Laughter, play faces and mimicry in animals: evolution and social functions

Laughter, play faces and mimicry in animals: evolution and social functions. Marina Davila-Ross and Elisabetta Palagi. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. September 21 2022. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0177

Abstract: Human laughter and laugh faces show similarities in morphology and function with animal playful expressions. To better understand primordial uses and effects of human laughter and laugh faces, it is important to examine these positive expressions in animals from both homologous and analogous systems. Phylogenetic research on hominids provided empirical evidence on shared ancestry across these emotional expressions, including human laughter and laugh faces. In addition, playful expressions of animals, in general, arguably have a key role in the development of social cognitive skills, a role that may help explain their polyphyletic history. The present work examines the evolution and function of playful expressions in primates and other animals. As part of this effort, we also coded for muscle activations of six carnivore taxa with regard to their open-mouth faces of play; our findings provide evidence that these carnivore expressions are homologues of primate open-mouth faces of play. Furthermore, our work discusses how the expressions of animal play may communicate positive emotions to conspecifics and how the motor resonance of these expressions increases affiliation and bonding between the subjects, resembling in a number of ways the important social–emotional effects that laughter and laugh faces have in humans.

3. Social use of open-mouth faces, laughter and other play vocalizations

(a) Play coordination, social cohesion and the development of skills

The differences in modality and anatomy of play expressions as well as their polyphyletic history indicate that these expressions have a complexity in both form and function. Carnivores and primates seem to modify their play expressions when they receive the attention of their playmates [38,45,58,80,81], and chimpanzees and bonobos are known to also modify them if the mothers of their infant playmates are nearby [82] or group members are attentive to the sender [83,84]. Multiple social functions of play expressions that are not necessarily mutually exclusive have been discussed.

As mentioned earlier in the present work, an important function of animal play expressions is to signal ‘this is play’, which helps to coordinate actions among playmates [46,85–87]. Probably most importantly, such signalling is likely to help avoid escalation into real fights during rougher play and, consequently, to prevent getting hurt, especially when the playmates are dissimilar in strength and do not have close social relationships [74,88–90].

Whereas mammals produce both types of open-mouth faces in both gentle and rough play [35,58], their upper-teeth exposure, which resembles wide-open mouth displays of submission and appeasement [39,54], tends to occur more often during rough play [37,60,91]. Similarly, play vocalizations seem to be predominantly produced in rough-and-tumble [74]. Thus, these types of expressions might signal to the recipient ‘this is just play’. It is also possible that the playmates widen their mouths further and expose their teeth owing to having to breathe more intensely and loudly during rough-and-tumble. Furthermore, the individuals producing these expressions could be in a state of high arousal and show more play biting [56]. The open-mouth faces without exposed teeth, on the other hand, seem to be less dependent on play intensity and have a more general application within play [37,56,60].

Consistent with the claim that play expressions signal ‘this is play’ or ‘this is just play’, empirical findings show that these expressions from rodents to primates may permit play actions and play bouts to be prolonged [58,84,86,87,89,92,93]. Furthermore, animals can sometimes produce open-mouth faces as part of the play invitation (e.g. when hitting the other playmate prior to play), and such signalling here is likely to help invite to play [60]. Such increase in playful interactions, key affiliative behaviours in social animals, is likely to have a notable impact on social bonding and, consequently, other behaviours among group members [43,94–98]. In humans, it is also known that laughter helps social cohesion [1,99]. Five-month-old infants already respond differently when hearing friends laughing together compared with strangers behaving this way [100].

In accordance with Barbara Fredrickson's Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions, play expressions may contribute to the development of a range of skills that are central for individuals living in social groups, including social-cognitive skills [4]. Supporting this claim, play may consist of cooperative and competitive behaviours, where young individuals can practise with low risk a range of behaviours and further explore the impact these behaviours have on their conspecifics [93,101], which may become more relevant at a later stage in their development [102]. Such functions are consistent with the notion that positive expressions, such as laughter and other play expressions, do not necessarily need to constantly have immediate benefits, and perhaps their range in function makes them different from negative expressions, where it can be crucial to respond quickly in a risky situation [4,5].

Despite overlapping contexts, play vocalizations and open-mouth faces are at least to some extent likely to differ in function. Play vocalizations seem to be more limited to the context of play than open-mouth faces ([84]; for functional flexibility, see [103,104]). Although open-mouth faces occur predominantly during play bouts, they have also been observed shortly prior to them in order to invite a conspecific to play [105]. On a few occasions, they have been observed fully outside of play. One such incident took place at the Serengeti Park Hodenhagen, where Pia, a juvenile chimpanzee, was unsuccessfully play-inviting her father by pulling his hair (see [33]). As he did not budge, Pia left the scene, laid down to relax for a while, and suddenly started producing open-mouth faces (for a video footage, see [33]). Such rare incidents, where open-mouth faces that occur after nonaggressive violations of expectations resemble the use of human laughter linked to benign violations and humour [106,107], can already be observed in humans during infancy [108].

Perhaps the main difference in playful expressions between human and nonhuman animals lies in their occurrence. Human laughter and laugh faces with their sophisticated volitional as well as spontaneous forms are characteristic components of human everyday social interactions that may certainly vary in function and express, for instance, politeness, embarrassment, mocking and Schadenfreude [9,11,109,110]. They show a level of control that has, to our knowledge, not been found for animal play expressions, at least thus far.

(b) Mimicking and why it may be important for animals

The matching of expressions has a special role in animal play, where the expression of one playmate induces the same expression in another playmate. It has been mainly studied in the form of mimicry (e.g. dogs–horses [46], carnivores [58,62,111,112], primates [26,34,86,92,113]). Mimicry involves an automatic response system that is perhaps most easily observable as rapid mimicry, with a response latency of 1 s or less [114,115]. Rapid mimicry within short-distance communication has been predominantly observed in playful contexts, perhaps because they represent a platform for acquiring a range of social, emotional and cognitive skills [4,5].

The matching of animal play expressions, however, also comes in other types. For instance, delayed matching responses have been reported for primate open-mouth faces and play vocalizations [86,92,112]. Although caution is necessary when discussing why these responses were slower than rapid mimicry, it is interesting to note that humans sometimes respond more slowly when the behaviour is volitional, because additional neural processes are then involved compared with rapid mimicry (see [114,116,117]). Furthermore, the matching of play expressions among animals may range from being exact, i.e. with the same variant matched (e.g. open-mouth faces with upper lips raised [58,112]), to being distinct, i.e. with a different variant of the same expression matched (e.g. long laugh bouts seem to induce short laugh bouts [86]). Interestingly, previous studies have examined only dyadic constellations, so that research is needed to quantitatively explore if triadic facial expressions can occur in primates and other animals.

Thus, the matching of play expressions comes in various types, suggesting that they take up important functions among animals. Such matching is likely to heightened advantages that already come with spontaneously producing play expressions. Owing to its facial and vocal feedback component, it may serve even further as a social glue than spontaneous play expressions and may also contribute more to modulating interactions among playing animals [58,92]. In lowland gorillas, for instance, Bresciani and colleagues [118] found that such matching is prolonged when the facial response of the receiver mirrors the facial constellation of the playmate.

Although it can be problematic to link behavioural actions consistently with emotional states [119–121], expressions of play seem to be, in general, closely associated with positive affect in both nonhuman animals and humans (see [33]). Perhaps the context of gentle solitary play shows its link to positive states in animals most readily. For example, expressions produced by a young animal playing by her/himself are unlikely to have an interactive application value, making it reasonable to argue that such expressions are positive emotional outbursts. Such a link to affect may certainly be sustained during social interactions. Consequently, the mirror effect of play expressions may well be linked to elevated valence arousal states among playmates.

Two distinctive pathways that may lead to such an elevated state have received notable research attention [122–125]. First, the matching response is induced on a motoric level, a pathway that has been discussed in relation with behavioural contagion [126,127] as well as motor mimicry [122,128]. In this case, a spontaneous play expression triggers the same expression in the other playmate. Especially for motor mimicry, it has been argued that the motor resonance may trigger in the recipient the same emotional state experienced by the playmate [34,128,129]. However, emotions do not necessarily need to be involved when a behaviour is matched. The matching of behaviours may indicate, for instance, that the playmates are already in comparable states, perhaps in elevated positive states, which could help to prolong play. Interestingly, studies on animal play have shown that rapid facial mimicry and delayed laugh responses are linked to longer play bouts [34,58,62,86,92]. Whereas not all matching expressions in play must be linked to affect, it seems reasonable to argue that this association will strengthen over time, especially since young animals typically experience myriad playful events with familiar conspecifics.

Second, the matching response is affect-induced [122,130]. Here, a spontaneous play expression of a playmate causes an elevated positive state in the other playmate, a state that then induces the behavioural response. Whereas the two mentioned pathways may both result in elevated positive emotional states that are likely to benefit the playmates in multiple ways (for benefits of play, see [4,5]) it is difficult to determine which is the underlying path for the various forms of matching in animal play. What we know with more certainty is that any involved emotion state changes are likely to be minimal if the studied animals are already playfully interacting, i.e. in the same social–emotional context.

To systematically test for positive emotional contagion, where an emotional state spreads across individuals, it is important to have subjects socially and emotionally disconnected and, preferably, to examine them beyond a dyadic level [131,132]. An interesting study by Schwing and colleagues [75] on keas, a playful parrot species, demonstrated that played-back recordings of play vocalizations induce play behaviours in conspecifics previously involved in other behaviours. This study supports the notion that positive emotional contagion might not be a human-unique phenomenon. Interestingly, similar playback approaches carried out with chimpanzee laughter recordings did not show a comparable outcome in their conspecifics [133,134]. Unlike humans [135], chimpanzees do not seem to produce laughter merely based on hearing such vocalizations.

Mimicking and other types of behavioural matching within the context of play are also likely to be important for socially learning and practising a wide range of behaviours in humans and nonhuman animals [4,5,136]. In support of this notion, there is evidence that animals match the exact variant of the same expression of their playmates [58,112] and that the matching of play expressions may differ in form and function between social groups [86,137,138]. This brings us back to the Power Asymmetry Hypothesis [59], which could be extended to colony differences. Colonies may differ in the degree in which they show tolerance and aggression [139,140] and it seems reasonable to argue that clearer forms of communication may be essential when there is more risk of getting hurt (see [59]). Furthermore, the absence of the exposed upper teeth in the laughing chimpanzees at Burgers' Zoo, mentioned by Jan van Hooff in his pioneering work [41], and its presence in other chimpanzee colonies (see [26]) might indicate group differences regarding this facial feature. Exact matching of facial variants could help explain such potential differences. However, this topic requires further research.

Interestingly, there is some indication that the upper-teeth exposure develops at a later stage in immature primates [57,105], so that its occurrence throughout the developmental trajectory could depend on the exact matching mechanism and the social environment. More research is, however, needed on this topic. In a recent psychoacoustic study, Kret et al. [141] played back human infant laughter to adult participants, who were asked to determine the airflow direction from the recordings. The researchers found that the infants produced laughter increasingly as an egressive vocalization (i.e. a vocalization that is produced during the exhalation phase only; see [22,142]) over time and that this acoustic trait was perceived to be more positive by the adult listeners [141]. Such developmental findings could indicate that human infants already adjust laughter to their acoustic environment via social feedback.

How much a person laughs in conversation appears to be a stable trait associated with being relatable, and is not necessarily reflective of enjoyment, since laughter negatively predicted conversation enjoyment

Tendency to laugh is a stable trait: findings from a round-robin conversation study. Adrienne Wood, Emma Templeton, Jessica Morrel, Frederick Schubert and Thalia Wheatley. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. September 21 2022. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0187

Abstract: People often laugh during conversation. Who is more responsible for the laughter, the person laughing or their partner for eliciting it? We used a round-robin design where participants (N = 66) engaged in 10 different conversations with 10 same-gender strangers and counted the instances of laughter for each person in each conversation. After each conversation, participants rated their perceived similarity with their partner and how much they enjoyed the conversation. More than half the variability in the amount a person laughed was attributable to the person laughing—some people tend to laugh more than others. By contrast, less than 5% of the variability was attributable to the laugher's partner. We also found that the more a person laughed, the more their partners felt similar to them. Counterintuitively, laughter negatively predicted conversation enjoyment. These findings suggest that, in conversations between strangers, laughter may not be a straightforward signal of amusement, but rather a social tool. We did not find any personality predictors of how much a person laughs or elicits laughter. In summary, how much a person laughs in conversation appears to be a stable trait associated with being relatable, and is not necessarily reflective of enjoyment.

Sophisticated deviants: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes

Sophisticated deviants: Intelligence and radical economic attitudes. Chien-AnLin, Timothy C.Bates. Intelligence, Volume 95, November–December 2022, 101699. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2022.101699

Highlights

• Tested links of higher cognitive ability to more economic extremism.

• Two N = 700 pre-registered studies and a UK national cohort (N = 11,563).

• Cognitive ability predicted economic extremism (β = 0.4 to 0.12).

• Predicts intellectuals falling far left and right of the mainstream.

• Heterodox values needed to avoid runaway capture in intellectual groups.

Abstract: Conservative economic attitudes have been theorized as symptoms of low cognitive ability. Studies suggest the opposite, linking more conservative views weakly to higher, not lower, cognitive ability, but with very large between-study variability. Here, we propose and replicate a new model linking cognitive ability not to liberal or conservative economics, but to economic extremism: How far individuals deviate from prevailing centrist views. Two large pre-registered studies in the UK (N = 700 & 700) and the British Cohort Study dataset (N = 11,563) replicated the predicted association of intelligence with economic deviance (β = 0.4 to 0.12). These findings were robust and expand the role of cognitive ability from tracking the economic consensus to influencing support for (relatively) extremist views. They suggest opportunities to understand the generation and mainstreaming of radical fringe social attitudes.

Keywords: Economic ideologyEconomic conservatismIntelligenceRedistributionContext theoryExtremism theory

1. Introduction

Intellectuals are responsible for economic and philosophical ideas as divergent as communism, fascism, nihilism, anarchism, and libertarianism, and often in extreme forms (Sesardic, 2016). If cognitive ability has any association with intellectual output, the question arises: How might cognitive ability be associated with such apparently divergent intellectual extremes? Recently, a productive model for studying this question has developed around measures of economic conservatism and support for economic redistribution. While this reveals motives such as malicious envy accounting for around half of support for redistribution (Lin & Bates, 2021; Lin & Bates, 2022; Sznycer et al., 2017), research has also implicated higher cognitive ability as reducing support for economic redistribution (Caplan & Miller, 2010; Carl, 2014; Lewis & Bates, 2018; Mollerstrom & Seim, 2014; Oskarsson et al., 2015). Other studies, however, have found no association or even the reverse association (Choma, Sumantry, & Hanoch, 2019; Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2014; Sterling, Jost, & Pennycook, 2016). A recent meta-analysis supports a small but significant net association in favour of economic conservatism (Jedinger & Burger, 2021). This program of existing research has been restricted, however, to treating economic attitudes as a single increasing or decreasing function of cognitive ability. Here, we propose and test a quite different linkage of cognitive ability to economic attitudes: That intelligence is associated with deviance of view, with equal likelihood of extreme support for economic conservatism and dramatic opposition to economic conservatism. Before presenting three tests of this idea, we briefly background existing research linking cognitive ability to economic attitudes.

Overperception of Moral Outrage in Online Social Networks Inflates Beliefs About Hostility

Brady, William J., Killian L. McLoughlin, Mark Torres, Kara Luo, Maria Gendron, and Molly Crockett. 2022. “Overperception of Moral Outrage in Online Social Networks Inflates Beliefs About Intergroup Hostility.” OSF Preprints. September 19. doi:10.31219/osf.io/k5dzr

Abstract: As individuals and political leaders increasingly interact in online social networks, it is important to understand how the affordances of social media shape social knowledge of morality and politics. Here, we propose that social media users overperceive levels of moral outrage felt by individuals and groups, inflating beliefs about intergroup hostility. Utilizing a Twitter field survey, we measured authors’ moral outrage in real time and compared authors’ reports to observers’ judgments of the authors’ moral outrage. We find that observers systematically overperceive moral outrage in authors, inferring more intense moral outrage experiences from messages than the authors of those messages actually reported. This effect was stronger in participants who spent more time on social media to learn about politics. Pre-registered confirmatory behavioral experiments found that overperception of individuals’ moral outrage causes overperception of collective moral outrage and inflates beliefs about hostile communication norms, group affective polarization and ideological extremity. Together, these results highlight how individual-level overperceptions of online moral outrage produce collective overperceptions that have the potential to warp our social knowledge of moral and political attitudes.

Inconsistencies: According to our simulations, there is a very high probability that most published criminological research findings are false-positives, and therefore wrong; the primary factor contributing to this problem is the poor quality of theory

Niemeyer, Richard E., K. R. Proctor, Joseph Schwartz, and Robert G. Niemeyer. 2022. “Are Most Published Criminological Research Findings Wrong? Taking Stock of Criminological Research Using a Bayesian Simulation Approach.” OSF Preprints. September 17. doi:10.31219/osf.io/mhv8f

Abstract: This study uses Bayesian simulations to estimate the probability that published criminological research findings are wrong. Toward this end, we employ two equations originally popularized in John P.A. Ioannidis’ (in)famous article, “Why Most Published Research Findings are False.” Values for relevant parameters were determined using recent estimates for the field’s average level of statistical power, level of research bias, level of factionalization, and quality of theory. According to our simulations, there is a very high probability that most published criminological research findings are false-positives, and therefore wrong. Further, we demonstrate that the primary factor contributing to this problem is the poor quality of theory. Stated differently, even when the overall level of research bias is extremely low and overall statistical power is extremely high, we find that poor theory still results in a high rate of false positives. We conclude with suggestions for improving the validity of criminological research claims.

From 1991 to 2015, seat belt use was about 3.3% higher each survey cycle compared with the previous survey cycle, adjusting for gender, race/ethnicity, and age; after 2015, seat belt use was about 1.8% lower each survey cycle

Trends in Passenger Seat Belt Use Among High School Students—United States, 1991–2019. Alexander Evans et al. Journal of Adolescent Health, September 7 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2022.07.005

Abstract

Purpose: Despite having the highest risk per miles driven for motor vehicle crash involvement, only 57% of US high school students reported always using a seat belt when riding in a car with another driver in 2019.

Methods: Data from the national Youth Risk Behavior Surveys conducted biennially from 1991 to 2019 were used to assess trends in seat belt use. Modified Poisson regression with robust variance estimates and linear splines was used to examine seat belt use trend changes overall and by gender, race/ethnicity, and grade.

Results: From 1991 to 2015, seat belt use was about 3.3% higher each survey cycle compared with the previous survey cycle, adjusting for gender, race/ethnicity, and age. After 2015, seat belt use was about 1.8% lower each survey cycle than the previous survey cycle, adjusting for the same covariates.

Discussion: New and effective strategies should be considered for promoting consistent seat belt use among US high school students.

Keywords: Seat belt useYouth Risk Behavior SurveyHigh school students

Sadder, but not wiser: Another psychology classic, the popular idea of "depressive realism," bites the dust in failed replication

Dev, Amelia S., Don A. Moore, Sheri L. Johnson, and Karin Garrett. 2022. “Sadder ≠ Wiser: Depressive Realism Is Not Robust to Replication.” PsyArXiv. September 15. doi:10.31234/osf.io/xq24r

Abstract: The theory of depressive realism holds that depressed individuals are less prone to optimistic bias, and are thus more realistic, in assessing their control or performance. Since the theory was proposed 40 years ago, many innovations have been validated for testing cognitive accuracy, including improved measures of bias in perceived control and performance. We incorporate several of those innovations in a well-powered, pre-registered study designed to identify depressive realism. Amazon MTurk workers (N = 246) and undergraduate students (N = 134) completed a classic contingency task, an overconfidence task, and measures of mental health constructs, including depression and anxiety. We measured perceived control throughout the contingency task, allowing us to compare control estimates at the trial-level to estimates assessed at task conclusion. We found no evidence that depressive symptoms relate to illusory control or to overconfidence. Our results suggest that despite its popular acceptance, depressive realism is not replicable.

Psychopathy: Significant gaps in the empirical support for the theorized role of the amygdala

How reliable are amygdala findings in psychopathy? A systematic review of MRI studies. Philip Deming, Mickela Heilicher, Michael Koenigs. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, September 15 2022, 104875. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104875

• Reviewed 134 MRI studies of relationships between amygdala and psychopathy

• Null relationships more common than significant positive or negative relationships

• Negative relationships more common for studies with low power

• Many peak coordinates labeled “amygdala” in original paper outside the amygdala

Abstract: The amygdala is a key component in predominant neural circuitry models of psychopathy. Yet, after two decades of neuroimaging research on psychopathy, the reproducibility of amygdala findings is questionable. We systematically reviewed MRI studies (81 of adults, 53 of juveniles) to determine the consistency of amygdala findings across studies, as well as within specific types of experimental tasks, community versus forensic populations, and the lowest- versus highest-powered studies. Three primary findings emerged. First, the majority of studies found null relationships between psychopathy and amygdala structure and function, even in the context of theoretically relevant tasks. Second, findings of reduced amygdala activity were more common in studies with low compared to high statistical power. Third, the majority of peak coordinates of reduced amygdala activity did not fall primarily within the anatomical bounds of the amygdala. Collectively, these findings demonstrate significant gaps in the empirical support for the theorized role of the amygdala in psychopathy and indicate the need for novel research perspectives and approaches in this field.

Keywords: psychopathycallous-unemotionalamygdalaneuroimagingMRI

Middle-aged citizens in developed countries are close to their peak earnings, have typically experienced little or no illness, & are in safe countries, but suffer of more sleeping problems, alcohol dependence, concentration difficulties, memory problems, intense job strain, disabling headaches, suicidal feelings, and extreme depression

The Midlife Crisis. Osea Giuntella, Sally McManus, Redzo Mujcic, Andrew J. Oswald, Nattavudh Powdthavee & Ahmed Tohamy. NBER Working Paper 30442, September 2022. DOI 10.3386/w30442

Abstract: This paper documents a longitudinal crisis of midlife among the inhabitants of rich nations. Yet middle-aged citizens in our data sets are close to their peak earnings, have typically experienced little or no illness, reside in some of the safest countries in the world, and live in the most prosperous era in human history. This is paradoxical and troubling. The finding is consistent, however, with the prediction – one little-known to economists – of Elliott Jaques (1965). Our analysis does not rest on elementary cross-sectional analysis. Instead the paper uses panel and through-time data on, in total, approximately 500,000 individuals. It checks that the key results are not due to cohort effects. Nor do we rely on simple life-satisfaction measures. The paper shows that there are approximately quadratic hill-shaped patterns in data on midlife suicide, sleeping problems, alcohol dependence, concentration difficulties, memory problems, intense job strain, disabling headaches, suicidal feelings, and extreme depression. We believe the seriousness of this societal problem has not been grasped by the affluent world’s policy-makers. 

 

CONCLUSIONS

The human midlife crisis seems to be an important and under-recognized phenomenon.
We document longitudinal evidence of extreme distress among middle-aged adults in affluent
countries. These individuals are close to their peak lifetime earnings and in general have
experienced no serious illness. Our findings therefore appear to point to a disturbing paradox
within modern society.

Using eight different measures, an approximate hump-shape in severe distress over the
life cycle emerges in data from industrialized nations such as the UK, Australia, and the USA.
This paper's methods go beyond cross-sectional analyses based on simple measures of
subjective wellbeing (for example, Graham and Pozuelo 2017). As far as we know, our
recurring longitudinal patterns -- they are to be thought of as a collection of complementary
types of evidence -- are not widely known by policymakers.

The late Elliott Jaques (1965) is believed to have coined the term 'midlife crisis' in the
year 1965. He offered anecdotal evidence, and psychoanalytic arguments, for it. Using modern data sets and conventional statistical methods, this paper explores, and provides empirical support consistent with, the hypothesis advanced by Jaques. The paper's analysis finds hill-shaped patterns in data on:

x suicide,
x sleeping problems,
x extreme depression,
x intense job strain,
x disabling headaches,
x suicidal feelings,
x concentration and memory problems,
x alcohol dependence.

In some cases a particular mental-distress marker is available in many nations; in other cases
it is available only for a few nations.

The explanation for the midlife shape currently remains open. Could the paper¶V
empirical result be the product of the stresses of having dependent children, or a country-
specific or new phenomenon, or something to do with selection effects, or an illusion caused
by cohort effects? These are natural and important possibilities. Nevertheless, the balance of
our evidence appears to suggest not. It also does not seem that envy of others causes the midlife shape (Mujcic and Oswald 2018 test for that possibility, although not with extreme distress measures as the dependent variable). The notion of unmet aspirations as part of the explanation does, however, have intuitive appeal, in our judgment (see particularly Schwandt 2016).

Perhaps so also, more speculatively, does some role for rising 'wisdom' seem possible (Jeste and Oswald 2014) in the observed reduction in distress levels later in life.

There is some published evidence for a midlife psychological low in data on
chimpanzees and orangutans (Weiss et al. 2012). So sheer ageing biology in primates may
play some kind of role. That would take the ultimate explanation out of the social sciences and
into the natural sciences. Much is still to be understood.

Scientific caution remains appropriate. The evidence described here is based on a
particular, if large, set of indicators. It is possible to think of objections to those indicators. A
caveat on that, however, should arguably also be entered. It would be incumbent upon a critic
of our chosen extreme-distress measures to suggest what would count instead as a set of better markers of human crisis. Most especially, it would not seem scientifically acceptable to
suggest something like μindicator X is less than perfect so I reject the repeated pattern of these multiple indicators¶.

Finally, we believe it is not currently clear whether:

(i) there is a timeless and innate form of human middle-aged crisis, or
(ii) the midlife pattern documented here is some kind of perplexing, and perhaps temporary, byproduct of today's affluent world.

Whichever of these turns out to be true, the hill-shaped pattern of extreme distress over the
human life-course in rich countries appears to constitute a foundational puzzle for economists,
behavioral scientists, and perhaps other kinds of scientific research.

Contrary to prior research, and to our own expectations, we find that providing a belief distribution usually increases overconfidence, because doing so seems to reinforce people’s prior beliefs

Hu, B., & Simmons, J. P. (2022). Does constructing a belief distribution truly reduce overconfidence? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Sep 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001291

Abstract: Can overconfidence be reduced by asking people to provide a belief distribution over all possible outcomes—that is, by asking them to indicate how likely all possible outcomes are? Although prior research suggests that the answer is “yes,” that research suffers from methodological confounds that muddle its interpretation. In our research, we remove these confounds to investigate whether providing a belief distribution truly reduces overconfidence. In 10 studies, participants made predictions about upcoming sports games or other participants’ preferences, and then indicated their confidence in these predictions using rating scales, likelihood judgments, and/or incentivized wagers. Contrary to prior research, and to our own expectations, we find that providing a belief distribution usually increases overconfidence, because doing so seems to reinforce people’s prior beliefs.

Policy Experimentation: While China’s bureaucratic and institutional conditions make policy experimentation at big scale possible, the complex political environments can also limit the scope and bias the direction of policy learning

Policy Experimentation in China: the Political Economy of Policy Learning. Shaoda Wang & David Y. Yang. NBER Working Paper 29402. October 2021. DOI 10.3386/w29402

Abstract: Many governments have engaged in policy experimentation in various forms to resolve uncertainty and facilitate learning. However, little is understood about the characteristics of policy experimentation, and how the structure of experimentation may affect policy learning and policy outcomes. We aim to describe and understand China’s policy experimentation since 1980, among the largest and most systematic in recent history. We collect comprehensive data on policy experimentation conducted in China over the past four decades. We find three main results. First, more than 80% of the experiments exhibit positive sample selection in terms of a locality’s economic development, and much of this can be attributed to misaligned incentives across political hierarchies. Second, local politicians allocate more resources to ensure the experiments’ success, and such effort is not replicable when policies roll out to the entire country. Third, the presence of sample selection and strategic effort is not fully accounted for by the central government, thus affecting policy learning and distorting national policies originating from the experimentation. Taken together, these results suggest that while China’s bureaucratic and institutional conditions make policy experimentation at such scale possible, the complex political environments can also limit the scope and bias the direction of policy learning.

Not as good as intented: Home buyers for whom the purchase of the home is a main reason for moving systematically overestimate the long-term satisfaction gain of living in their dwelling

Does the Dream of Home Ownership Rest Upon Biased Beliefs? A Test Based on Predicted and Realized Life Satisfaction. Reto Odermatt & Alois Stutzer. Journal of Happiness Studies, September 14 2022. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-022-00571-w

Abstract: The belief that home ownership makes people happy is probably one of the most widespread intuitive theories of happiness. However, whether it is accurate is an open question. Based on individual panel data, we explore whether home buyers systematically overestimate the life satisfaction associated with moving to their privately owned property. To identify potential prediction errors, we compare people’s forecasts of their life satisfaction in 5 years’ time with their current realizations. We find that home buyers for whom the purchase of the home is a main reason for moving, on average, systematically overestimate the long-term satisfaction gain of living in their dwelling. The misprediction therein is driven by home buyers who follow extrinsically-oriented life goals, highlighting biased beliefs regarding own preferences as a relevant mechanism in the prediction errors.

Conclusions

This study explores whether home owners systematically overestimate the well-being derived from living in a privately owned house. For this, we jointly analyze people’s expectations regarding their future satisfaction and their actually experienced satisfaction with life later on. This allows us to study whether home buyers, on average, hold accurate beliefs—a cornerstone of standard economics—when facing the house purchase.

The results offer evidence in line with our hypothesis that home buyers systematically overestimate their future life satisfaction just before as well as just after having relocated to their acquired dwelling. This provides support for the speculation that home buyers potentially rely on biased beliefs regarding the long-term benefits of home ownership in the decision-making process, at least if they consider the purchase of property as a main reason for moving. The finding backs the general notion that people overestimate the satisfaction consequences of certain life achievements. From this observation, it is, however, difficult to assess whether the prediction errors are primarily driven by biased beliefs people hold, for example, about their individual preferences. We therefore investigate the heterogeneity in prediction errors across groups with different life goals, reflecting differences in underlying beliefs about preferences or, more generally, what goals should be pursued in life to satisfy needs. Specifically, we study differences regarding the preferability of extrinsic versus intrinsic life goals. We find that home buyers with extrinsically oriented life goals compared to those with intrinsically oriented ones tend to make bigger prediction errors. This result provides evidence for biased beliefs and demonstrates the crucial role of the heterogeneity in people’s beliefs regarding the well-being consequences of certain decisions.

Our study questions the ancillary role that is ascribed to beliefs in most economic applications. If people predict the utility from decision outcomes based on beliefs about their preferences, individuals’ choices would not reveal true preferences, but rather beliefs regarding preferences. Our findings provide evidence in this direction by showing that the accuracy of people’s predictions depends on their belief system. A further investigation of the role of beliefs is a promising topic for future research, as it affects fundamental theoretical assumptions of the economic approach. For example, one could study to what extent beliefs about the utility derived from goods or experiences are influenced by factors such as culture and formal institutions, advertising or, on the individual level, parenting and education. Such endogeneity of people’s beliefs complements what has up to now been discussed under the notion of endogenous preferences in economics [see, e.g., (Bowles, 1998)].

Another perspective on the role of beliefs in economics is that the formation of beliefs plays a fundamental role in the process when people are trying to achieve short- and long-term goals in life. In this process, accuracy might not be the only objective, as beliefs also serve the important purpose of motivating people so that they persevere in applying effort to achieve goals (see (Bénabou & Tirole, 2016) or (Epley & Gilovich, 2016) on motivated beliefs). This instrumental aspect emphasizing the enhancement of self-efficacy is complemented by other motives, as people might want to share beliefs in accordance with their peer group or their self-image. Other reasons for belief distortions are discussed by Brunnermeier and Parker (2005), who argue that a small bias in subjective beliefs can lead to first-order gains due to increased anticipatory utility (see also (Loewenstein & Molnar, 2018) for a review on belief-based utility). Accordingly, people might (implicitly) trade-off belief-based utility in the short-term for accuracy in the long-term. Whether this trade-off is sub-optimal, reducing individuals’ welfare overall, is difficult to judge however, also within our framework. The less people value and consume the dream of home ownership per se beforehand, the more likely will mispredicted utility be related to a welfare loss due to inaccurate beliefs.

From a general perspective, it is crucial that economic analysis gains a better understanding of the role of individuals’ beliefs as a driver of mispredicted utility and potentially sub-optimal behavior. Such a research enterprise also involves the forces and actors that influence people’s (life) goals and thus their beliefs. If these actors pursue private interests, influence might translate into attempts at manipulation. It is thus important that the conditions under which biased beliefs evolve and influence decision-making processes are identified, an account that economics has not offered so far.

Recognition of Masked Faces in the Era of the Pandemic: No Improvement Despite Extensive Natural Exposure

Recognition of Masked Faces in the Era of the Pandemic: No Improvement Despite Extensive Natural Exposure. Erez Freud et al. Psychological Science, September 12, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221105459

Abstract: Face masks, which became prevalent across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic, have had a negative impact on face recognition despite the availability of critical information from uncovered face parts, especially the eyes. An outstanding question is whether face-mask effects would be attenuated following extended natural exposure. This question also pertains, more generally, to face-recognition training protocols. We used the Cambridge Face Memory Test in a cross-sectional study (N = 1,732 adults) at six different time points over a 20-month period, alongside a 12-month longitudinal study (N = 208). The results of the experiments revealed persistent deficits in recognition of masked faces and no sign of improvement across time points. Additional experiments verified that the amount of individual experience with masked faces was not correlated with the mask effect. These findings provide compelling evidence that the face-processing system does not easily adapt to visual changes in face stimuli, even following prolonged real-life exposure.

Discussion

Face masks were an important tool in the effort to minimize COVID-19 virus transmission (Cheng et al., 2020). Accordingly, the years 2020 to 2022 provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine the effects of prolonged and frequent exposure to occluded faces on recognition abilities. Here, we have documented persistent quantitative and qualitative alterations in face-processing abilities for masked versus nonmasked faces, with no evidence of improvement in the processing of masked faces over time. Using a combined cross-sectional and longitudinal approach, we found that the CFMT scores for upright faces decreased by approximately 15% when masks were added to the faces. This reduction remained statistically constant across 20 months, a period of extensive exposure to masked faces. This finding suggests that the matured face-processing system did not benefit from the prolonged exposure. Additional experiments and analyses confirmed and extended this conclusion and showed that the consistent decrement in face processing of masked faces was evident even when individual differences in exposure to these faces were considered.

Another key finding is the consistent and robust reduction of the face-inversion effect for masked faces across all time points. In particular, the inversion effect was roughly 43% smaller for masked faces. The inversion effect is suggested to reflect difficulties extracting the configural relationships between face parts (Farah et al., 1995; Freire et al., 2000). Hence, the smaller inversion effect for masked faces may be taken as evidence that holistic processing is largely reduced (although not entirely abolished). This qualitative change in the processing of masked faces was consistent across time points, providing additional evidence for the rigidity of the matured face-processing system.

Why is there no improvement in masked-face recognition?

The consistent effect of masks across time points could reflect the rigidity of the matured face-processing system. In particular, face perception rapidly develops in infancy but is then subject to a prolonged developmental trajectory (Pascalis et al., 2011, 2020). In early childhood, face processing is shaped by experience with other faces (Bate et al., 2020). One of the best examples of this malleability comes from the other-race effect, which is evident early in life (Kelly et al., 2009) but could be reversed or disappear if a child is regularly exposed to other-race faces (De Heering et al., 2010; Sangrigoli et al., 2005). In contrast, in adulthood, face-processing mechanisms are already in place and are less likely to be affected by experience (Pascalis et al., 2020; White, Kemp, Jenkins, Matheson, & Burton, 2014; Yovel et al., 2012). Here, we show that even extensive, naturalistic exposure to masked faces is not sufficient to facilitate the recognition of these faces, even though the eyes region, which is disproportionally critical for face recognition (Butler et al., 2010; Caldara et al., 2005; Royer et al., 2018; Tardif et al., 2019), remains uncovered.

An additional account for the lack of improvement in recognizing masked faces relates to the nature of the interaction. One can argue that mere exposure to masked unfamiliar faces may not suffice to revamp face-processing mechanisms. However, we note that daily encounters with masked people typically include more than just passive viewing. For example, in the grocery store, a person may need to identify their neighbor or their preferred cashier. An office worker needs to recognize peers and customers. Parents who pick up their children from school interact with other parents, children, and teachers. Hence, daily experiences provide a rich arena of exposures and the need to recognize masked faces. Yet our data suggest that such naturalistic exposures and interactions might be insufficient in eliciting adaptation of the face-processing system. A more refined view is that improvement in face-processing abilities in adulthood depends on deliberate, systematic training programs and does not rely on naturalistic exposure. This view is supported by recent studies that show effects of systematic training programs that include individuation tasks (McGugin et al., 2011; Yovel et al., 2012) and ongoing feedback (White, Kemp, Jenkins, & Burton, 2014). Note, however, that even these systematic training programs bring only very moderate improvement in face recognition.

The results could also be attributed to another intriguing possible mechanism; the current situation may be part of a vicious circle, one that reduces the chances to improve. On the one hand, there is massive exposure to masked faces, which, in many cases, require effective recognition. On the other hand, however, people have the chance to meet and to encounter nonmasked people in the privacy of their homes or via electronic media. It is possible, therefore, that such a hybrid state of affairs provides the system with a convenient escape from effectively dealing with masked faces. In other words, the current situation may limit the system’s ability to adapt, even in the face of a clear need to do so. This proposed mechanism could account for the lack of improvement that we report (almost) 2 years into the pandemic. An intriguing question is for how long such lack of improvement could persist. This, of course, depends on the extent and length of the pandemic.

Finally, the observed limited malleability of the matured face-processing system raises important questions about the ability of children to improve in recognizing masked faces. A recent study reported that in school-age children, masks hinder face-processing ability to a similar or even greater extent compared with adults (Stajduhar et al., 2022). Whether children exhibit improved masked-face recognition following prolonged exposure to masked faces in everyday life remains to be determined.

Limitations

The current investigation is timely and unique and benefits from the large sample size and combination of approaches. However, there are still important limitations that should be addressed in future studies. First, although the CFMT is a reliable test that has been used extensively over the past two decades (Bobak et al., 2016; Russell et al., 2009), the faces included in this test are all Caucasian men. Given the gender effect observed in our data as well as by other groups (Bobak et al., 2016), it is important to examine the reported effects using other, more diverse tests (Scherf et al., 2017). Another concern regards the ecological validity of the CFMT. Specifically, external face cues, which are important for real-life face recognition, are not available in this test. This concern might be more detrimental in the case of masked faces. However, it is important to note that previous studies reported correlations between CFMT scores and subjective reports of face-recognition abilities (Shah, Gaule, et al., 2015), between the CFMT and other measurements of face-processing abilities (DeGutis et al., 2013; Russell et al., 2009), and, most importantly, between CFMT scores and naturalistic assessments of face-perception abilities (Balas & Saville, 2017). It is also worth noting that previous studies demonstrated the existence of the mask effect for other test and image sets, including the GFMT (Carragher & Hancock, 2020; see also the control experiment described above) and the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces (Marini et al., 2021), in which external face cues are preserved.

The concern regarding ecological validity also applies to the absence of other cues that might facilitate person recognition, such as motion, voice, and body shape. Importantly, however, it is established that faces play a superior role in person recognition even when other cues are available (Hahn et al., 2016). This is demonstrated in cases of prosopagnosia, which is experienced in daily life even when all cues are available.

Another limitation of the current image set (as well as other image sets used in previous studies) is that the masks were added to existing pictures in an artificial manner. This might lead to an omission of face shape cues that are normally available and plausibly critical for recognizing masked faces in naturalistic settings. Although we cannot rule out the detrimental effect of the artificial mask on face perception, a recent study by Marini and colleagues (2021) demonstrated the existence of a mask effect even for transparent masks that reveal important cues from the lower part of the face. Hence, it is unlikely that the mask effect observed here, especially the lack of improvement in face perception for masked faces, is solely due to the nature of the stimuli.

Converging theoretical and empirical evidence points to suicide being a fundamentally aleatory event – that risk of suicide is opaque to useful assessment at the level of the individual

On the Randomness of Suicide: An Evolutionary, Clinical Call to Transcend Suicide Risk Assessment. C. A. Soper, Pablo Malo Ocejo and Matthew M. Large. Chp 9 in Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health. Cambridge University Press, September 8 2022. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/evolutionary-psychiatry/on-the-randomness-of-suicide/17353786992D8A3F0A7EEC7850F44F96

Summary: Converging theoretical and empirical evidence points to suicide being a fundamentally aleatory event – that risk of suicide is opaque to useful assessment at the level of the individual. This chapter presents an integrated evolutionary and clinical argument that the time has come to transcend efforts to categorise peoples’ risk of taking their own lives. A brighter future awaits mental healthcare if the behaviour’s essential non-predictability is understood and accepted. The pain-brain evolutionary theory of suicide predicts inter alia that all intellectually competent humans carry the potential for suicide, and that suicides will occur largely at random. The randomness arises because, over an evolutionary timescale, selection of adaptive defences will have sought out and exploited all operative correlates of suicide and will thus have exhausted those correlates’ predictive power. Completed suicides are therefore statistical residuals – events intrinsically devoid of informational cues by which the organism could have avoided self-destruction. Empirical evidence supports this theoretical expectation. Suicide resists useful prediction at the level of the individual. Regardless of the means by which the assessment is made, people rated ‘high risk’ seldom take their own lives, even over extended periods. Consequently, if a prevention treatment is sufficiently safe and effective to be worth allotting to the ‘high-risk’ subset of a cohort of patients, it will be just as worthwhile for the rest. Prevention measures will offer the greatest prospects for success where the aleatory nature of suicide is accepted, acknowledging that ‘fault’ for rare, near-random, self-induced death resides not within the individual but as a universal human potentiality. A realistic, evolution-informed, clinical approach is proposed that focuses on risk communication in place of risk assessment. All normally sapient humans carry a vanishingly small daily risk of taking their own lives but are very well adapted to avoiding that outcome. Almost all of us nearly always find other solutions to the stresses of living.

Voter bias against women cannot explain female underrepresentation in American politics; if anything, voters prefer women over men

Poutvaara, Panu; Graefe, Andreas (2022) : Do Americans Favor Female or Male Politicians? Evidence from Experimental Elections, Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2022: Big Data in Economics, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Kiel, Hamburg. https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/264117/1/vfs-2022-pid-70505.pdf

Abstract: Women are severely underrepresented in American politics, especially among Republicans. This under-representation can arise from women being less willing to run for office, from voter bias against women, or from political structures that make it more difficult for women to compete. Here we show to what extent support for female candidates varies by voters’ party affiliation and gender. We carried out hypothetical elections in which participants made vote choices solely based on politicians’ faces. When deciding between candidates of different genders, Democrats, and particularly Democratic women, preferred female candidates, while Republicans chose female and male candidates equally often. These patterns remained when controlling for respondents’ education, age, and political knowledge and for candidates’ age, attractiveness, and perceived conservativeness. Our results suggest that voter bias against women cannot explain female under-representation. On the contrary, American voters appear ready to further narrow the gender gap in politics.

Keywords: Gender; Elections; Gender discrimination; Political candidates
JEL: D72; J16

5 Conclusion

Major gender gaps have opened in American politics in recent decades. Women are more likely than men to support Democrats (Gillion et al., 2020), Democratic voters are more likely than Republicans to support female candidates (Schwarz & Coppock, 2021), and the female share of congressional Democrats is almost three times that of congressional Republicans (Fig. 1B). We carried out hypothetical elections in 2016 and 2020 to disentangle how voter gender and partisanship interact in support for female candidates. Our results show that Democrats generally favored female candidates, and that preference for female candidates was particularly strong among Democratic women. In our 2020 survey, Democratic women chose the female candidate three times as often as the male candidate. Republican respondents, instead, chose female and male candidates about equally often. Our findings suggest that voter bias against women cannot explain female under-representation in American politics, even among Republicans. If anything, voters, on average, prefer women over men.

Our approach to study gender discrimination in voting complements vignette and conjoint survey experiments, which have become an established practice in political science research (Hainmueller et al., 2015; Hainmueller et al., 2014). In these studies, respondents state their preferences based on short, standardized descriptions of hypothetical candidates. Vignette and conjoint survey experiments allow studying simultaneously the effects of different cues, like gender, age, and reported experience. However, this comes at the cost that researchers define the characteristics that are presented to respondents, and how these are presented. Our approach of asking respondents to make vote choices based on candidate photographs does not require researchers to specify what textual cues are provided to respondents and in which order. Instead, we collected vote choices for hypothetical elections among all 736 Members of the European Parliament. One advantage of using MEPs was that they are real and elected politicians. Hence, the photographs likely incorporate cues that are relevant in politics, which may not be the case when using stock photographs. Another advantage of using MEPs was that American respondents are unlikely to recognize the candidates, which could have introduced bias. Finally, previous research has shown that evaluations of politicians’ photographs help to predict election outcomes around the world, providing external validity for using photographs (Antonakis & Dalgas, 2009; Ballew & Todorov, 2007; Berggren et al., 2010; Lawson et al., 2010; Todorov et al., 2005).

A major concern in all surveys is that subjects might change their behavior due to cues about what constitutes appropriate behavior (Zizzo, 2010). In our setting, the concern is that respondents would find supporting female candidates in hypothetical elections the appropriate choice, even if they would not vote for the female candidate in a real election. Our study design alleviates these concerns by randomizing gender combinations in hypothetical elections. We also did not refer to gender – but only to voting under very little information – in our task description. Furthermore, recent research has found that experimenter demand effects are small in online surveys even when respondents are provided a hint on the hypothesis that researchers are testing (de Quidt et al., 2018; Mummolo & Peterson, 2019). Comparing conjoint and vignette experiments with real referendums in Switzerland also suggests that estimates from survey experiments perform remarkably well in predicting actual voting outcomes (Hainmueller et al., 2014).

Our results emphasize the critical role of supply side factors as remaining barriers to closing the gender gap in political representation, such as women’s reluctance to enter politics and discrimination by party elites and donors, as well as the weight of historical f emale under-representation through incumbency advantage. Given that voters with prior exposure to female leaders are more likely to vote for women (Baskaran & Hessami, 2018; Beaman et al., 2009; Bhavnani, 2009), recent increases in the share of elected female politicians, and the election of Kamala Harris as the first female Vice President of the United States, could foreshadow a narrowing gender gap in years to come.

Moralization of rationality can actually stimulate the spread of news hostile to political opponents 'cause status seeking individuals moralize rationality as a form of grandstanding and use it to spread hostile information, in order to sound relevant

Marie, Antoine, and Michael Bang Petersen. 2022. “Moralization of Rationality Can Stimulate, but Intellectual Humility Inhibits, Sharing of Hostile Political Rumors.” OSF Preprints. March 4. doi:10.31219/osf.io/k7u68

Abstract: Many assume that if citizens became more inclined to moralize the values of evidence-based and logical thinking, political hostility and conspiracy theories would be less widespread. Across two large surveys (N = 3675) run in the U.S. of 2021 (one exploratory and one pre-registered), we provide the first demonstration that moralization of rationality can actually stimulate the spread of news hostile to political opponents. We provide further evidence that this counter-intuitive finding reflects that status seeking individuals moralize rationality as a form of grandstanding and use it to spread hostile information, in order to sound relevant. In contrast to such moral grandstanding with respect to rationality, our studies find robust evidence that intellectual humility—i.e., the awareness that intuitions are fallible, and that trusting others is often desirable—may protect people from both sharing and believing hostile news. Those associations generalized to all hostile news, independently of whether they are “fake” or anchored in real events.

Effect of urbanicity (metro v nonmetro) on life satisfaction, or Subjective WellBeing: The negative effect of metro vs nonmetro is equivalent to the effect of one’s health deteriorating about a third from "fair" to "poor"

Unhappy Metros: Panel Evidence. Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn. Applied Research in Quality of Life, Sep 13 2022. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11482-022-10102-7

Abstract: We study the effect of urbanicity (metro v nonmetro) on life satisfaction, or Subjective WellBeing (SWB). The literature agrees that residents of metropolitan areas tend to be less satisfied with their lives than residents of smaller settlements in the developed world. But the existing evidence is cross-sectional only. This is the first study using longitudinal dataset to test the “unhappy metro” hypothesis. Using the 2009–2019 US Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we find support for the cross-sectional findings: metros are less happy than nonmetros. The effect size is practically significant, the negative effect of metro v nonmetro is equivalent to the effect of one’s health deteriorating about a third from “fair” to “poor.” Given extremely large scale of urbanization, projected 6b of people from 1950 to 2050, the combined effect of urbanicity on human wellbeing is large.

Notes
1    Interestingly, neuroscience is becoming interested in urbanism (Adli et al., 2017; Pykett et al., 2020), and initial empirical results indicate negative effect of urbanism on human brain (Lederbogen et al., 2011).

2    Yet, on the other hand, in a city there can be community, a neighborhood village, that at least in some ways can simulate a more natural habitat for a human (Fischer 1995, 1975, Jacobs ([1961] 1993).

3    There is a debate whether utility is happiness and it is beyond the scope of this study, for discussion see Van Der Deijl (2018), Welsh (2016), Hirschauer et al. (2015), Kenny (2011), Ng (2011), Clark et al. (2008), Frey et al. (2008), Becker and Rayo (2008), Kahneman and Krueger (2006), Kimball and Willis (2006), Kahneman and Thaler (2006), Stutzer et al. (2004), Frey and Stutzer (2002), Kahneman (2000), Frey and Stutzer (2000), Kahneman et al. (1997), Ng (1997), Kahneman and Thaler (1991), Scitovsky (1976).

4    Burger et al. (2020) also uses faulty Gallup data as elaborated in Okulicz-Kozaryn and Valente (2021)–in general, one should avoid Gallup happiness data–Gallup charges $30,000 for access (per one year), clearly “happiness industry,” not happiness research (Davies 2015).

Twitter use is related to decreased well-being, increased polarization, and increased sense of belonging with effect sizes with practical significance

de Mello, Victoria O., Felix Cheung, and Michael Inzlicht. 2022. “Twitter Use in the Everyday Life: Exploring How Twitter Use Predicts Well-being, Polarization, and Sense of Belonging.” PsyArXiv. September 12. doi:10.31234/osf.io/4x5em

Abstract: Twitter has the potential to influence public decision-making, as it is the platform used by elites in journalism, entertainment, and politics. How are users affected by Twitter? How are different effects moderated by different characteristics of the user (such as personality) and the use (such as purpose of usage)?  We conducted an experience sampling study to address these questions. We found that Twitter use is related to decreased well-being, increased polarization, and increased sense of belonging with effect sizes with practical significance. All effects had considerable heterogeneity. We did not find any evidence for interaction effects with personality, age, or gender. We found that specific usage purposes are linked to different user outcomes. Finally, we found that most of the variance in the effects was mostly driven by within-subjects effects, suggesting that these effects are not caused by third variables.