Do humans agree on which body odors are attractive, similar to the agreement observed when rating faces and voices?

Do humans agree on which body odors are attractive, similar to the agreement observed when rating faces and voices? Megan Nicole Williams, Coren Lee Apicella. Evolution and Human Behavior, February 14 202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2023.02.002

Abstract: Studies of mate choice from an evolutionary perspective often begin by investigating whether individuals of one sex share similar preferences for mates. Evidence for shared preferences is often interpreted as support for the hypothesis that preferences are adaptations that have evolved to select high-quality mates. To date, the importance of body odor in human mate choice is uncertain because fundamental questions, such as whether preferences for body odor are shared, have not yet been systematically explored. Here, we asked groups of heterosexual men and women from the University of Pennsylvania to rate the attractiveness of body odors, faces, and voices of opposite-sex individuals. We used our data to produce quantitative estimates of the amount of rater agreement for each of the three modalities of attractiveness, applying a uniform methodology that facilitates cross-modality comparisons. Overall, we found evidence of agreement within all three modalities. Yet, our data also suggest a larger component of attractiveness judgments that can be attributed to personal preferences and idiosyncratic noise. Importantly, our results provide no evidence that agreement regarding odor attractiveness is substantially quantitatively different from the amount of agreement found in other modalities that have been the focus of most previous work. To the extent that evidence exists of shared preferences for faces and voices, our results reveal evidence of shared preferences for body odors.

Keywords: OlfactionBody odorMate choiceFace attractivenessVoice attractivenessMultimodal perception

4. Discussion

Possibly the most conclusive and replicable finding in social psychology is that attractiveness is an important factor in social interactions (for review see, Grammer et al., 2003). Symons (1979) suggested shared attractiveness preferences are evolved adaptations for choosing fitness-enhancing mates, and since the 1990s, evidence has accumulated demonstrating shared attractiveness preferences for others' faces (e.g., Grammer & Thornhill., 1994; Langlois & Roggman, 1990; Mealey et al., 1999; Perrett et al., 1999; Rhodes, Proffitt, Grady and Sumich, 1998, Rhodes, Sumich and Byatt, 1999; Rhodes & Tremewan, 1996), bodies (e.g., Singh, 1993; Singh et al., 2010; Singh & Young, 1995), and voices (Collins, 2000; Feinberg et al., 2005; Puts et al., 2013). Here, we investigated whether there is evidence of shared attractiveness preferences for body odor, as has been observed in these other modalities.

To provide a benchmark from which we could assess our evidence for agreement in judgments of body odors, we used the same methodology, sample, and analysis to also examine agreement in judgments of faces and voices. Thus, any differences in variance attributable to agreement between modalities could not be caused by differences in the sample or analysis. We found no significant differences in levels of agreement in attractiveness ratings between modalities. However, there was evidence of little agreement overall in female ratings of men's attractiveness when using the individual-agreement ICC. Yet, we do report fair to good agreement in all attractiveness modalities using the average-agreement ICC (k = 4). The average-agreement ICC removes measurement noise caused by any one rater's ratings; thus, we expected that the average-agreement estimates would be higher than the individual-agreement estimates. For male ratings of women's attractiveness, we found that agreement in the attractiveness modalities was statistically distinguishable from zero, but low. Our samples of male and female raters were not large enough to detect sex differences in agreement in attractiveness preferences. We estimated the magnitude of the difference between male and female rater agreement for each modality, but the standard error of each estimated sex difference was too large to allow for conclusions from this observation. Few studies have evaluated sex differences in rater agreement for judgments of attractiveness, however there is some research to suggest there are no significant differences in agreement (e.g., Coetzee et al., 2014) or greater consensus among men (e.g., Rhodes et al., 1998). Higher agreement in men is consistent with the idea that attractiveness plays a larger role in male mate choice whereas, for example, social status is more important for female mate choice (Buss, 1989). However further research is necessary using samples large enough to detect small sex differences and evaluating the underlying fitness markers influencing attractiveness judgments in each sensory modality. Again, encouragingly our findings indicate statistically equivalent levels of agreement in judgments of attractiveness for each modality of attractiveness (i.e., face, voice, and odor) within both sexes. So, although we cannot make a strong claim for evidence of evolved attractiveness preferences, especially because we are unsure of how much agreement would constitute evidence, our data do demonstrate that to the degree that shared preferences exist for faces and voices, they also exist for body odors.

While our estimated agreement for within-sex judgments of opposite-sex attractiveness in each modality seems lower than estimates reported in earlier studies, the parameters we used were different and not necessarily at odds. For example, Thornhill and Gangestad (1999) measured consistencies for male (n = 61) and female (n = 48) ratings of opposite-sex body odors using Cronbach's alpha (α = 0.66, high-fertility female raters; α = 0.90, low-fertility female raters; α = 0.90, male raters). Similarly, Lobmaier, Fischbacher, Wirthmüller, and Knoch (2018) reported an ICC of 0.983 for male (n = 55) ratings of women's (n = 28) body odors. As discussed at length elsewhere (Hehman, Sutherland, Flake & Slepian, 2017; Hönekopp, 2006), high alphas and average-agreement ICC estimates do not necessarily provide evidence of strong interrater agreement. The fundamental difficulty is that these parameters are strongly influenced by the number of items (here, raters), which often varies across studies, hampering comparability. Likewise, an ICC near one is very hard to interpret unless which of the many possible ICCs have been estimated is made explicit (McGraw & Wong, 1996). Through personal correspondence (June 8, 2020), we were able to determine that the parameter estimated by Lobmaier, Fischbacher, Wirthmüller, and Knoch (2018) was the average-agreement ICC for n = 55 male raters. Because their study estimated a different parameter than the present study, the lower estimates we have reported are not at odds with what they found. On the contrary, the value of ρA, 1 implied by Lobmaier, Fischbacher, Wirthmüller, and Knoch (2018) estimate of ρA, 55 is around 0.5 and hence, in the same ballpark as the estimates of individual agreement reported in the present study, see Bliese (2000) for the formulae needed to rescale parameter estimates for comparability.

Misinterpretations of Cronbach's alpha and the average-agreement ICC can cause overestimations of the strength of evidence for shared attractiveness preferences because the contribution of personal preference is typically unreported or defined as random noise (Hönekopp, 2006). Our analysis not only reported the average-agreement ICC (k = 4), but also the individual-agreement ICC, which reports the correlation between the individual judgments of two raters assigned to the same donor. The individual-agreement ICC parameters reported here show that there is some agreement between raters' judgments in each attractiveness modality that can be attributed to a shared preference, but a larger component also exists that can be attributed to personal preference and noise. Our individual-agreement ICC estimates are in line with recent research using statistical methods accounting for variances in attractiveness judgments of faces attributed to both donor (i.e., shared preference) and rater (i.e., personal preference) characteristics (e.g., Hehman, Sutherland, Flake, & Slepian, 2017; Hönekopp, 2006). For example, Hönekopp's (2006) pioneering study found that in contrast to the prevailing view that facial attractiveness judgments are largely based on donor characteristics and shared universally, variation in judgments of attractiveness were equally explained by perceiver characteristics (i.e., personal preference). In experiment 2, which used a heterogenous racial sample similar to our sample of participants, Hönekopp (2006) estimated that 56% of variance in attractiveness judgments is attributable to the rater (i.e., personal preference). Thus, future work should explore the relative contributions of personal and shared preferences for body odors attractiveness judgments and investigate the underlying fitness markers influencing each.

4.1. Study limitations

Though our findings support the hypothesis that shared preferences for body odors exist to the extent that shared preferences for faces and voices exist, convenience sampling limits the strength of our interpretation. The current study cannot fully distinguish between attractiveness preferences that persist today because past selection favored reliable developmental patterns and preferences that exist because selection favored labile and culturally responsive preferences, since we investigated preferences in a single society. In general, cross-cultural research on odor perception is scant, particularly for mate choice. However, evidence shows that in traditional societies where odor is more significant to daily activities, such as food foraging, olfactory performance and cognition are superior to those of individuals living in industrialized cities (Burenhult & Majid, 2011; Majid & Burenhult, 2014; Majid & Kruspe, 2018; Sorokowska, Sorokowski, Hummel, & Huanca, 2013; Wnuk & Majid, 2012). Future research should investigate body odor preferences cross-culturally. Facial averageness and symmetry are generally accepted as cues of mate quality, in part because both predict attractiveness judgments across different societies (e.g., Apicella, Little, & Marlowe, 2007; Cunningham, Roberts, Barbee, Druen, & Wu, 1995; Jones & Hill, 1993; Little, Apicella, & Marlowe, 2007; Rhodes et al., 2001). Although demonstrating that, to a degree, some men and women generally smell more attractive than others is a promising first step, additional steps must be taken before we can conclude body odor preferences are adaptations for optimal mate selection.

In addition, we used a racially heterogenous sample to estimate agreement in judgments of attractiveness. Therefore, our estimates of agreement are possibly deflated in comparison to if we had used a racially homogenous sample. Race has been demonstrated to influence attractiveness preferences for faces and voices (e.g., Wheatley et al., 2014). Unfortunately, it was not feasible with our sample to perform a robustness analysis estimating interrater reliability within independent homogenous subgroups of participants.

Further, outside of a controlled laboratory setting, humans often wear fragrances, shower, and choose to eat food regardless of their aromatic properties. While controlling for these variables by instituting a two-day washout period before odor sampling is standard procedure in this literature, we are unaware of studies demonstrating that two days are adequate to return a donor's “natural” body odor. Thus, these methods could result in evidence that raters agree on odors but not necessarily “natural” body odors.

Finally, we did not control for potential menstrual cycle effects and oral contraception usage. We initially planned to analyze hormone data, which would have been used to assess women's oestradiol and progesterone levels. This hormone data would have been indicative of cycle phase. However, we were not able to assay our samples due to laboratory and labor disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Although menstrual cycle effects are heavily debated (Gildersleeve, Haselton, & Fales, 2014; Harris, 2011, Harris, 2013; Harris, Chabot, & Mickes, 2013; Harris, Pashler, & Mickes, 2014; Wood & Carden, 2014; Wood, Kressel, Joshi, & Louie, 2014), some studies demonstrate that menstrual cycle phase and hormonal contraceptive use affect women's perceptions of men's body odor (Grammer, 1993; Havliček, Roberts, & Flegr, 2005; Hummel, Gollisch, Wildt, & Kobal, 1991; Sorokowska, Sorokowski, & Szmajke, 2012; Thornhill, Chapman, & Gangestad, 2013), faces (e.g., Ditzen, Palm-Fischbacher, Gossweiler, Stucky, & Ehlert, 2017; Johnston, Hagel, Franklin, Fink, & Grammer, 2001; Little, Burriss, Petrie, Jones, & Roberts, 2013; Little & Jones, 2012; Penton-Voak et al., 1999; Penton-Voak & Perrett, 2000), and voices (Feinberg et al., 2006; Pisanski et al., 2014; Puts, 2005, Puts, 2006). Conversely, other studies cast doubt on the existence of cycle shifts in preferences for faces (e.g., Jones et al., 2018; Marcinkowska, Hahn, Little, DeBruine, & Jones, 2019) and voices (e.g., Jünger et al., 2018). Yet, because we did not collect the necessary data to examine menstrual cycle effects in the current study, we cannot contribute to this important debate in a meaningful way.

 

We find that bans or restrictions that specifically target “assault weapons” increase demand for handguns, which are associated with the vast majority of firearm-related violence

Preferences for Firearms and Their Implications for Regulation. Sarah Moshary, Bradley Shapiro & Sara Drango. NBER Working Paper 30934, February 2023,DOI 10.3386/w30934 

Abstract: This paper estimates consumer demand for firearms with the aim of predicting the likely impacts of firearm regulations on the number and types of guns in circulation. We first conduct a stated-choice-based conjoint analysis and estimate an individual-level demand model for firearms. We validate our estimates using aggregate moments from observational data. Next, we use our estimates to simulate changes in the number and types of guns in circulation under alternative regulations. Importantly, we find that bans or restrictions that specifically target “assault weapons” increase demand for handguns, which are associated with the vast majority of firearm-related violence. We provide distributions of consumer surplus under counterfactuals and discuss how those distributions could be useful for crafting policy.

The Pure giving advice to the hoi polloi... Stop answering centrist questions: The Left can only win when it answers the questions it was founded to pose

Johnson, Matthew, Johnson, Elliott and Nettle, Daniel (2023) Stop answering centrist questions: The Left can only win when it answers the questions it was founded to pose. Transform! Europe, Brussels, Belgium. ISBN 9783903343344 (In Press). Feb 2023. https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/51341

Abstract: This article summarises a series of findings from a programme of research on the viability of Universal Basic Income as a transformative public policy. The findings suggest that the left should stop answering liberal questions. This means no longer being preoccupied by who currently votes and their assumed ‘inherent’ values. Instead, as the left’s founding figures thought, it must consider how the vast majority of the population who would benefit from transformative material change can be persuaded of the benefit of voting for left policies. Our findings suggest that workers are keenly aware of the need for transformative material change and can be persuaded to support that change electorally through narratives that demonstrate specific benefits to specific groups. The findings ought to grant hope to progressive policymakers: change is possible and incrementalism is not an inevitable strategy.

Polarization of the Rich: The New Democratic Allegiance of Affluent Americans and the Politics of Redistribution

Polarization of the Rich: The New Democratic Allegiance of Affluent Americans and the Politics of Redistribution. Sam Zacher. Perspectives on Politics, Feb 8 2023. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592722003310

Abstract: Affluent Americans used to vote for Republican politicians. Now they vote for Democrats. In this paper, I show detailed evidence for this decades-in-the-making trend and argue that it has important consequences for the U.S. politics of economic inequality and redistribution. Beginning in the 1990s, the Democratic Party started winning increasing shares of rich, upper-middle income, high-income occupation, and stock-owning voters. This appears true across voters of all races and ethnicities, is concentrated among (but not exclusive to) college-educated voters, and is only true among voters living in larger metropolitan areas. In the 2010s, Democratic candidates’ electoral appeal among affluent voters reached above-majority levels. I echo other scholars in maintaining that this trend is partially driven by the increasingly “culturally liberal” views of educated voters and party elite polarization on those issues, but I additionally argue that the evolution and stasis of the parties’ respective economic policy agendas has also been a necessary condition for the changing behavior of affluent voters. This reversal of an American politics truism means that the Democratic Party’s attempts to cohere around an economically redistributive policy agenda in an era of rising inequality face real barriers.

See also... Liberal political views may be seen as a subtle signal of wealth in today's society; the shift of wealthier people to the political left may coincide with a working-class shift to the right

Are Political Views the New Luxury Goods? Bence Nanay. Psychology Today, January 25, 2023. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2023/01/liberal-political-views-may-be-seen-as.html

Why Have Affluent Americans Swung Democratic?

Political scientists tend to agree that political competition generally happens on two dimensions of issue bundles, the social/cultural and the economic. Debates surrounding the shifting of American party voter coalitions and party policy agendas have often centered on social/cultural issues. I propose that there are four possible proximate causes to the changing voting behavior of affluent Americans: a) social/cultural issue shifts among i) voter preferences or ii) party policy agendas or b) economic issue shifts among i) voter preferences or ii) party policy agendas. I will describe each in turn, highlighting the under-recognized nature of the economic dimension for both party policy agendas and for voter preferences.

As Kitschelt and Rehm (Reference Kitschelt and Rehm2019) make clear, the rights revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, followed by the transition from an industrial to a knowledge economy—where the economic gains to educational attainment have vastly increased—has created a new class of voters with “libertarian” (a.k.a. socially/culturally liberal) views on issues such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, drug laws, racial inclusion, and other issues that involve extending civil rights to subgroups of Americans. Dovetailing with a literature that argues that voters with more education and more income are more likely to hold more socially/culturally liberal views than other voters (e.g., Inglehart Reference Inglehart1981; Broockman, Ferenstein, and Malhotra Reference Broockman, Ferenstein and Malhotra2019) which may even be more likely than their economic views to drive their voting behavior (Enke, Polborn, and Wu Reference Enke, Polborn and Wu2022), many scholars agree that many more Americans today simply hold more socially/culturally liberal views than ever before. One likely crucial element to the increase in socially/culturally liberal voters is the increasing (although still minority) shares of Black, Latino, and other voters of color earning relatively high incomes (e.g., figure 4), in addition to the decrease in white Americans expressing “racially resentful” views—which are symbolic and do not necessarily imply concrete economic policy preferences—over time (Clemons Reference Clemons2022). These various interrelated forces shaping the social/cultural views of many affluent voters, in particular, very likely drive more of them to feel more allegiance to the Democratic over Republican Party, as there is clear polarization between the parties on these issues. This explanation certainly carries some weight in explaining the Democratic shift among affluent voters.

A large chorus of scholars and pundits have described how the U.S. parties’ policy agendas (and messaging) have polarized on the social/cultural dimension over many decades. The Democratic Party’s relative warmth toward the movements for Civil Rights and women’s liberation of the 1960s and 1970s created the impression that Democrats care more than Republicans about the well-being of Americans who are not white and not men (e.g., Ladd and Hadley Reference Ladd and Hadley1975; Edsall and Edsall Reference Edsall and Edsall1992; Kitschelt and Rehm Reference Kitschelt and Rehm2019). Followed quickly by the rise of the Christian Right’s ascendance within the Republican Party, by the 2000s, Democrats and Republicans had clearly opposing policy agendas on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, and Republicans had begun winning majorities of white Americans (e.g., Miller and Schofield Reference Miller and Schofield2008; Abrajano and Hajnal Reference Abrajano and Hajnal2015; Hacker and Pierson Reference Hacker and Pierson2020). The Democrats had become the party of social/cultural liberalism, through and through (Brownstein Reference Brownstein2021). The pulling apart of the party agendas on this range of issues likely attracted some affluent (more educated) Americans, particularly in stark contrast to the increasingly conservative Republican agenda—which, interacted with an increasingly social/cultural base of affluent voters, has clearly been a main part of the story of the new rich Democratic voting base.

When it comes to possible voter preference changes on economic issues, the transition from an industrial to a knowledge economy is once again relevant. Economic activity in the twenty-first century is now far more likely to be generated in cities and metropolitan areas and primarily powered by people with college and post-graduate degrees, and these voters do seem to favor increased government spending on infrastructure, research and development, transportation, and what might be called “new labor market risks” such as education and childcare spending—essentially, policy demand created by the economic activity of a more educated workforce living in dense metropolitan areas in both the United States and Europe (Gingrich and Hausermann Reference Gingrich and Häusermann2015; Abou-Chadi and Emmergut Reference Abou‐Chadi and Immergut2019; Ansell and Gingrich Reference Ansell, Gingrich, Hacker, Hertel-Fernandez, Pierson and Thelen2021; Hacker, Pierson, and Zacher Reference Hacker, Pierson and Zacher2021). In this way, a certain class of upper-middle income (educated) voters may have preferences for new kinds of government spending (which the Republican Party has generally opposed on ideological grounds for decades, e.g., Hacker and Pierson Reference Hacker and Pierson2020), potentially pulling some affluent voters toward the Democratic coalition. There is some merit in this explanation, although likely not as much as the social/cultural issue dimension, given the inconsistent salience of issues like infrastructure, education, and government-funded research in national political competition over decades (especially compared to the salience of social/cultural issues).

Finally, the economic policy platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties have changed over decades, and I argue this is a more important part of the story of affluent voters swinging Democratic than previously imagined. In the 1990s and 2000s, Democratic elites converged with Republicans on immigration and trade (i.e., becoming more open to them, e.g., Greenberg Reference Greenberg2017; Geismer Reference Geismer2022), financial deregulation (Keller and Kelly Reference Keller and Kelly2015; Kelly Reference Kelly2020; Geismer Reference Geismer2022), and somewhat on welfare (Geismer Reference Geismer2022). Democratic politicians like Bill Clinton were also more hostile toward organized labor than any Democrats for decades (Geismer Reference Geismer2022; in part a reflection of the decline of the power of organized labor, e.g., Rosenfeld Reference Rosenfeld2014), and while the Democratic Party platform has increased its rhetorical focus on means-tested and public goods spending since the 1990s, it has not much increased its focus on increasingly progressive taxation (Malpas and Hilton Reference Malpas and Hilton2021), even after Democrats played a key role, alongside Ronald Reagan, in massively cutting the top income tax rates in the 1980s (Prasad Reference Prasad2019). To be sure, the Republican Party’s economic agenda has remained largely in favor of minimal government taxation, spending, and regulation for decades (Hacker and Pierson Reference Hacker and Pierson2020). While Obama and congressional Democrats did pass the Affordable Care Act and Biden and congressional Democrats did pass large spending on COVID-19 stimulus and physical infrastructure in 2021, the Democrats at the head of the party have not meaningfully altered the policy agenda in ways that would threaten the interests of affluent Americans. Therefore, it is quite likely that the Democratic economic policy agenda’s relative friendliness toward affluent income earners, homeowners, and stock owners (even as high as the top 5%) is a necessary condition for keeping and increasing the share of affluent voters from the 1990s through 2020.

In summary, the divide between the parties on social/cultural issues interacted with the increasing share of socially/culturally liberal voters—who prefer relatively economically costless forms of extensions of civil rights to more subgroups of Americans—is clearly a major driving force in bringing more-affluent Americans to the Democratic Party voter base. And it may be the case that educated, somewhat affluent voters who live and work in large metropolitan areas have new demands for economic investments that only the Democratic Party has been willing to consider. I also propose that a necessary condition to the increasingly—and now-majority Democratic allegiance—of affluent voters is the moderate nature of the Democrats’ economic policy agenda: Obama, Biden, and other Democratic leaders do want to use government to increase spending and some kinds of regulation, but they do not want to impose direct economic costs on any segments of affluent voters to execute a redistributive agenda.

Did Donald Trump Cause Polarization among Affluent Voters?

Readers may wonder about how these trends interact with another major new force in American politics: Donald Trump. He was clearly a unique Republican presidential candidate in 2016 and 2020. Trump campaigned on a platform that was more anti-immigration, anti-trade, and pro-social safety net than nearly all Republicans in recent memory. He also broke from the mold via his rhetoric, framing other political actors more starkly as winners or losers and employing insults, among other ways (e.g., Ross and Rivers Reference Ross and Rivers2020). Because of his uniqueness—and because he provoked seemingly stronger reactions, among both supporters and opponents, than prior presidential candidates—it is worth inquiring, how much of the swing of affluent voters to the Democratic Party may be caused by Trump’s prominence and two-time candidacy?

A few clues show that this trend is not primarily related to Trump. First, the ANES and CES over-time data (e.g., figures 1 and 2) show that the shift of higher-income voters toward the Democratic Party started decades before Trump’s rise. Second, the data on voting for U.S. House and gubernatorial candidates (online appendix figures 2 and 3) show that mostly similar kinds of trends have been underway in the decisions for non-presidential (i.e., non-Trump) candidates. Third, European studies of shifts in the voter coalitions of different parties show that the trend of more-educated, urban, middle- and higher-income voters toward center-left parties (and less-educated voters toward right populist parties) is happening in those countries, too (e.g., Gingrich and Hauserman Reference Gingrich and Häusermann2015; Oesch and Rennwald Reference Oesch and Rennwald2018).

At the same time, nearly all the figures in this paper show that 2016 and 2020 were the elections when more-affluent voters most preferred Democratic candidates in recent memory, even at above-majority levels (a sort of “backwards”—i.e., severely unexpected—polarization). Those two elections were the first time that majorities of the top 5% (by income) voted for the Democratic candidate. There are a few reasons why this recent political behavior by the rich may not be unexpected. Survey evidence has consistently shown that the wealthiest Americans are the most liberal (or moderate) on issues like trade and immigration (e.g., Kitschelt and Rehm Reference Kitschelt and Rehm2019; Broockman and Malhotra Reference Broockman and Malhotra2020) that Trump campaigned against, contrary to other Republicans in recent memory. Relatedly, an impression of Trump was that he was more anti-elite in his rhetoric, in addition to being less predictable in general—two things that higher-income Americans may be more likely to oppose than other voters, as they are a certain kind of “elites,” and they may relatively prefer political-economic stability. Finally, as establishment Democratic politicians, nominees Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden (in 2016 and 2020, respectively) may have seemed relatively safe choices for the richest Americans. For all these reasons, Trump’s candidacy in 2016 and 2020 may have made those two recent elections outliers, even in comparison of this trend through the 2000s and early 2010s. Therefore, while Trump clearly did not spark the trend of affluent voters choosing Democrats over Republicans—which really began in the 1990s and has been happening in other advanced democracies—his candidacy may very well have accentuated the trend in recent elections.

Being in the sexual minority is comparable to the other well-documented sociodemographic predictors of attitudes; unlike these other sociodemographic characteristics, sexuality consistently predicts more liberal attitudes among sexual minorities

Denise, Eric J. 2020. “Does Sexuality Matter? A Comparison of Heterosexuals’ and Sexual Minorities’ Sociopolitical Attitudes.” SocArXiv. November 17. doi:10.31235/osf.io/atnxb

Abstract: Few researchers have examined the influence of sexuality on individuals’ sociopolitical attitudes. Using data from the 1991-2012 General Social Surveys (GSS) and 2008 American National Election Survey (ANES), I compare the social and political attitudes of heterosexuals and sexual minorities across a wide array of domains. Examining sixty measures of sociopolitical attitudes in the GSS, I find evidence that sexual minorities are significantly more liberal than their heterosexual counterparts across both sexual (e.g., sexual morality) and non-sexual (e.g., civil liberties, environmentalism) domains. In comparing the effect of sexuality on attitudes to the effects of gender, race, and education, I find that the influence of sexuality is comparable to these other well-documented sociodemographic predictors of attitudes. However, unlike these other sociodemographic characteristics, sexuality consistently predicts more liberal attitudes among sexual minorities compared to heterosexuals. Expanded analyses using 278 attitudinal items in the GSS and 64 in the ANES yield similar results. My findings provide evidence for the necessity to incorporate sexuality in future assessments of sociodemographic predictors of sociopolitical attitudes.

There is little evidence of systematic support for wokeness among executives or the population; many firms embrace wokeness because middle managers engage in woke internal advocacy, which may increase their influence & job security

Foss, Nicolai J. and Klein, Peter G., Why Do Companies Go Woke? (November 23, 2022). SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4285680

Abstract: “Woke” companies are those that are committed to socially progressive causes, with a particular focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion as these terms are understood through the lens of critical theory. There is little evidence of systematic support for woke ideas among executives and the population at large, and going woke does not appear to improve company performance. Why, then are so many firms embracing woke policies and attitudes? We suggest that going woke is an emergent strategy that is largely shaped by middle managers rather than owners, top managers, or employees. We build on theories from agency theory, institutional theory, and intra-organizational ecology to argue that wokeness arises from middle managers and support personnel using their delegated responsibility and specialist status to engage in woke internal advocacy, which may increase their influence and job security. Broader social and cultural trends tend to reinforce this process. We discuss implications for organizational behavior and performance including perceived corporate hypocrisy (“woke-washing”), the potential loss of creativity from restricting viewpoint diversity, and the need for companies to keep up with a constantly changing cultural landscape.

Keywords: DEI, diversity, social responsibility, strategic change, organizational structure

JEL Classification: M14, L21, M12, M52

Pervasively, not only in seminars: "Each intervention in a seminar is incomplete, and gets things wrong. Each subsequent intervention is also incomplete, and also gets things wrong"

A Black Professor Trapped in Anti-Racist Hell. Vincent Lloyd. Compact, Feb 2023. https://compactmag.com/article/a-black-professor-trapped-in-anti-racist-hell

Excerpts:

This might be just another lament about “woke” campus culture, and the loss of traditional educational virtues. But the seminar topic was “Race and the Limits of Law in America.” Four of the 6 weeks were focused on anti-black racism (the other two were on anti-immigrant and anti-indigenous racism). I am a black professor, I directed my university’s black-studies program, I lead anti-racism and transformative-justice workshops, and I have published books on anti-black racism and prison abolition. I live in a predominantly black neighborhood of Philadelphia, my daughter went to an Afrocentric school, and I am on the board of our local black cultural organization.

Like others on the left, I had been dismissive of criticisms of the current discourse on race in the United States. But now my thoughts turned to that moment in the 1970s when leftist organizations imploded, the need to match and raise the militancy of one’s comrades leading to a toxic culture filled with dogmatism and disillusion. How did this happen to a group of bright-eyed high school students?

[...]

I am no stranger to anti-racism workshops: I have participated in many of them, and I have facilitated them myself. But the Telluride workshops were being organized by two college-age students, filled with the spirit of the times. From what I gleaned, they involved crudely conveying certain dogmatic assertions, no matter what topic the workshops were ostensibly about:

Experiencing hardship conveys authority.

There is no hierarchy of oppressions—except for anti-black oppression, which is in a class of its own. 

Trust black women.

Prison is never the answer.

Black people need black space.

Allyship is usually performative.

All non-black people, and many black people, are guilty of anti-blackness.

There is no way out of anti-blackness.

The seminar form pulls against the form of the anti-racism workshop, and Telluride was trying to have them both at once. By its nature, a seminar requires patience. Day by day, one intervention builds on another, as one student notices what another student overlooked, and as the professor guides the discussion toward the most important questions. All of this is grounded in a text: Specific words, phrases, arguments, and images from a text offer essential friction for conversation, holding seminar participants accountable to something concrete. The instructor gently—ideally, almost invisibly—guides discussion toward what matters.

The seminar assumes that each student has innate intelligence, even as we come from different backgrounds, have different amounts and sorts of knowledge, and different skills. We can each be formed best if we take advantage of our differing insights to push each other, over time, again and again. When this practice is occasioned by carefully curated texts—not exclusively “great books,” but texts that challenge each other and us as they probe issues of essential importance—a seminar succeeds.

A seminar takes time. The first day, you will be frustrated. The second and the third day, you will be frustrated. Even on the last day, you will be frustrated, though ideally now in a different way. Each intervention in a seminar is incomplete, and gets things wrong. Each subsequent intervention is also incomplete, and also gets things wrong. But there are plenty of insights and surprises, for each participant looks at a text with different eyes.

It is tempting to add: Such is life. Such is democratic life. We each have different, partial knowledge. We each get things wrong, over and over. At our best, we enter the fray by listening to each other and complementing and challenging the insights of our fellows. In the process, over years, decades, we are oriented toward justice and truth.

[...]

In the 2022 anti-racism workshops, the non-black students learned that they needed to center black voices—and to shut up. Keisha reported that this was particularly difficult for the Asian-American students, but they were working on it. (Eventually, two of the Asian-American students would be expelled from the program for reasons that, Keisha said, couldn’t be shared with me.) The effects on the seminar were quick and dramatic. During the first week, participation was as you would expect: There were two or three shy students who only spoke in partner or small-group work, two or three outspoken students, and the rest in the middle. One of the black students was outspoken, one was in the middle, and one was shy. By the second week of the seminar, the two white students were effectively silent. Two of the Asian-American students remained active (the ones who would soon be expelled), but the vast majority of interventions were from the three black students. The two queer students, one Asian and one white, were entirely silent. The black students certainly had interesting things to say and important connections to make with their experiences and those of their family members, but a seminar succeeds when multiple perspectives clash into each other, grapple with each other, and develop—and that became impossible.

In the 2022 anti-racism workshops, the non-black students learned that they needed to center black voices—and to shut up. Keisha reported that this was particularly difficult for the Asian-American students, but they were working on it. (Eventually, two of the Asian-American students would be expelled from the program for reasons that, Keisha said, couldn’t be shared with me.) The effects on the seminar were quick and dramatic. During the first week, participation was as you would expect: There were two or three shy students who only spoke in partner or small-group work, two or three outspoken students, and the rest in the middle. One of the black students was outspoken, one was in the middle, and one was shy. By the second week of the seminar, the two white students were effectively silent. Two of the Asian-American students remained active (the ones who would soon be expelled), but the vast majority of interventions were from the three black students. The two queer students, one Asian and one white, were entirely silent. The black students certainly had interesting things to say and important connections to make with their experiences and those of their family members, but a seminar succeeds when multiple perspectives clash into each other, grapple with each other, and develop—and that became impossible.

[...]

In their “transformative-justice” workshop, my students learned to name “harms.” This language, and the framework it expresses, come out of the prison-abolition movement. Instead of matching crimes with punishments, abolitionists encourage us to think about harms and how they can be made right, often through inviting a broader community to discern the impact of harms, the reasons they came about, and paths forward. In the language of the anti-racism workshop, a harm becomes anything that makes you feel not quite right. For a 17-year-old at a highly selective, all-expenses-paid summer program, newly empowered with the language of harm, there are relatively few sites at which to use this framework. My seminar became the site at which to try out—and weaponize—this language.

During our discussion of incarceration, an Asian-American student cited federal inmate demographics: About 60 percent of those incarcerated are white. The black students said they were harmed. They had learned, in one of their workshops, that objective facts are a tool of white supremacy. Outside of the seminar, I was told, the black students had to devote a great deal of time to making right the harm that was inflicted on them by hearing prison statistics that were not about blacks. A few days later, the Asian-American student was expelled from the program. Similarly, after a week focused on the horrific violence, death, and dispossession inflicted on Native Americans, Keisha reported to me that the black students and their allies were harmed because we hadn’t focused sufficiently on anti-blackness. When I tried to explain that we had four weeks focused on anti-blackness coming soon, as indicated on the syllabus, she said the harm was urgent; it needed to be addressed immediately.

[...]

They alleged: I had used racist language. I had misgendered Brittney Griner. I had repeatedly confused the names of two black students. My body language harmed them. I hadn’t corrected facts that were harmful to hear when the (now-purged) students introduced them in class. I invited them to think about the reasoning of both sides of an argument, when only one side was correct. The students ended with a demand: In light of all the harms they had suffered, they could only continue in the class if I abandoned the seminar format and instead lectured each day about anti-blackness, correcting any of them who questioned orthodoxy.

The Shawshank Redemption Effect: In the US, the public's desire for harsh criminal punishment (including capital punishment) has been steadily declining

Public support for second look sentencing: Is there a Shawshank redemption effect?. Kellie R. Hannan, Francis T. Cullen, Amanda Graham, Cheryl Lero Jonson, Justin T. Pickett, Murat Haner, Melissa M. Sloan. Criminology & Public Policy, February 2 2023. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12616

Abstract

Research Summary: Washington, DC has implemented second look sentencing. After serving a minimum of 15 years in prison, those convicted of a serious offense committed while under the age of 25 years can petition a judge to take a “second look” and potentially release them from incarceration. To examine both global and specific support for second look sentencing, we embedded experiments in a 2021 MTurk survey and in a follow-up 2022 YouGov survey. Two key findings emerged. First, regardless of whether a crime was committed under 18 years or under 25 years of age, a majority of the public supported second look sentencing. Opposition to the policy was low, even for petitioners convicted of murder. Second, as revealed by vignette ratings, respondents were more likely to support release when a petitioner “signaled” their reform (e.g., completed a rehabilitation program, received a recommendation from the warden) and had the support of the victim (or their family).

Policy Implications: The critique of mass imprisonment has broadened from a focus on the level of incarceration to the inordinate length of sentences being served by some prisoners. Policies are being proposed to reconsider these long sentences and to provide opportunities for earned release. Second look sentencing in DC is one of these reforms. Our research suggests that many members of the public believe in a “Shawshank redemption” effect—that those committing serious crimes as a teenager or young adult can mature into a “different person” and warrant a second look, with the possibility of early release if they have earned it. A key issue is likely to be how much weight is accorded to the preference of victims or their families in any release decision.

Same race teachers do not necessarily raise academic achievement

Same race teachers do not necessarily raise academic achievement. Jeffrey Penney. Economics Letters, Volume 223, February 2023, 110993. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2023.110993

Abstract: Numerous studies have found that students who are of the same race as their teacher experience increased academic achievement. In this paper, I attempt to explain when these benefits occur and which students are most likely to achieve the largest gains. Using exogenous variation in student–teacher matches and classroom composition from Tennessee’s Project STAR experiment, I find that below average achieving students benefit most from having a teacher of the same race, but the benefits from matching can be substantially reduced in smaller classes. Moreover, the effect is decreased in racially homogeneous classes where the teacher is the majority race.

Introduction

There is substantial evidence that students do better academically when matched with a teacher of the same race (e.g. Dee, 2004, Fairlie et al., 2014, Egalite et al., 2015, Penney, 2017, Delhommer, 2022).1 However, educational interventions thought to improve student achievement can potentially fail to achieve the desired results under some circumstances; for example, Gilraine (2020) finds that class size reductions only increase student achievement when experienced instructors are teaching the smaller classes.

In this paper, I investigate the heterogeneities of own-race teacher effects, considering their distribution and examining which scenarios they are most likely to be beneficial. I conduct an empirical analysis making use of data from Project STAR, a large-scale education experiment in Tennessee that was designed to investigate the effects of class size and teacher’s aides on student achievement. This is the first paper that focuses on investigating own-race teacher effects specifically with regards to student achievement and classroom composition using experimental data, filling a crucial gap in the literature.

The results of this analysis are as follows. I find that the benefit of student–teacher racial matching varies with academic ability, with lower-scoring students generally profiting the most whereas above-average achieving students see no distinguishable increase in test scores. An examination of the effects of classroom composition reveals that the magnitude of own-race teacher effects varies along this dimension: where the teacher shares the same race as only a few of their students, the own-race teacher effect on mathematics and reading scores is high; if instead almost all students in the class are the same race as their teacher, it is considerably lower.

This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 outlines the data from the Project STAR experiment and considers several threats to validity. The empirical analysis takes place in Section 3. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications in Section 4.