mathematical real-effort task twice, once under a piece-rate compensation and once in a winner-takes-all tournament in groups of four, where the winner is paid four times the piece rate per correctly solved problem and the other group members receive no payment. After these two performances, the authors let the subjects choose between piece rate and tournament compensation for the third round, to measure their competitive preferences, and find that women choose the tournament substantially less often than men. The gender gap persists even after controlling for risk aversion, confidence, and performance in a regression framework. In the following years, numerous experimental studies built on the Niederle-Vesterlund (NV) design and tested competitive preferences of women and men with different subject pools, different tasks, under different rules, and in different experimental settings. In doing so, researchers created many of what Hamermesh (2007) classifies as “scientific replications” – tests of an initial finding with different data and methods.

Reviews of this body of literature agree that, as a whole, these ”replication” efforts confirm women to be less willing to enter competitions than men, while emphasizing that the magnitude of the gap depends on the context and other, potentially unobserved, covariates. Among the two most recent and comprehensive, Niederle (2015) underlines the importance of beliefs, risk attitudes, other-regarding preferences, and the experimental task as possible confounding factors in measurements of the gender gap in competition entry. She names a number of other factors that may contribute to the gender gap: hormones, age, socioeconomic status, Big Five personality traits, priming, and culture. Finally, Niederle sees affirmative action and same-sex competition as possible interventions that may induce women to compete at similar levels as men. The review by Shurchkov & Eckel (2018: 10–13) adds stereotyping (though related to beliefs) and subject-pool differences to the list of factors potentially explaining the gender gap in competitiveness and contrast these with moderators that presumably reduce the gap: same-sex tournaments, competition in teams, magnitude of the prize, affirmative action, information/feedback/advice, “priming with ‘professionalism’”, or less time pressure.

In this paper, we complement the qualitative reviews with a systematic quantitative assessment of existing experimental studies on the gender gap in willingness to compete. Given the large number of studies on the subject, a meta-analysis can provide valuable insights where qualitative reviews, however thoroughly conducted, have their limitations. A meta-analysis can pin down an exact effect size and quantify the relative importance of moderators and interventions. While the results of our meta-analysis do not contest the central findings of the existing reviews, we believe that a quantitative analysis helps painting a fuller picture. In particular, we show under which conditions a gender gap in tournament entry emerges and we contribute to the current debate on distinct preference traits and the influence of overall gender equality on the gender gap in willingness to compete. Our analysis informs future research and policy makers aiming to design environments where women feel safe to compete.

The contribution of our paper is hence threefold: First, we summarize all experimental studies on the subject and present standardized effect sizes and their statistical qualities. Our meta-analysis comprises 110 experimental studies on gender differences in the willingness to compete and thereby twice as many as the most comprehensive qualitative review by Shurchkov & Eckel (2018) which reports on 58 papers, including investigations of competitive performance. We systematize the circumstances under which gender gaps in competition entry emerge in these studies by departing from very close NV replications and differentiating between study moderators and intervention moderators when enlarging the sample by more diverting variants of the original experimental design. We investigate the effectiveness of different intervention types aimed at higher competition rates of women. Our results confirm the great importance of the subject-pool and the nature of the experimental task in shaping the gender gap in tournament entry. They also highlight feedback, information, and affirmative action as the most efficient tools for reducing it.

Secondly, we exploit the meta-perspective to study how the measured competition gender gap changes when related traits are considered in a regression framework. This part of our analysis complements the recent debate about competitiveness as a distinct trait. Gillen et al. (2019) point out that experimental elicitations of the gender gap might be subject to bias resulting from erroneous measurement of the related factors risk preferences and overconfidence. The argument is that once measurement error in risk taking and confidence is minimized, both factors explain the majority of the gender gap in competition entry, leaving little room for a separate trait competitiveness.2 The authors show that one feasible way of reducing measurement error is to elicit and include multiple measures of risk and confidence. We build on this discussion and exploit heterogeneity across studies when determining the residual gender gap in tournament entry by different measures and controls for risk and confidence. Our analysis shows that controlling for risk can indeed lower the gender gap in competition entry. However, across the studies in our data set, we do not find evidence that including measures of risk (or confidence) reduces the residual gap systematically towards zero or renders it insignificant.

Thirdly, we contribute to the discussion on the influence of the cultural environment on gendered preferences. Our meta-data set of experimental competition studies conducted in 30 different countries and over a decade enables us to compare gender gaps in tournament entry relative to these countries’ respective state of gender equality. By complementing our data set with an indicator of gender equality, we show that competition gender gaps are larger in countries with higher levels of equal opportunity and parity between women and men.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows: Section 2 introduces our data set of experimental studies as well as the relevant effect sizes, i.e., measures of gender gaps in competition entry, and the different types of explanatory factors (moderators) included in the meta-analysis. Section 3 uses meta-analytical tools to quantify the reported competition gap, including formal tests for the presence of a potential publication bias in this body of literature. Section 4 applies meta-regression analysis to explain the heterogeneity in the literature and to answer the questions on effective interventions, correlations with risk preferences and overconfidence, and the cultural environment raised above. In Section 5 we conclude.

Women derive more happiness and life satisfaction from meaningful experiences than men whereas men derive more happiness and satisfaction with life from pleasurable experiences than women

Experiences and happiness: The role of gender. J. Joško Brakus, Weifeng Chen, Bernd Schmitt, Lia Zarantonello. Psychology & Marketing, May 27 2022. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21677

Abstract> It is well established that experiences make people happy, but we still know little about how individual differences affect the relationship between consumption of experiences and happiness. This study focuses on gender as the predictor of happiness and addresses the following question: Do women and men differ in the way they attain happiness from consumption of experiences? Considering that research shows that women and men differ in how they process information, it is possible that they differ in how much they reflect on an experience too. Therefore, this study also investigates how the relationship between consumption of experiences and gender is moderated by Need for Cognition (NFC) in affecting subjective happiness. The results of a survey of adult consumers show than women derive more happiness and life satisfaction from meaningful experiences than men whereas men derive more happiness and satisfaction with life from pleasurable experiences than women. NFC moderates these results. The study provides evidence for the distinction between pleasure and meaning in consumption contexts and for the important role of gender in consumption of experiences. Its results imply that design and structuring of commercial experiences should take customer gender into account.

4 GENERAL DISCUSSION

4.1 Theoretical implications

The empirical study and structural analysis strongly support the offered conceptualization on the important role of gender in consumption of experiences affecting consumer happiness. Men seem to derive more happiness and satisfaction with life from pleasurable experiences than women, while women derive more happiness and satisfaction with life from personally fulfilling (or meaningful) experiences than men.

Our results thus support the notion that pleasure and meaning are separate dimensions that matter greatly when consumers assess how happy and satisfied they are with life as part of a variety of consumed experiences. This study finds that personal fulfilment (or meaning) as an experience evoked by consumption directly and positively affects subjective happiness and life satisfaction. However, while pleasure also directly affects life satisfaction, it does not influence immediate subjective happiness. It is possible that the evoked pleasure may be detrimental to subjective happiness because consumption for pleasure may be seen as frivolous, resulting in guilt (Boujbel & d'Astous, 2015; Lascu, 1991). In our sample of Western consumers, this effect holds not only for women, but also for men. In Western, gender-equal societies consuming for pleasure may generally trigger negative materialistic stereotypes (Kilbourne & LaForge, 2010), and therefore attenuate the positive effect of pleasure on subjective happiness.

However, when consumers change the time perspective and assess their life satisfaction—rather than the immediate post-consumption happiness—they seem to see the positive role that pleasure has for their life satisfaction. The shift in the perspective may enable them to think in more abstract terms (Trope & Liberman, 2010), and to think positively about the role pleasure has in their lives.

As predicted, NFC moderates the impact of pleasure and meaning on subjective happiness differently for men and women. Men who have high NFC and who therefore structure and meaningfully reason about the situations in which they find themselves can derive more happiness from meaningful consumption than men who have low NFC. Analogously, women who have high NFC get less happiness from pleasurable consumption than women who have low NFC. These results empirically confirm the speculations made by Meyers-Levy and Loken (2015) about the NFC as a key predictor of gender-specific information processing strategies.

Perceived relative income positively affects short-term happiness, but not life satisfaction. Again, this result may be a consequence of the shift from a short- to a long-term assessment (see above) and may explain the inconsistencies in the existing research on income and happiness. When one thinks abstractly, life seems to be not only about money. Also, what matters in the relation between perceived relative income and happiness is not the absolute amount of money one makes, but the relative or subjective amount (i.e., as perceived in comparison to others).

Does “nature” or “nurture” explain the relationship between gender and happiness? When it comes to any gender differences, there are always two “end-point” explanations on a continuum of possible explanations: they may be evolutionarily determined (i.e., innate) or they may be socio-culturally determined. So, do women seek happiness and life satisfaction from meaningful experiences more than men, and do men seek happiness and life satisfaction from pleasurable experiences more than women because this is just a reflection of intrinsic predispositions or are these examples of “learned” gendered behaviors?

A possible explanation for the observed differences is that these they are a result of socialization. Social structures, institutions, and the different societal roles that women and men have traditionally held contribute to differences in behavior of the two genders. To a large extent, how women and men regard themselves has been shaped by cognitions attained in childhood and marked by then-current socio-culturally constructed exemplary “female” and “male” behaviors (Bem, 1974). Consequently, it is possible women caring on average more about personal fulfillment than men, and men more about pleasure than women, are examples of such “nurtured” behaviors.

In contrast to sociocultural explanations of consumer behavior, evolutionary theory (“nature”) suggests that if a specific behavior is stable across societies, it is probably evolutionarily determined (Tooby & Cosmides, 2005). Applied to the current study, if we were to find out that meaning and pleasure have a differential impact on female and male happiness and life satisfaction, and this distinction is stable across different cultures, it would be more probable that such differences were innate rather than socio-culturally constructed. We do not have cross-cultural data, however, to test this proposition. Still, and notwithstanding that our hypothesis linking pleasure and subjective happiness for the two genders (H4a) was not supported, some secondary evidence shows that the differential influences of meaning and of pleasure on happiness and life satisfaction of the two genders are more likely to be socio-culturally constructed than innate. We offer three reasons for this conjecture.

First, in contemporary Western societies, professional women still must negotiate their lives between their professional and family roles (Stevenson & Wolfers, 2009). Professional working mothers engage in the culturally prominent lifestyle known as “juggling” (Thompson, 1996). Because of juggling (and the lack of “me” time), consumed experiences hold specific meanings for working women. Jugglers “have been socialized in a common system of conflicting cultural ideals, beliefs, and gender ideologies” in a search for “meanings that arise in relation to [their] salient life concerns and their sense of personal history” (Thompson, 1996, p. 388). If this is the case, it could be that women, on average, prioritize personal fulfilment (i.e., meaning) more than men when consuming experiences. It could also be the case that daughters acquire this inclination from their mothers in childhood. Note that the gender differences in few aspects of psychological well-being that Roothman et al. (2003) observe are also in line with gender stereotypes and traditional socialization practices. Moreover, judging by the weak relation of pleasure and happiness for both genders in our sample, it could be the case than men in contemporary, increasingly gender equal Western societies are also socio-culturally conditioned to “neglect” pleasure. This conjecture is consistent with Eagly and Wood's (1999) convergence hypothesis. Applied to happiness and well-being, this predicts that men and women should become more similar in what makes them happy and increases their life satisfaction as traditional gender-based divisions in wage labor and domestic labor disappear. Contemporary Western men, like contemporary Western women, increasingly suffer from “juggling” lifestyle and an inability to “stop and smell the roses.”

Second, according to Baumeister et al. (2013), pleasure—as a balance of affect between pleasure and pain—is rooted in nature, whereas meaning is cultural. Evaluating the meaningfulness of an experience requires consumers to interpret culturally transmitted symbols to be able to assess the experience in relation to values and other meanings that also are learned from the culture (Baumeister et al., 2013).

Finally, our results echo the findings of Dennis et al. (2018) who studied gendered shopping styles. Note that shopping is an experience that our respondents listed (see Table 2). Dennis et al. show that women, when they shop, like the company of fellow shoppers and enjoy shopping as a social experience. Men, however, shop quickly. They prefer to shop alone because that makes shopping efficient and gets the job done. Importantly, women in our sample, in contrast to men, are more likely to recall communal than solitary experiences.

4.2 Managerial implications

The results of the present study are managerially relevant because they offer clues for creation and structuring of commercial experiences that would appeal to both genders. Consistent with the results of the present study, we argue that, to make customers happy, companies must be able to deliver predominantly meaningful experiences. Considering that women and men represent two very large segments, many companies cannot pick and choose between the two segments because this would mean a considerable loss of revenue. When they market an experience, companies must make sure that they offer cues and specific services that trigger personal fulfillment on their own. At the same time, it would be a good idea if companies also engage consumers' creativity and a sense of escapism to help consumers avoid overthinking the experience enabling them to momentarily “get lost” in it. To be sure, companies do these things. So, for every “chillaxing,” pleasurable moment of lounging at the pool or drinking champagne or eating delicacies at an opulent buffet, cruise companies, for example, also offer yoga, “self-discovery” meditation, unforgettable sunsets, and opportunities for self-growth by visiting historic sights and learning about them. In a way, the goal of companies is to make the experience they offer extraordinary. This recommendation is also consistent with the finding that what makes an experience extraordinary is its meaningfulness (Bhattacharjee & Mogilner, 2014).

Ads that promote experiences often utilize the idea that experiences give meaning and pleasure to customers. Going back to the cruise example, the imagery used in cruise ads shows small, pleasurable (consumption) moments (e.g., sunbathing, swimming in a massive pool, closeups of flowing champagne), but it often makes a point that cruise customers are also going through a meaningful, even transformative experience. Hence, sunsets on cruise ships are always enjoyed with a romantic partner, dancing classes taken during the cruise always make people younger, yoga classes make them forget about everyday responsibilities, and trips are always best enjoyed with children (if the ad is targeted at families). All these moments can be interpreted as personally fulfilling and meaningful.

Note that commercial experiences inevitably involve brands. A commercial experience that is meaningful and pleasurable may associatively boost meaning and pleasure of the brands that are part of the experience, increasing the overall brand happiness. Brand happiness, in turn, will positively affect brand-rated outcomes (e.g., repurchase intentions, willingness to pay premium, and spread word-of-mouth) (Schnebelen & Bruhn, 2018).

Finally, our results hint at the possibility that consumption of experiences, including brands in the experiences, may have a positive effect on consumers' long-term well-being, a finding echoed by Schmitt et al. (2015).

4.3 Future research

While the results of this study largely confirm the predictions about how consumption of experiences influences the pleasure and the personal fulfillment of female and male consumers, future research should further explore the reasons as to why women and men pursue happiness differently. For example, in their study of how individuals pursue happiness in general, Tkach and Lyubomirsky (2006) show that women typically boost their happiness by engaging in activities that require social interaction—maintaining relationships, helping others, going to movies with others, engaging in religious activities—and by pursuing career goals, attempting to reach full potential, or organizing life. Men, however, report that they are more likely to seek happiness though solitary activities such as working on hobbies, exercising, going to movies alone, and being absorbed in tasks that they enjoy doing. These findings are not only consistent with the evidence showing that women typically adopt an interdependent self–view whereas men adopt and an independent self-view (Lin & Raghubir, 2005), they are also consistent with our results. It could be the case that the happiness-pursuing activities that Tkach and Lyubomirsky (2006) identify as male-specific are more pleasurable whereas those that are female-specific are more meaningful. Future research should investigate if this is the case.

Future research should also look more closely at how NFC influences the pursuit of happiness of male consumers. This study did not predict that NFC would affect the relation between pleasure and happiness for men. Yet, when their NFC is high, men realize that pleasure matters for their in-the-moment happiness. Interestingly, NFC is positively correlated with masculine sex-role attitudes, perhaps because of the stereotype of men being rational (Osberg, 1987). At the same time, low NFC men seem to be more sensitive to hedonic information than high NFC men. It could be that a type of licensing effect operates here (Fitzsimons et al., 2007)—men's willingness to elaborate more about what makes them happy may give them a license to acknowledge that they care about pleasure. Therefore, men may not admit explicitly that pleasure equals happiness, but it is the men with high NFC who admit this more readily than men with low NFC. This result could be also context-specific—high NFC men admit the importance of pleasure in their pursuit of happiness because seeking happiness is a positive endeavor, unlike the prototypical “vice” behaviors that Fitzsimons et al. (2007) studied. More research is needed to resolve this issue.

In studying how gender influences consumption, researchers have drawn on Judith Butler's (1990) conceptualization that gender is something performed rather than possessed as an innate quality. In that sense, the fact that women care relatively more about personal fulfillment and men relatively more about pleasure in their respective pursuits of happiness could reflect the myths of femininity—women are self-sacrificing, modest, passive (Goulding & Saren, 2009)—, which perpetuate the socio-culturally constructed patriarchal order and which, in turn, could affect gendered happiness-pursuing strategies. On the other hand, women and men could be evolutionarily predisposed to seek happiness in different ways. To address this possibility, future research should attempt to replicate this study in different cultures and see if the results are consistent across the cultures.

When considering a possible influence of consumer age on the relationship between gender and happiness, our sample, due to its size and composition, cannot do justice to this question. Older people associate happiness with peacefulness, whereas younger people associate it with excitement (Mogilner et al., 2011). Could it be that peacefulness is related to meaning and excitement to pleasure? Future research can resolve this conundrum.

Finally, future research should shed more light on how income, subjective as well as objective, further moderates the relationship between gender and happiness. Van Boven. and Gilovich (2003) offer some preliminary evidence demonstrating that (objectively) richer people get more happiness from experiential purchases than from material purchases. Following up on our theory, it could be that women, still more than men, focus on meaning in their pursuit of happiness because they are more likely to economize between different consumption domains neglecting “frivolous” pleasure. Hence, it could be that a lack of material resources makes all consumers more women-like, conditioning them to look for meaning while avoiding “unnecessary” material pleasures. It could also be the case that more expensive experiences are more meaningful.

In conclusion, future consumer research should continue to treat happiness as being triggered in two different ways, as it was done here. This will provide a more nuanced picture of consumer happiness compared to the more general psychological research conducted before.

Following George Floyd's death, arrests and police-initiated calls decreased by 62 and 69 percent, respectively; lower-level “quality of life” arrests decreased by 72.7pct

Mikdash, Maya, and Reem Zaiour. 2022. "Does (All) Police Violence Cause De-policing? Evidence from George Floyd and Police Shootings in Minneapolis." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 112: 170-73.

Abstract: We test for a "Ferguson Effect" by studying how police effort responds to different incidents of police violence. We do so using two settings in Minneapolis: (1) George Floyd's murder, and (2) police-involved shootings. We find that following George Floyd's death, arrests and police-initiated calls decreased by 62 and 69 percent, respectively. By comparison, arrests and police-initiated calls decreased by 3 and 1.5 percent following police-involved shootings. We conclude that incidents of police violence generate "de-policing," and the effect is much larger following highly publicized incidents.

...

Using a time regression discontinuity design, we estimate a 72.7 percent decrease in lower-level “quality of life” arrests

Rolf Degen summarizing... Long after memories have been consolidated, the hippocampus acts as a librarian in the brain, picking up the traces of the past from their storage places

Inquiring the librarian about the location of memory. Gabriel Berdugo-Vega &Johannes Graeff. Cognitive Neuroscience, May 26 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/17588928.2022.2076075

Abstract: Where memories are stored in the brain is an age-old question in psychology and neuroscience alike. In particular, whether hippocampus-encoded memories are transferred to the cortex or remain hippocampus-dependent over time has not been definitely answered. New evidence from fMRI studies in humans suggest that while hippocampo-cortical connections lose weight during declarative memory consolidation, the hippocampus – alongside corticocortical connections – stays equally engaged between recent and remote memory recall. These findings lend experimental support for the indexing theory of memory consolidation, which postulates the hippocampus to act as a librarian to retrieve the cortical books of memory.

Keywords: MemoryConsolidationIndexingfMRIHippocampus

Common pathway models support strong heritability for the five moral foundations

Testing heritability of moral foundations: Common pathway models support strong heritability for the five moral foundations. Michael Zakharin, Timothy C Bates. European Journal of Personality, May 26, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070221103957

Abstract: Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) predicts that moral behaviour reflects at least five foundational traits, each hypothesised to be heritable. Here, we report two independent twin studies (total n = 2020), using multivariate multi-group common pathway models to test the following three predictions from the MFT: (1) The moral foundations will show significant heritability; (2) The moral foundations will each be genetically distinct and (3) The clustering of moral concerns around individualising and binding domains will show significant heritability. Supporting predictions 1 and 3, Study 1 showed evidence for significant heritability of two broad moral factors corresponding to individualising and binding domains. In Study 2, we added the second dataset, testing replication of the Study 1 model in a joint approach. This further corroborated evidence for heritable influence, showed strong influences on the individualising and binding domains (h2 = 49% and 66%, respectively) and, partially supporting prediction 2, showed foundation-specific, heritable influences on Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity and Purity/Sanctity foundations. A general morality factor was required, also showing substantial genetic effects (40%). These findings indicate that moral foundations have significant genetic bases. These influenced the individual foundations themselves as well as a general concern for the individual, for the group, and overall moral concern.

Keywords: morality, moral foundations, Haidt, twin study, heritability

Does Muting Notifications Reduce Phone Use? Data suggest that users tend to pick up their phones and check for messages more often when it is in silent mode than when it is on audio-alert or vibrate modes.

Sound of silence: Does Muting Notifications Reduce Phone Use? Mengqi Liao, S. Shyam Sundar. Computers in Human Behavior, May 26 2022, 107338, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107338

Highlights

• Silencing mobile phones (no sound or vibrations) predicts more mobile phone use and phone-checking behaviors in general.

• Users with high FoMO will use their mobile phone significantly more when it is in silent mode.

• Users with higher NtB will use their mobile phone significantly more when it is muted.

Abstract: Smartphone users often feel disturbed by the constant rings and buzzes coming from their phones. As a solution, many try to silence notifications to avoid distractions. But, will silencing notifications help users feel less distracted or more preoccupied with what they will be missing out? To answer this question, we drew upon the Uses & Gratifications (U&G) approach in the field of communication and conducted a study of objective behavioral data collected from the Screen Time tool of 138 iPhone users. Data suggest that users tend to pick up their phones and check for messages more often when it is in silent mode than when it is on audio-alert or vibrate modes. This tendency is especially true for individuals who have high Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) and Need to Belong (NtB). Silencing notifications for them appears to be more, rather than less, psychologically distressing. Our findings offer new insights into understanding the relationship between notifications and mobile phone usage, especially how the sound and vibration cues of notifications assuage users’ uncertainty and fulfil their informational, social and environmental surveillance gratifications. Results also suggest that many current solutions for mobile phone overuse, like the “Do not disturb” function, may be counter-productive.

Keywords: Fear of missing outMobile phone useNeed to belongNotificationsScreen time

More nails in the monogamy coffin: Offspring in stable, monogamous gibbon families have an extra-group father in 40pct of cases; the breeding system of crested gibbons is more flexible than previously thought (understatement of the week)

Disassociation of social and sexual partner relationships in a gibbon population with stable one-male two-female groups. Xia Huang et al. American Journal of Primatology, May 25 2022. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.23394

Abstract: Adult males living in a one-male multi-female social group are expected to try to monopolize copulations with resident females to increase reproductive fitness. Gibbons have traditionally been described as living in monogamous groups, with the sole resident adult male assumed to sire all of the group's offspring. Here, we used microsatellite analyses and behavioral observations to examine rates of extra-group paternity (EGP) over 16 years in a population of crested gibbons (Nomascus concolor) that form stable and long-term one-male two-female social units. Forty percent of offspring (N = 14) were sired by extra-group males. To understand this high level of EGP, we tested whether inbreeding avoidance was related to EGP. Females who engaged in EGP did not show larger pairwise relatedness with their resident male compared to females who did not engage in EGP. Nevertheless, the standardized heterozygosity of EGP offspring was significantly higher than for offspring sired by the group's resident male. These results provide partial support for the inbreeding avoidance hypothesis. It appears that resident male crested gibbons are unable to monopolize resident females' matings. Our results indicate that long-term social partners are often distinct from sexual partners in this population. Clearly, the breeding system of crested gibbons is more flexible than previously thought, indicating a need for integrating long-term behavioral data and genetic research to re-evaluate gibbon social and sexual relationships derived from concepts of monogamy and pair-bonding.

Highlights

First study of reproductive strategies in a gibbon population with stable one-male two-female groups.

Confirmed unexpectedly high rate of extra-group paternity.

Females engaged in extra-group paternity to increase offspring heterozygosity.

High flexibility in gibbon breeding systems.

Female–male mounting in Japanese macaques: Some males may utilize FMM in a quest for their own sexual stimulation, which sometimes culminated in masturbation by the male

When males have females on their backs: Male's tolerance, solicitation, and use of female–male mounting in Japanese macaques. Noëlle Gunst, Jean-Baptiste Leca, Paul L. Vasey. American Journal of Primatology, May 25 2022. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.23395

Abstract: Previous research on Japanese macaques has shown that female-to-male mounting (FMM) is performed by some females as an exaggerated form of sexual solicitation that may occur in the context of high female competition for male mates. This supernormal courtship behavior functions to prompt subsequent male-to-female mounting. In this report, we focused on the male consort partners' responses to FMM. We studied a free-ranging population of Japanese macaques at Arashiyama, Japan, in which FMM is frequent and prevalent. We analyzed 240 consortships involving 31 females and 19 males. We tested three hypotheses regarding male's tolerance, solicitation, and use of FMM. First, we found that FMM was tolerated by male mountees who were no more likely to aggress their female partners during a short time window around a FMM than they were during the rest of the consortship period. Second, we showed that FMM could be triggered by male recipients, via explicit male-to-female sexual solicitations. Third, we found that some males may utilize FMM in a quest for their own sexual stimulation, which sometimes culminated in masturbation by the male during FMM. Our findings indicate that male partners facilitate the expression of FMM both passively (via their tolerance) and actively (via their solicitation). In addition, FMM appears to enhance the sexual arousal of male partners during consortships. We argued that, for females to have expanded their repertoire of sexual solicitations by adopting FMM, male mates must have played a role in the evolutionary origins and maintenance of this nonconceptive but intense and powerful female mating tactic.

Research Highlights

Previous research in Japanese macaques has shown that female-to-male mounting (FMM) is a supernormal courtship behavior that functions to prompt subsequent male-to-female mounting.

As mounting is a male-typical behavior, we studied male consort partners' responses towards FMM in a free-ranging population of Japanese macaques in which this behavior is particularly frequent and prevalent.

By tolerating and triggering the performance of FMM in their female mates, males may have passively and actively contributed to the evolution and maintenance of this sexual adaptation, while deriving sexual gratification from this behavior.

Compared with gay and heterosexual men, asexual men demonstrated lower genital and subjective sexual arousal to the erotic films but displayed similar sexual arousal when engaging in sexual fantasy

Patterns of Genital and Subjective Sexual Arousal in Cisgender Asexual Men. Malvina N. Skorska et al. The Journal of Sex Research, May 24 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2022.2071411

Abstract: Human asexuality has been defined as a lack of sexual attraction to others, although its nature is not well understood. Asexual men’s genital and subjective sexual arousal patterns were compared to sexual men’s to better understand asexual men’s sexual response patterns. Using a penile plethysmograph to measure genital arousal, 20 asexual, 27 heterosexual, and 22 gay cisgender men (M age = 28.28, SD = 9.41) viewed erotic films depicting sexual activity or masturbation, and a subsample engaged in sexual fantasy of their choosing. Questionnaires assessing sexual function and behavior were also completed. Asexual men scored lower on sexual desire and orgasmic function, higher on sexual aversion, and did not differ on overall sexual satisfaction. Compared with gay and heterosexual men, asexual men demonstrated lower genital and subjective sexual arousal to the erotic films but displayed similar sexual arousal when engaging in sexual fantasy. Asexual men’s lower levels of sexual excitation rather than their higher levels of sexual inhibition were associated with lower responses to the erotic films. These findings suggest asexual men have preferred sexual stimuli that differ from sexual men and have a similar capacity for sexual arousal as sexual men. Collectively these findings add to a growing literature aiming to understand the nature of asexuality.

Why Is Greater Income Inequality Associated with Lower Life Satisfaction and Poorer Health? Evidence from the European Quality of Life Survey, 2012

Nettle, Daniel, and Thomas E. Dickins. 2022. “Why Is Greater Income Inequality Associated with Lower Life Satisfaction and Poorer Health? Evidence from the European Quality of Life Survey, 2012.” PsyArXiv. May 19. doi:10.31234/osf.io/9gq5e

Abstract

Background. Across countries and states, greater income inequality is associated with lower wellbeing. There are multiple causal pathways that could produce such an association. If the relationship of individual income to wellbeing is downward concave, greater dispersion of the income distribution must reduce average wellbeing. More unequal countries may also provide their residents with worse public services and amenities. Finally, increasing inequality may have direct psychosocial effects by heightening competitiveness and social anxiety.

Objectives. Using data from the European Quality of Life Survey 2012, we evaluated the contributions of different causal pathways to associations between income inequality and (a) life satisfaction and (b) self-rated health.

Methods. Secondary analysis of 27,571 respondents from 28 countries.

Results. In unadjusted analyses, greater income inequality was associated with lower life satisfaction and poorer self-rated health. Of the association between inequality and life satisfaction, 43% was attributable to individual income effects, and 41% to worse public services (especially access to healthcare), leaving 16% possibly due to direct psychosocial effects. The association between income inequality and self-rated health was mainly (68%) due to individual income effects, with the remainder possibly attributable to psychosocial effects. For life satisfaction, we found some evidence of costs of inequality that fall on those with high incomes, though this was not the case for self-rated health.

Conclusion. The negative associations between income inequality and wellbeing across European countries are in substantial part due to individual income effects. For life satisfaction, a further portion is attributable to worse public services. For life satisfaction but not self-rated health, income inequality has some negative consequences for those on high incomes as well as low incomes.

Whole-brain dynamics differentiate among cisgender and transgender individuals

Whole-brain dynamics differentiate among cisgender and transgender individuals. Carme Uribe et al. Human Brain Mapping, Apr 28 2022. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.25905

Abstract: How the brain represents gender identity is largely unknown, but some neural differences have recently been discovered. We used an intrinsic ignition framework to investigate whether there are gender differences in the propagation of neural activity across the whole-brain and within resting-state networks. Studying 29 trans men and 17 trans women with gender incongruence, 22 cis women, and 19 cis men, we computed the capability of a given brain area in space to propagate activity to other areas (mean-ignition), and the variability across time for each brain area (node-metastability). We found that both measurements differentiated all groups across the whole brain. At the network level, we found that compared to the other groups, cis men showed higher mean-ignition of the dorsal attention network and node-metastability of the dorsal and ventral attention, executive control, and temporal parietal networks. We also found higher mean-ignition values in cis men than in cis women within the executive control network, but higher mean-ignition in cis women than cis men and trans men for the default mode. Node-metastability was higher in cis men than cis women in the somatomotor network, while both mean-ignition and node-metastability were higher for cis men than trans men in the limbic network. Finally, we computed correlations between these measurements and a body image satisfaction score. Trans men's dissatisfaction as well as cis men's and cis women's satisfaction toward their own body image were distinctively associated with specific networks in each group. Overall, the study of the whole-brain network dynamical complexity discriminates gender identity groups, functional dynamic approaches could help disentangle the complex nature of the gender dimension in the brain.

4 DISCUSSION

For the first time, we characterize the spatiotemporal whole-brain dynamics of cisgender and transgender binary groups. Our findings corroborate the existence of four brain phenotypes (Guillamon et al., 2016; Uribe et al., 2020b) beyond the classic, lately questioned, conception that the human brain can be split into two configurations, the male and the female (Legato, 2018). To characterize the propagation of information and measure the degree of integration of spontaneously occurring events while at rest, we applied the intrinsic ignition framework (Deco & Kringelbach, 2017; Deco, Tagliazucchi, et al., 2017). This framework was very sensitive in detecting functional dynamics differences between young adults grouped by gender. Some of these group differences had been elusive when using stationary functional connectivity measurements (Uribe et al., 2020b), or sliding windows approach to study brain connectivity states (Uribe et al., 2021). In addition, spatial and temporal brain dynamics measurements were specifically related with the satisfaction toward body parts for cis men, cis women, and trans men.

The main novelty here is that we provide the first description of the spatiotemporal dynamics underlying the gender dimension in the brain, and more importantly, characterize the regional contribution to the whole-brain dynamics. Mean-ignition is an informative measurement of the spatial diversity and broadness of communication across the brain. On the other hand, node-metastability captures the variability over time across the whole brain. Both the spatial and temporal variability that defined each gender group were widespread across the whole brain, with nodes from all functional networks. Likewise, when using a support vector machine algorithm inputting stationary group independent component maps and clinical data as features, four gender groups were obtained based on the different patterns of brain connectivity (Clemens et al., 2020). In addition, our results stress the importance of using fine-grained dynamic measurements to study spatiotemporal oscillations over grand averaged functional connectivity measurements; these latter enabling a more narrowed investigation of differences that would be accountable for gender, and the incongruence felt in the transgender community.

Group differences in the two subdivisions of the attentional networks and in executive control were in line with previous findings of functional connectivity differences, both stationary (Uribe et al., 2020a) and dynamic (Uribe et al., 2021). The particular group differences in the dorsal and the ventral subdivisions of the attentional network underline the need to study them separately. More relevantly, the spatial broadness of communication of nodes in the default mode network was higher in cis women with respect to cis men and trans men. Higher functional connectivity in default mode regions has been reported in cis women in contrast to cis men (Biswal et al., 2010; de Lacy et al., 2019; Ritchie et al., 2018). Also, in the transgender literature, weaker connectivity strength has been reported in these network regions in the trans men group in contrast to cis men (Feusner et al., 2017; Uribe et al., 2020a) and cis women (Feusner et al., 2017), but this finding is not generalized as other studies had negative reports (Clemens et al., 2017; Nota et al., 2017).

On the other hand, the reported pattern of activation in cis men relies on sensory–motor regions (Ritchie et al., 2018). The somatomotor network in the Schaefer parcellation included areas of motor action and sensory inputs from the external world, making it the network with the most direct interaction with our environment. Despite the previous relevance given to this functional network in understanding the own body perception and subsequently explaining the incongruence in transgender people (Burke et al., 2019; Manzouri et al., 2017), the intrinsic ignition framework only differentiated between cisgender groups in terms of temporal variability. Indeed, our previous work on functional connectivity dynamics identified a sensorimotor state, although no differences between trans- and cisgender groups were noted (Uribe et al., 2021). The spatial and temporal dynamism of the limbic network was greater in the cis man group than in trans men. On the other hand, increased limbic connectivity in transgender individuals has been reported when viewing “ambiguous, androgynous images of themselves morphed toward their gender identity” (Majid et al., 2020). Such findings should be further explored. Different functional MRI measurements do not permit further discussion, and greater integration, broadness of communication, and temporal variability do not necessarily translate to increased averaged connectivity.

The superior parietal cortex has been previously linked to gender differences when comparing cis men with cis women and transgender groups, structurally (Zubiaurre-Elorza et al., 2013) and functionally (Uribe et al., 2020b). The choice of the Schaefer parcellation (Schaefer et al., 2018) allowed a high representation of the temporal parietal network in terms of brain dynamics in agreement with temporoparietal junction findings in trans men with respect to cisgender groups (Manzouri et al., 2017). The spatial diversity and broadness of communication of temporal parietal regions were greater in cis men than in the other three gender groups, namely cis women, trans men, and trans women.

The fact that cis men present higher brain dynamism than other gender groups, especially cis women and trans men, would be in line with previous brain states occupancy where cis men occupied more combinations of connectivity patterns over time than cis women (Yaesoubi et al., 2015). Nonetheless, these results have not been consistently replicated, as has occurred with other brain flexibility measurements through brain states using sliding windows that reported differential regional brain dynamism for both cis men and cis women (Mao et al., 2017). In addition, the increased spatial and temporal variability of brain oscillations in cis men was not homogeneous across all networks, for instance, in the default mode network.

Trans women presented a lateralized predominance in the regions with the highest node-metastability in the left hemisphere. The discussion of these findings is hampered by the scarcity of the literature investigating gender differences in brain dynamism. To the best of our knowledge, previous reports of the gender effects in the lateralization of brain connectivity patterns found these were mostly comparable between a large sample of cis men and women, with two marginal findings that did not survive false discovery rate correction and were considered a trend-level effect (Agcaoglu et al., 2015; Eliot et al., 2021), although there was a marginal leftwards lateralization in cis women only in the inferior frontal cortex (Tomasi & Volkow, 2012). Given these and the small sample of individuals investigated, especially in the trans woman group, our results should be taken carefully.

Finally, the (dis)satisfaction toward one's own body parts is not simply associated with a specific network, but differently according to the group, which suggests a different way of understanding and accepting the body depending on gender. The trans men group image (dissatisfaction) relied on the ventral attentional, that is, salience network. If one key element in the construction of gender is the perception of our own body (Burke et al., 2019; Peelen & Downing, 2007), the salience network has been highly related to trans- and cisgender differences that may explain the gender incongruence (Uribe et al., 2020b; Uribe et al., 2021). However, such a landmark is not helpful for the functional correlates of cisgender groups. These differences in the network correlates could be driven by the fact that the trans men group scores were within the range of the unconformity toward the body parts—4–5 points in the Likert scale of Lindgren and Pauly (1975)—, while cisgender groups would range mainly within the neutral satisfaction scores (1– points). Another potential explanation is that trans- and cisgender individuals' ratings may not be comparable between groups as the reported dissatisfaction may underlie different reasons for transgender people in contrast to what it would mean for cisgender groups. The cis man group's satisfaction and/or neutrality was positively associated with the limbic network and negatively with executive control. On the other hand, the network with higher spatial dynamical complexity, that is, the default mode, was also associated with body parts satisfaction in cis women. These networks have been largely associated with gender groups' differences described in previous works (Clemens et al., 2017; Manzouri et al., 2017; Uribe et al., 2020b; Uribe et al., 2021). However, our work provide evidence that gender group differences depict interplay by a whole-brain network in terms of spatial and temporal variability that exceeds the rather specific correlates of the degree of satisfaction toward the own body.

Some shortcomings should be addressed in future works. First, the need to increase the sample size that would add more power to the findings. Currently ongoing collaborative initiatives like the ENIGMA initiative on transgender health are trying to overcome this persistent limitation in the neuroimaging field (Mueller et al., 2021). However, this initiative lacks standard acquisition protocols to reduce the variability among sites that may hamper group discrimination. Second, the menstrual cycle of cis women and trans men was not accounted as a variable of interest, while there is growing evidence of functional dynamic differences between the phases of the menstrual cycle (De Filippi et al., 2021). Likewise, the sexual orientation of all participants was not systematically assessed as a variable of interest (Frigerio et al., 2021; Guillamon et al., 2016; Skorska et al., 2021). Including minority gender groups when investigating the gender phenomenon in the brain is imperative to understand the complexity of the gender experience. Nonetheless, future studies should include other gender groups, such as nonbinary or other genderqueer identities. Our exploratory work could potentially impact awareness, the development of healthcare guidelines, societal and political evidence-based changes accounting for this heterogeneity, and improve the quality of life while raising visibility that can help fight stigma (Janssen & Voss, 2021). Finally, it is important to note that the sample characteristics and analytical approach employed here prevent us from discriminating actual gender identity differences from other phenomena such as experiences of stigma that transgender people may have undergone. Future experimental designs should address such issues.

The superior sound quality of vinyl records is largely a matter of expectations

Vinyl as Fine Wine: The Role of Expectation on the Perception of Music Format. Rickard Enstroem and Rodney Schmaltz. Front. Psychol., May 26 2022 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.873517

Abstract: While vinyl, compact discs, and even eight-track tapes were traditionally promoted to consumers as producing superior sound, the introduction of compressed digital music, such as mp3s, was markedly different. Initially, one of the primary selling features of digital music was convenience and portability rather than sound quality. Recently, vinyl music sales have experienced a substantial resurgence. Waveforms from vinyl represent recorded music more accurately than compressed digital formats and have the potential to produce better sound. Even so, most music listeners do not reliably listen to music on audiophile quality high-end equipment. For this reason, we believe one aspect of vinyl sales is the expectation that vinyl quality is superior. In this study, we sought to isolate the contribution of expectation to perceived sound quality. Participants were asked to listen to a selection of music on either vinyl or mp3. Some participants were told that they were listening to vinyl when the musical selection was an mp3, while others were told they were listening to an mp3 while actually listening to vinyl. A multivariate analysis through a Canonical Correlation Analysis established that expectation of music format quality drove post-listening evaluations.

Discussion

A multivariate analysis through a canonical correlation model demonstrated that expectation plays a pervasive and salient role in judging vinyl and mp3 recorded music formats. That is, the experience of listening to music is impacted by expectation and not due to sound quality alone. Our results can be interpreted through a Bayesian lens regarding the interplay between prior expectations and sensory evidence. Our results suggest that for vinyl, the expectations in terms of sound quality are so firmly established that participants rely at least partially on the prior expectations rather than the sensory evidence.

In our analysis, the three aspects of sound quality that emerged with prominent effect sizes were CLARITY, SMOOTHNESS, and FULLNESS. As defined in our study, CLARITY and SMOOTHNESS are strengths primarily associated with the digital sound, while FULLNESS is a distinct advantage of the vinyl recorded sound. Our estimations show how the respective expectations of vinyl and mp3 sound qualities operate on participants’ judgement by lessening and strengthening the perception of the underlying music format in the direction of vinyl vs. mp3-related sound qualities. Specifically, we found negative expectation effects of mp3 and vinyl upon the mp3-played format in that the expectation of mp3 made the perceived sound quality even lesser related to the vinyl quality of FULLNESS and that the expectation of vinyl resulted in a lessened relationship to the digital sound qualities of CLARITY and SMOOTHNESS. Similarly, we established positive expectation effects for vinyl and mp3 upon mp3 as the vinyl expectation resulted in a strengthened relationship with the vinyl quality of FULLNESS, and the mp3 expectation enhanced the association with the digital sound qualities of CLARITY and SMOOTHNESS.

These results should be conceived in the context that the participants could tease out the mp3-played song from the same song played on vinyl. Mp3s are a lossy music format, with the highest encoding possible at 320 kbps and the lowest at 32 kbps. As a comparison, A compact disc is encoded at 1,411 kbps. That the mp3 was encoded at the bitrate of 192 kbps makes our results even more compelling; even for this medium bitrate, and presumably wide gap in sound quality between vinyl and mp3, the expectation effect is found.

While it is true that analogue recordings may provide more accurate representations of recorded sound, the average music consumer does not necessarily have the audio equipment nor command the expertise to detect and gauge differences in nuances among the analogue and compressed digital formats. Despite this, there is a widespread belief that vinyl sounds better than other music formats. The takeaway from our results is that it is not the actual sound quality of vinyl alone that drives the preference, but rather the knowledge of vinyl’s better sound that impacts sound perception for the average music consumer. From a consumer judgement and decision-making standpoint and information processing dilemma, the knowledge of vinyl’s superior sound quality likely forms a salient heuristic that is easily accessible to the consumer and impacts the listening experience.

High-end equipment will most certainly produce a different listening experience between vinyl and compressed music formats. While the focus of this study was the average music consumer, a worthy extension is to explore the role of expectations on audiophiles. Based on previous research on expectation and wine tasting (Plassmann et al., 2008), we expect expectation to play a less salient role on audiophiles than the average music consumer. Beyond the person’s audiophile orientation, the results may differ depending on music interest and genre. In this exploratory work, we did not include contenders of lossless streaming music. Estimating the effect of brand expectation would yield additional insights into how expectations regarding factual vs. non-factual differences in sound quality operate.