Connection between control perceptions and the tendency to moralize and hold people responsible for their actions: Conservatives around the world perceived they had more control over their lives relative to liberals

Age Differences in Free Will and Control Perceptions Across the Lifespan and Around the World. William J. Chopik, Joshua A. Confer, Matt Motyl. Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, March 15 2023, 100093. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cresp.2023.100093

Highlights

• Free will and control perceptions vary across development and cultures.

• Few studies examined cultural variation in age differences in these characteristics.

• We found that older adults perceived less control across cultures.

• Cultural and individual characteristics occasionally moderated age differences.

Abstract: Variation in free will and control perceptions has been examined across the development of young children, adults, and in several different countries. In two studies (three samples; total N = 492,134), older adults believed less in free will, fatalistic determinism, and perceived less control over their lives compared to younger adults. In Study 2 (Samples 1 [48 countries] and 2 [99 countries]), control perceptions were highest among individuals who lived in countries that were more indulgent (versus restricted). Country-level characteristics often moderated the link between age and control perceptions, although variation in age differences was relatively small. The current studies are the largest and most comprehensive investigations of demographic and cultural differences in free will and control perceptions. The findings are discussed in the context of the mechanisms that drive changes in free will and control perceptions across the lifespan and across cultures.

General Discussion

Although most people believe in free will and perceive that they have control over their lives, these perceptions likely vary across several dimensions. Across three samples (N = 492,134), we found that free will and control perceptions were higher among young adults and lower among older adults. Men, conservatives, educated individuals, and those with higher religious attendance tended to report having more control over their lives. In Study 2, people from countries higher in indulgence reported higher control perceptions. Country-level characteristics often moderated the link between age and free will beliefs, but these associations were often very small. These studies represent the largest and most comprehensive examinations of lifespan and cultural differences in free will and control perceptions conducted to date.

Demographic Differences in Free Will and Control Perceptions

Across the three samples, older adults perceived less free will and control over their lives. This finding could be attributable to the fact that as people age, they begin to learn and acknowledge the wide-ranging constraints on one's mind and behavior (see Chernyak et al., 2013; Gergely et al., 2002). There is a continuation of learning about constraints placed on one's behavior, such as those imposed by social institutions (i.e., workplace rules and norms), and that these, in turn, drive individual and social development (Roberts, Wood, et al., 2005). However, it was an open question about whether perceptions of control and free will also mapped on to age differences in these perceived constraints across life.

We also investigated how demographic characteristics were associated with variation in free will and control perceptions. Many findings from our studies support the connection between control perceptions and the tendency to moralize and hold people responsible for their actions. For example, we find that conservatives around the world perceived they had more control over their lives relative to liberals. This is likely connected to conservatives’ emphasizing the role of personal responsibility and downplaying the role of external constraints on one's behavior (Eidelman et al., 2012; Skitka & Tetlock, 1992, 1993). Indeed, Everett et al. (2020)’s recent research demonstrates how conservatives’ moralizing attitudes heightens their free will perceptions relative to liberals. In line with this idea, we also found that, compared to women, men also reported higher control perceptions on average. This may likewise be attributed to the tendency of men to moralize and support retribution (Helgeson & Fritz, 1999), which is associated with a higher perception of moral responsibility (Caspar et al., 2017; Krueger et al., 2014; Shariff et al., 2014). Lastly, higher religious attendance was associated with greater perceptions of control/free will in Study 1 and Sample 2 of Study 2. This supports the idea that many religions promote free will and control through the encouragement of choice and taking responsibility for decisions (and their outcomes) (see Baumeister et al., 2010; McCullough & Willoughby, 2009).

As for education, our results were not as clear. Study 1 suggested that educated adults believe less in free will, while Study 2’s samples showed highly educated people perceive more control over their lives. In this specific case, it is worth noting that there are likely plenty of people who can hold disbelief in free will but nevertheless think they have control over the outcomes of their lives (the two are only modestly positively correlated). In Study 1, although older adults believed less in free will, they were also less likely to endorse beliefs about fatalistic determinism and that the universe is a random place. Although highly educated adults may be more likely to endorse a deterministic-scientific worldview (and therefore believe less in free will), they may also be in a position to overcome various constraints (i.e., financial) and therefore have a higher perception of how much freedom and control they have over their lives. However, the current studies cannot answer these questions definitively.

Cultural Differences in Control Perceptions

The analysis of cross-cultural variation in control perceptions in Study 2 provided several surprising findings. The most counter-intuitive was that individualism/collectivism was not a consistent predictor of control perceptions (although it showed the opposite pattern than would be expected—people living in individualistic societies reported lower perceptions of control over their lives). This was a puzzling result as we expected individualistic cultures, who are thought to emphasize individual autonomy, would stress individual autonomy and engender people with perceptions that they have control over their lives. Indeed, these results seem to contrast with Chernyak et al. (2013)’s finding that older children from the United States (an ‘individualistic’ culture) believe more in their freedom of choice relative to their counterparts in Nepal (a ‘collectivist’ culture). It appears it is still up for debate whether focusing more on one's individual autonomy and choices translates into feeling a freer will. Over time, individuals may realize that they possess (or lack) conscious influence on their decisions due to overcoming (or submitting to) constraints. This violation of expectations may lead to particularly low levels of free will among people from individualistic cultures. Nonetheless, because this is only speculation (and the effect was not present in Sample 1), and we encourage future researchers to further examine this finding.

Importantly, it should also be noted that the individualistic/collectivist dichotomy is often an oversimplification (or, according to some, a misrepresentation) of cultures (Talhelm, 2019). For example, regions around the world generally contain areas that have both individualistic/collectivistic influences (Vignoles et al., 2016). Some values serve both the individual and the collective (Schwartz, 1990), and collectivist cultures display a vigilance of in-group members that is indicative of attributing individual responsibility to people's actions (Liu et al., 2019). Given these critiques of individualism/collectivism, we also encourage researchers to examine different conceptualizations and taxonomies of cultural differences (e.g., Schwartz taxonomies, the other GLOBE characteristics) and how they might be associated with free will and control perceptions.

In Study 2, people from more restrained countries possessed lower perceptions of control. This finding seems to contrast with Baumeister et al. (2010)’s suggestion that belief in free will and control represent the ability to avoid behaviors and temptations that are deemed unacceptable by society. One might expect that more restrained countries think they have more control over their actions and the consequences of those actions. However, our results suggest the opposite. This may be interpreted through how citizens perceive these societies to be constraining their individual freedom. More restrained countries likely have many customs, norms, and laws that condemn or commend various desires, impulses, and behaviors. Perhaps individuals from restrained countries feel the weight of these regulations or are more often reminded of the impulses pulling on their decisions. An individual living in a more indulgent society may not feel compelled by any of these forces, and hence, may feel freer to do as they please.

In addition to overall cultural differences in free will belief, several cultural variables moderated associations between age and control perceptions in Study 2. The sharper age differences could result from people in these cultures reflecting more on constraints (e.g., countries high in restraint and femininity) or being confronted with constraints that violate their perceptions of agency over time (e.g., countries high in individualism). It should be noted that these variables rarely and inconsistently moderated age differences. Because the link between age and control perceptions was largely consistent across cultural contexts in adulthood, this may suggest that cultures engender specific beliefs in control earlier in life. Moreover, as people from different cultures age, they may universally experience the force of constraints placed upon their lives and their control perceptions could decline in a largely homogenous way. Although people around the world may face different constraints, the result appears to be that any constraints—irrespective of their cultural specificity—likely lowers perceptions of control as people grow into adulthood and old age.

Limitations and Future Directions

The studies had many strengths. For example, we analyzed three large data sets from relatively diverse participants and countries using multiple measures of our umbrella construct—free will and control perceptions. We also integrated data from multiple sources, including information on how countries varied economically and socially.

Nevertheless, there are some limitations worth acknowledging. First, the data from the three samples were cross-sectional. This limitation leaves open the possibility that we captured differences in free will and control perceptions between members of different birth cohorts rather than lifespan differences. In other words, it would be the difference between (a) concluding that people born more recently in history have higher free will or control perceptions and (b) concluding that these beliefs and perceptions decline across the lifespan. The danger in this ambiguity is that different birth cohorts are exposed to different sociocultural norms that might influence their perceptions or any other psychological characteristic (Roberts et al., 2010; Stewart & Healy, 1989). Worth noting, because the age differences were so consistent across data sets, cultures, and cultural variables, our data are more likely to lend itself to the developmental interpretation—that free will and control perceptions decline across age and that they are relatively resilient to the modeling of cultural factors (Bleidorn et al., 2013; McCrae et al., 2000; McCrae et al., 1999). Formally modeling year of data collection in the analyses yielded conflicting results—free will beliefs tended to be lower in more recent years in Study 1 but control perceptions tended to higher in more recent years in Study 2 (a replication and extension of Inglehart et al., 2008).

The pattern seen in Study 2 more squarely aligns with studies examining birth cohort differences in perceived control. For example, in cohort sequential studies, more recent cohorts in the U.S. and Germany tend to perceive fewer constraints, and this is particularly true for people's perceptions of the degree to which luck and fate govern their lives (Drewelies et al., 2018; Gerstorf et al., 2019). However, there is some evidence to suggest that more recent cohorts of U.S. college students might be shifting toward more external evaluations of control (i.e., less internal perceptions of control; Twenge et al., 2004). The exact pattern of cohort differences might also be moderated by age, such that more recent cohorts of older adults perceive fewer constraints but more recent cohorts of younger adults perceive less control over their lives, some of which might be attributable to economic differences between the cohorts and across the lifespan (Drewelies et al., 2018).5 Ultimately, formal tests of these questions in the current data was not possible and beyond the current scope of the paper. Future research should follow different cohorts of individuals over time to appropriately separate cohort and developmental effects on free will and control perceptions. A more direct test might be to experimentally manipulate many of the processes we have proposed to see if they affect free will and control perceptions, whether these processes involve culture (Oyserman & Lee, 2008) or lifespan development (Fung et al., 1999).

Second, cultures are not static in their characteristics and can change considerably over time. Relevant to the current studies, this means that cultures are influencing people differently as they—both cultures and individuals—age. This makes it unclear if differences in free will and control perceptions can be just attributed to individuals aging across time, or our cultures becoming more similar/different across time (Chopik, 2020; Grossmann & Varnum, 2015; Santos et al., 2017; Varnum & Grossmann, 2017). Again, we were only able to superficially model this possibility by including the year of data collection in our analyses, but cultures likely change at much slower rates that what was captured in these samples. Future research can model broader, macro-level changes in cultures to see how temporal variation at a region level might affect individual decision making and perceptions.

Finally, the age-related differences in free will and control perceptions varied dramatically across samples, ranging from moderate in size to relatively small. This can also be said of the moderating role of individual and cultural characteristics. It was generally the case that, despite significant moderation being present, decomposing the interactions revealed relatively similar effects across different levels of the moderating variables. Although the effects were relatively small, we thought it was important to provide some reasonable expectations about effect sizes for future research. It is also worth noting that we chose age as a relatively imperfect measure of a process we thought unfolds across life (e.g., that people witness events or have experiences that challenge their existing thoughts about control and free will). Examining these questions using more proximal measures or even under experimental conditions might more carefully test the processes we outlined or establish a clearer causal chain. Whether or not manipulating free will and control perceptions on their own translates into judgments of others and pro(anti)-social behavior is another question entirely—a possibility that researchers have been critical of recently (Crone & Levy, 2019; Monroe et al., 2017; Nadelhoffer et al., 2020). In the meantime, evaluating whether personally witnessing or experiencing exogenous forces put upon one's will and control affects perceptions is an important issue to examine. For example, does experiencing a life event not directly under one's control affect how they think about control and free will? Some evidence suggests that it may be possible (Luhmann et al., 2020), but it has largely been untested so far.

Although measures of numeric ability, such as objective numeracy, are often used to index ability-related polarization, we have robustly found ideological differences to be more pronounced among those higher in verbal ability

Ability-related polarization in political attitudes: Mechanisms of motivated reasoning. Brittany Shoots-Reinhard. 2023 SC Upstate Research Symposium, Mar 2023. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/scurs/2023symposium/2023schedule/8/

Abstract

In the United States, political parties are increasingly polarized, with large numbers of people believing that the two parties cannot even agree on basic facts. Partisans also tend to view the other side as unintelligent. Instead, my colleagues and I have found that it is those who are more, rather than less, intelligent who have the most polarized opinions.

In particular, although measures of numeric ability, such as objective numeracy, are often used to index ability-related polarization, we have robustly found ideological differences to be more pronounced among those higher in verbal ability. In two large-scale longitudinal datasets (combined N = 5761), we investigated ability-related political polarization in responses to the COVID19 pandemic and documented ability-related polarization emerging over time. Those higher in ability were more polarized in emotional responses, risk perceptions, and product-purchase intentions.

This polarization was mediated by selective exposure to partisan media and selective interpretation of numeric information. In a second investigation (N=1,222), we investigated the role of factual information in reducing this ability-based polarization. Once provided information, knowledge increased, but ability-related polarization in political opinions remained despite a coming together on the facts. This persistence of polarized opinions may be explained, at least in part, by participants higher in ability engaging in greater polarized evaluation of the information. Thus, higher-ability partisans appear to engage in selective exposure, interpretation, and evaluation to support and defend their worldviews.

The greater the presence of customers wearing masks in a store, the lower the propensity of new visitors to wear masks

The influence of social conformity on mask-wearing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dušan Mladenović, Michal Jirásek, Tomáš Ondráček, Zuzana Opatrná, Radmila Štangová. Heliyon, Volume 9, Issue 3, March 2023, e14496. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14496

Abstract: Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to vaccination, health authorities have strongly advocated the wearing of face masks as a crucial measure in combating the virus. Nevertheless, the recommendation or legal requirement to wear a face mask is no guarantee of adherence to the rules. A person's decision to wear a mask may also be based on their beliefs and is likely to be influenced by their observation of the mask-wearing behavior of other people. This study aims to explore the role of conformity on the wearing of masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that there is little evidence on how the mask-wearing behavior of others and demographic factors affect people's decisions to wear face masks in public settings, we performed a large-scale observational study in the Czech Republic during a period of rapidly increasing COVID-19 related cases and deaths. We observed a total of 1753 customers and 472 employees in 67 highly frequented shopping venues. The data were collected by trained observers and analyzed using multilevel logistic regression modeling. The results indicate that the mask-wearing behavior of new customers was influenced by the proportion of other customers wearing masks and the behavior differed according to the demographics of age and sex. A notable finding was that the greater the presence of customers wearing masks in a store, the lower the propensity of new visitors to wear masks. Which may be evidence of problematic free-riding behavior. These findings therefore have policy implications and can aid the formulation of specific (communication) strategies to promote mask-wearing behavior.

Keywords: Mask-wearing behaviorCOVID-19Social conformityAgeSexShoppingSocial pressure

6. Discussion

The goal of this study was to explore the role of social conformity in mask-wearing behavior. As far as we know, there has been no peer-reviewed or observational study that has focused on real mask-wearing behavior from this perspective and thus no research against which we can directly compare our results. This study also contributes to current knowledge by providing empirical evidence of real-life mask-wearing behavior in a unique context, i.e., the Czech Republic. The results are based on observations made in heavily frequented shopping venues.

Three factors (respiratory protection of employees, respiratory protection of customers, and estimated number of customers per m2) were operationalized to examine conformity and social pressure, which resulted in interesting statistical outputs. While the mask-wearing of fellow customers had a strong positive influence on a person's propensity to adhere to face mask regulations – thereby supporting the effect of conformity – we observed the opposite effect (negative relation) in relation to the estimated number of customers per m2. This conflicts with the assumption that the more customers per m2 (crowded stores), the stronger the influence will be on mask-wearing behavior in the same direction (e.g., due to the social pressure originating in the particular social group). This finding goes against Bir and Wildmar's [14] and Bryson's [44] recent studies that concluded that social pressure can be a significant motive to adopt social group behavior. Our counterintuitive finding can be attributed to free-riding behavior [23,45,46], as an adverse and unforeseen reaction to social pressure or even to inattention and mistakes made by other people. For example, customers entering a store with a high proportion of customers wearing masks may decide not to wear masks, as they perceive the store to be a safe area given that the rest are wearing masks. Hypothetically, free riders may pursue everybody to wear masks, but not to wear them themselves (similar logic may apply to vaccination skepticism [23]). They might even find another person not wearing a face mask, thus justifying their decision not to wear one. Additionally, the notion that social pressure has a negative effect on mask-wearing behavior may be partially interpreted as a rebellious (and unlawful) behavior toward authorities [47], or in our case accepted social and legal norms.

Another notable finding is that the respiratory protection of employees did not have a significant impact on mask-wearing behavior. Store employees (e.g., retail workers) are expected to behave in a manner that promotes and communicates the company's position and etiquette on certain issues (e.g., mask-wearing), thereby cascading the message and influencing the behavior of others. Still, we did not capture any statistically meaningful relationship between the mask-wearing behavior of employees and that of customers, which calls into question the aforementioned idea and seems a promising area for future research. This may be explained by the proposition that the influence of other customers' (in-group) mask-wearing behavior overruled the potential impact of employee behavior. This is similar to the situation of mass events, where individuals align primarily with the observed behaviors of their peers, largely ignoring their information base and other exogenous influences (e.g., the behavior of retail staff) [48], which leads to social herding [31]. This is a noteworthy premise that requires further research attention.

With regard to customer-level characteristics, the results revealed that older age categories are more inclined to wear masks. This is understandable given the scale and content of Czech communication campaigns that (primarily at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic) focused on the elderly, presenting them as one of the categories most vulnerable to the virus [49]. Moreover, our findings support those of Haischer et al. [50], who found that older people are more inclined to mask-wearing in comparison to young or middle-aged individuals. Conversely, these findings indicate that younger people are more unprotected and thus potentially more vulnerable in terms of contracting and spreading the virus, which is borne out by the high incidence of confirmed cases among this category [50]. This might also be considered as a consequence of the dominant and prevailing narrative from the beginning of the pandemic in which young people were presented as either immune to the virus or largely unaffected by it. In terms of sex, the propensity of women to use face masks was found to be higher than that of men [51]. This can be attributed to the women's higher health care awareness (e.g., 32, 33) and the more prevalent risk-taking behavior of men in terms of health issues [50]. This is in line with Moran and Del Valle [51], who concluded that women are more involved in so-called non-pharmaceutical behaviors (e.g., the use of disinfectant, hand washing, mask-wearing, etc.) than men. Moreover, our findings reflect the more empathetic altruistic, and prosocial behavior of women [52].

The time of the observation (morning, afternoon, or evening), whether a customer entered the store individually or as a member of a close group and the location of the store entrance did not have any statistically significant relation to mask-wearing behavior. Therefore, we found no empirical evidence that suggests these variables influence the wearing of masks.

It is necessary to mention several limitations of the study that may have influenced our findings. Firstly, although we provided structured and validated checklists for the observations and one-day training for the observers, and divided them into pairs to ensure consistent and independent data collection, observation, by its nature, tends to be subjective assessment. There is a risk of incorrect estimation due to the subjective evaluations of the observers (e.g., the age of customers, the proportion of customers with correct respiratory protection in a store or the identification of mask type may have been incorrectly estimated). Secondly, given the research design, we did not ask customers and employees if they perceived that their mask-wearing had been influenced by others in any way, and thus conformity behavior was investigated only indirectly. This presents a promising area of future research in which, for example, an experiment could be designed that would capture the causal relations. Although our variables measure real-life behavior (in contrast to previous studies that mostly relied on self-reported perceptions (e.g., 20, 32–38)), more insights are needed to fully understand mask-wearing behavior. Future studies could follow our research design and add a brief survey to triangulate the observed variables more precisely. Thirdly, we did not find a way of operationalizing whether someone had been vaccinated. Vaccination status may have an impact on a person's decision not to adhere to mask-wearing regulations, as those who are vaccinated may perceive themselves to be immune to the COVID-19 virus [53]. Moreover, the study could be repeated at various points in time to capture the longitudinal dynamic and changes in mask-wearing behavior. Also, we could not safeguard if individuals were not subjects of two or more observations at different stores. Similarly, our research design may be censored in a way that does not account for those that are made uncomfortable by the presence of mask/not-masking-wearing crowd in the store and decided to stay outside. The potential remedy would be to perform a photo-epidemiology study and rely on video surveillance data and focus on individuals having facemasks in their hands. These amendments would lead to an increase in the robustness of results at a population level [52]. Scholars should factor these limitations into future studies, given the existing risk of skewed and censored results. Lastly, the cultural background and broader contextual dynamics could have influenced the real-life mask-wearing behavior. Therefore, to fully comprehend the role of conformity in the wearing of masks, the study should be replicated in a cultural context distant from the Czech one. Thus, these are some issues that are worthy topics for further research.

There are several practical implications of our study. In order to promote the wearing of masks, strict social distancing measures need to be enforced and mask-wearing must be systematically and continuously monitored. The results of this study suggest that ensuring individuals wear masks would have a secondary or cumulative effect on others. More specifically, it would have a knock-on effect, whereby others would align their own behavior with the behavior they observe [54]. Moreover, given the surprising finding that the more crowded stores provoke more resistance to mask-wearing regulations among incoming customers, more emphasis should be placed on restricting the number of customers in stores and preventing mass gatherings. Furthermore, in terms of content, communication campaigns should focus not only on altruistic behavior with regard to categories vulnerable to the virus (e.g., the elderly [55]), but also portray all the categories as being affected by the virus in some way. Also, to increase the impact of communication campaigns, particular social categories (e.g., students, seniors, etc.) should be targeted and the required behavior within those categories should be promoted (e.g., students wear masks), in order to create an unconscious bond between peers. Public policies and communication campaigns should pay more attention to those categories that are inclined to resist the regulations (young people and men), regardless of the extent to which these categories are affected by the virus themselves [56], as their refusal to wear masks can influence others.

Great apes reach momentary altered mental states by spinning

Great apes reach momentary altered mental states by spinning. Adriano R. Lameira & Marcus Perlman. Primates, Mar 14 2023. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10329-023-01056-x

Abstract: Among animals, humans stand out in their consummate propensity to self-induce altered states of mind. Archaeology, history and ethnography show these activities have taken place since the beginnings of civilization, yet their role in the emergence and evolution of the human mind itself remains debatable. The means through which modern humans actively alter their experience of self and reality frequently depend on psychoactive substances, but it is uncertain whether psychedelics or other drugs were part of the ecology or culture of pre-human ancestors. Moreover, (nonhuman) great apes in captivity are currently being retired from medical research, rendering comparative approaches thus far impracticable. Here, we circumvent this limitation by harnessing the breadth of publicly available YouTube data to show that apes engage in rope spinning during solitary play. When spinning, the apes achieved speeds sufficient to alter self-perception and situational awareness that were comparable to those tapped for transcendent experiences in humans (e.g. Sufi whirling), and the number of revolutions spun predicted behavioural evidence for dizziness. Thus, spinning serves as a self-sufficient means of changing body-mind responsiveness in hominids. A proclivity for such experiences is shared between humans and great apes, and provides an entry point for the comparative study of the mechanisms, functions, and adaptive value of altered states of mind in human evolution.

Discussion

Our findings show that great apes spin at speeds that induce physiological “highs” in humans. In untrained humans, spinning at similar rates inescapably produces severe dizziness (we invite the reader to try the observed average rotational speed, length or number of bouts performed by great apes reported here for instant validation). Notably, by comparing “recreational” spinning behaviour of apes to professional spinning in humans, our analyses were inherently conservative. Our findings, while exploratory, provide a proof of concept and a new charter for the study and comparison of spinning and altered mental states between humans and great apes.

Our preliminary findings point to several directions for the future study of spinning behaviour in apes and other species. One is to investigate questions related to evo-ecological constraints on spinning. For example, differences in spinning between orangutans (which are mostly arboreal) and gorillas (which are mostly ground-dwelling) could suggest neurological adaptation against motion sickness or vertigo (with faster speeds/more revolutions required for arboreal species to reach dizziness), similar to the reduction of the vestibular cerebellum observed in ballerinas and figure skaters (Nigmatullina et al. 2015). Differences in certain anatomical features between species may also help them leverage more or fewer revolutions when spinning (e.g. the gorillas never used foot grips, while the orangutans often did).

Our findings also raise interesting questions concerning whether this behaviour is performed more frequently by a particular age class or sex, for example, as part of play by juveniles or as part of male display. Because this behaviour in great apes appears to be idiosyncratic, performed by certain individuals rather than occurring across populations, we anticipate that answering these questions will pose an empirical challenge. If attainable, such effort could help provide new insight into the motivation for spinning behaviour and its ontogeny.

More conclusive comparisons between species, as well as between age classes and sexes, could be made possible by controlling for the proportions in which the relevant groups occur in captivity. For example, our findings suggest that bonobos—who are relatively scarce in captivity compared to chimpanzees, but were conversely well represented in our dataset—may more frequently engage in rope spinning than their sister species. Unexpectedly high rates of occurrence in a species with relatively small population sizes in captivity could suggest a higher predisposition to engaging in behaviour that leads to altered states.

Comparisons of captive and wild populations based on more data could also inform whether this behaviour is more likely to occur in animals in captivity, where they might engage in spinning and experience the ensuing state of dizziness as a way of overcoming low environmental stimulation or boredom. However, comparisons using data on wild individuals will probably be limited because recordings of them are rare and idiosyncratic (e.g. footage of wild mountain gorillas was present in our data, though this was the result of video coverage of some gorilla groups as a consequence of tourists filming them).

Although beyond the scope of analysis here, we have also observed videos of rope spinning by other primate species, including gibbons and monkeys. Future research may seek to determine whether other primates spin as frequently as great apes and in such a way that elicits dizziness and altered mental states. Increasing phylogenetic distance will, however, reduce interpretative power based on the physiological and cognitive homology of these species with humans.

To establish clear comparative benchmarks for future ape-human comparisons, it would be relevant to determine the minimum spinning speeds and lengths of time engaged in spinning necessary to induce altered states in humans, and how training affects and extends these limits. Ethnographic and anthropological studies of how children and adults use spinning and other non-pharmacological means to deliberately disrupt body and situational awareness (e.g. swings, slides, rollercoasters, bungee jumping) could provide complementary information about the role that these experiences play in our lives and, by extension, those of our ancestors over evolutionary time. Interestingly, some accredited zoos are reported to have re-used equipment from children’s playgrounds as enclosure enrichment for apes (R. Shumaker, personal communication). Widespread adoption of devices that make up typical children’s playgrounds for use in great ape facilities could provide dynamic stimulation and motoric challenge to individuals, while potentially helping to reveal more comprehensively, and in a controlled fashion, how and why great apes engage in mind-altering behaviours.

Educational attainment: Genetic variance accounted for 51% of the total variance, but within women and men, 40% and 58% of the total variance respectively

Nature, Nurture, and the Meaning of Educational Attainment: Differences by Sex and Socioeconomic Status. Thalida Em Arpawong et al. Twin Research and Human Genetics, March 13 2023. https://doi.org/10.1017/thg.2023.6

Abstract: Estimated heritability of educational attainment (EA) varies widely, from 23% to 80%, with growing evidence suggesting the degree to which genetic variation contributes to individual differences in EA is highly dependent upon situational factors. We aimed to decompose EA into influences attributable to genetic propensity and to environmental context and their interplay, while considering influences of rearing household economic status (HES) and sex. We use the Project Talent Twin and Sibling Study, drawn from the population-representative cohort of high school students assessed in 1960 and followed through 2014, to ages 68−72. Data from 3552 twins and siblings from 1741 families were analyzed using multilevel regression and multiple group structural equation models. Individuals from less-advantaged backgrounds had lower EA and less variation. Genetic variance accounted for 51% of the total variance, but within women and men, 40% and 58% of the total variance respectively. Men had stable genetic variance on EA across all HES strata, whereas high HES women showed the same level of genetic influence as men, and lower HES women had constrained genetic influence on EA. Unexpectedly, middle HES women showed the largest constraints in genetic influence on EA. Shared family environment appears to make an outsized contribution to greater variability for women in this middle stratum and whether they pursue more EA. Implications are that without considering early life opportunity, genetic studies on education may mischaracterize sex differences because education reflects different degrees of genetic and environmental influences for women and men.

Discussion

In this article, we addressed a long-standing question on the importance of nature, via genetic endowment, and nurture, via shared and unique environmental influences, for EA. We found that the balance of nature and nurture underlying EA is not uniform between sexes. First, men and women who were raised in homes with higher household economic status had more years of EA and greater variability in EA than those raised in homes with lower household economic status. Second, we found that overall, there was larger genetic and total variance underlying EA for men than women. Third, nature makes the largest contribution for individuals from the highest family-of-origin economic backgrounds for both men and women. When sex and household economic stratum are both considered, absolute genetic variance contributes similar amounts for men across the economic strata, as well as for women from only the highest economic strata. For women in the lowest and middle economic strata, genetic variance contributes much less to the variability in EA compared to women in the highest economic stratum and to male counterparts across all economic strata. Unexpectedly, for women from the middle economic stratum, it appears that family rearing environment, which may in part reflect parents’ own genetic endowments, may take on an outsized role in contributing to EA. These results confirm that critical interrelationships exist, with nurture moderating effects of nature to alter the range of influence possible on EA. Greater total variance and expression of genetic potential for EA is afforded differently by degree of household economic resources when growing up and in combination with sex or gender.

Findings from this study help us understand the etiology of EA and that EA does not mean the same thing across people, especially for older women today, who were born in the early 1940s. Differences in household economic resources contribute to a disparity in total years of education attained, evidenced by lower overall means and less variability in years of EA for both men and women in the lowest household economic brackets. The finding on differing sources of variance for EA for women by socioeconomic strata was not detectable when examining phenotypic HES × sex effects in predicting EA. This points out that null results in phenotypic models that test sex interactions do not preclude there being differences in etiologies for men and women, particularly with regard to outcomes like EA that are likely influenced by complex processes related to gender socialization and expectations.

Overall, genetic variance accounted for more variation in men’s EA than women’s, at 58% and 40% of the total variance respectively. This is consistent with the ranges for sex-specific calculations reported in prior literature (Baker et al., Reference Baker, Treloar, Reynolds, Heath and Martin1996; Branigan et al., Reference Branigan, McCallum and Freese2013; Heath et al., Reference Heath, Berg, Eaves, Solaas, Corey, Sundet, Magnus and Nance1985; Nielsen & Roos, Reference Nielsen and Roos2015). In turn, the role of nurture was greater for women than for men. This finding supports the interpretation that socio-cultural factors and opportunities shape different trajectories of expression of genetic endowment for men and women (Allan, Reference Allan2011; Klein et al., Reference Klein, Ortman, Campbell, Greenberg, Hollingsworth, Jacobs, Kachuck, McClelland, Pollard, Sadker, Sadker, Schmuck, Scott and Wiggins1994). In this cohort, men were able to pursue genetically driven talents for EA irrespective of socioeconomic strata of their families of origin, but women did not have the same benefit unless in the highest HES group. These findings are in line with prior research that has not detected SES-by-sex differences in the heritability of EA (Branigan et al., Reference Branigan, McCallum and Freese2013; Silventoinen et al., Reference Silventoinen, Krueger, Bouchard, Kaprio and McGue2004) in countries that implement social policies to promote equity in access to educational opportunities (Ahola et al., Reference Ahola, Hedmo, Thomsen and Vabø2014; Gorard & Smith, Reference Gorard and Smith2004; Kyrö & Nyyssölä, Reference Kyrö and Nyyssölä2006). Our findings also support evidence thus far on sex differences by country and birth cohort that show EA likely reflects accumulated genetic sensitivities to the environment (gene-by-SES and gene-by-sex) that are different depending on environmental circumstances (Heath et al., Reference Heath, Berg, Eaves, Solaas, Corey, Sundet, Magnus and Nance1985; Silventoinen et al., Reference Silventoinen, Krueger, Bouchard, Kaprio and McGue2004), and therefore support for G × E effects, by sex and socio-economic group. This points to the results reflecting an opportunity structure and differences in men’s and women’s lived experiences, not biological sex differences.

Shared family estimates from this study are substantially smaller than what is reported in the most recent meta-analysis of proportional variance, yet closer to what is expected given prior knowledge of twin and family studies of other traits (Turkheimer, Reference Turkheimer and DiLalla2004). Shared environmental variance encompasses family-level resources, including the measured component of household economic status and nonmeasured components, such as family activities and behaviors modeled at home to facilitate exposure to scholarly interests or success in academic pursuits, an living in social and built environments that promote EA. These are not entirely distinguishable from the larger community-level environmental factors that members from the same household share, such as better school quality, or access to healthcare services that promote mental and emotional health. Among women in the middle socioeconomic stratum, the shared family environment appears to make a particularly weighty contribution to greater variability in whether these women pursue higher educational attainment. Conceptually, the family-level resources can have genetic components (e.g., through genetic-environment correlation, effects of assortative mating), but given that twin correlations for both MZ and DZ women were similar and large, this implies that twin and sibling members of the family experience them as a part of their shared, social environment.

Environmental factors on EA that are resources unique to the individual could include parent expectations placed on individual children, peer encouragement, varied learning opportunities offered by teachers, or experiences after school that reinforce scholarly pursuits. When comparing estimates by sex and HES strata, differences in unique, individual-specific experiences are relatively small. Although it is possible these factors have profound influence on particular individuals, findings suggest that adolescents who grew up with more influences from both unique factors and socioeconomic resources in the family are more variable in whether they pursue higher educational opportunities.

The balance of nature and nurture components holds implications for use of EA to predict later life outcomes for different groups. While there are robust and consistent correlations in the literature between education and cognitive function (Opdebeeck et al., Reference Opdebeeck, Martyr and Clare2016; Ritchie & Tucker-Drob, Reference Ritchie and Tucker-Drob2018), our prior work showed that genetic variance underlying earlier life cognitive ability overlaps only 11% with genetic variance sources for EA (Arpawong et al., Reference Arpawong, Zavala, Gatz, Gruenewald and Prescott2018). This finding suggests that the strong relationship between education and cognition is predominantly driven by overlapping nurture components, including life experiences and resources. Relatedly, while education has shown strong predictive ability for cognitive impairment and dementia (Caamaño-Isorna et al., Reference Caamaño-Isorna, Corral, Montes-Martínez and Takkouche2006), it has also shown differential ability to predict dementia risk by sex. In particular, education has the lowest predictive value for risk of dementia among women in more impoverished countries (Sharp & Gatz, Reference Sharp and Gatz2011). Given our findings, we speculate that constrained potential in lower resourced countries and for women means that irrespective of genetic potential, there is less opportunity for these women to attain education; hence, this reduces the overlapping genetic variance between education and cognition. If access to education is driven by within-country environmental factors (e.g., access to resources to pay for education, social prioritization of academic achievement for boys vs. girls), this likely reduces the genetic correlations for EA and cognitive status. In contrast, in higher resourced countries and for men, genetic endowment has more opportunity for expression and thus greater overlap.

In this Project Talent sample, we had limited power to test effects of other social constraints, such as racial/ethnic inequalities. Additionally, we are unable to assess mechanisms by which socioeconomic bracket influences educational differences beyond the variance components quantified, or for those who would not have attended high school given the recruitment design for Project Talent and compulsory schooling laws. Furthermore, we cannot conclude causal associations. For instance, common concerns about causal inference in observational studies center on issues of reverse causation and confounding (McGue et al., Reference McGue, Osler and Christensen2010). With the present study, we use a longitudinal design where genetics and household economic status precede educational attainment, thus alleviating the first concern. With the second concern, invoking the twin design enables us to control for genetics and shared family environment, and thereby account for the degree of influences from unmeasured environmental factors, or potential confounders (McGue et al., Reference McGue, Osler and Christensen2010). Thus, although we are not able to establish causality with this study, we are able to make inferences for the direction of effects. A limitation to the design is our inability to make general inferences about siblings because those included are all siblings of twins, and siblings within the same age range of twins, and thus are not representative of the experience of all siblings within families. Lastly, results are likely cohort specific because our estimates align well with prior research evaluating variance sources in education in individuals born between 1940 and 1961 (Heath et al., Reference Heath, Berg, Eaves, Solaas, Corey, Sundet, Magnus and Nance1985). Follow-up analyses in younger cohorts will be important to compare differences in findings.

Epidemic: Overall, this study lends support to the idea that smartphones can be beneficial for individuals, particularly during times when face-to-face interaction is limited

Did smartphones enhance or diminish well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic? Jennifer L. Heyman and Kostadin Kushlev. Front. Psychol., March 13 2023, Volume 14 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1094196

Introduction: As smartphones have become increasingly integrated into people’s lives, researchers have attempted to answer whether they are beneficial or detrimental to well-being. Of particular interest to the current study is the role that smartphones played during the first year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Methods: In an intensive longitudinal study, we explore how varying uses of smartphones relate to well-being using the Displacement-Interference-Complementarity framework.

Results: Consistent with pre-pandemic research, we show that people felt better, calmer, and more energetic when they used their phones more for complementary purposes (i.e., to access information, entertainment, and connection not otherwise available). In contrast to most pre-pandemic research, however, we find no evidence that any type of phone use predicted lower well-being during the pandemic.

Discussion: Overall, this study lends support to the idea that smartphones can be beneficial for individuals, particularly during times when face-to-face interaction is limited.

Discussion

We find that in a time of high social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, people reaped the benefits of phone use for well-being without incurring the costs associated with phone use in pre-pandemic research. Specifically, consistent with pre-pandemic research (e.g., Kushlev et al., 2017), we find that people who used their phones in a complementary way—to access information, entertainment, and connection not otherwise available—felt better, calmer, and more energetic. Furthermore, we show that the same individuals felt better, calmer and more energetic on days when they used their phones for complementary purposes. Pre-pandemic research also shows, however, that phone use often undermines well-being, especially when it displaces (Lanaj et al., 2014; Hughes and Burke, 2018) or interferes with other activities (Dwyer et al., 2018; Kushlev and Dunn, 2019). In contrast, we found no evidence that phone interference or displacement predicted lower well-being during the initial stages of the pandemic. Thus, though the pre-pandemic literature has generally linked phone use and screentime with poorer well-being (Twenge and Campbell, 2019), we find that phone use during the pandemic was associated with higher, not lower well-being.

In line with previous research, phone complementarity was related to higher levels of well-being. That is, the greater affordance to information and opportunities provided by a phone was related to people having better moods, feeling calmer, and feeling more energetic. The ease of access to information and opportunities may have become even more important during the COVID-19 Pandemic when face-to-face social contact was severely limited, which significantly increased people’s level of stress (Halliburton et al., 2021). Therefore, using one’s phone to maintain existing relationships and gain access to information may have facilitated in maintaining some semblance of pre-pandemic life, thus predicting higher well-being.

People typically feel worse when their phone use displaces activities critical for well-being, such as sleep (Lanaj et al., 2014). We find little evidence that phone displacement undermined well-being during the pandemic. This may be because there were fewer positive activities that phone use could displace during the pandemic when social activities and events were discouraged. Presumably, however, people needed just as much sleep during the pandemic as they did pre-pandemic. As lockdowns disrupted routines, sleep–wake cycles were delayed during the pandemic (Sinha et al., 2020). Thus, in the relative lack of routine during the pandemic, phone use may have been less likely to displace sleep. Finally, as the pandemic introduced new stressors, phone displacement might have been beneficial for well-being by displacing more stressful activities (Kushlev and Leitao, 2020) and introducing a welcome source of distraction (Sheppes and Meiran, 2007; Quoidbach et al., 2010).

In contrast to pre-pandemic research, we found no evidence that phone interference predicted lower well-being. Just as with displacement, this lack of effect may be due to the relative lack of rewarding activities associated with social distancing. Indeed, most previous research on the interference effects of phones has shown that phones decrease well-being precisely by interfering with face-to-face social interactions (Dwyer et al., 2018; Kushlev and Dunn, 2019). In addition, during the COVID-19 Pandemic, phones may have also interfered with activities harmful to well-being, such as rumination. Overall, then, though null findings should be interpreted with caution, our evidence suggests that phone use may not have been as harmful during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Our findings were generally consistent with the Displacement–Interreference–Complementarity Framework: During a time of limited rewarding activities, complementary phone use continued to predict higher well-being, whereas well-documented phone interference and displacement effects were absent. According to the framework, however, at higher levels of social distancing, phone complementarity effects should have been stronger and phone displacement and interference effects should have been weaker. But we found little evidence that these effects depended on how much people socially distanced. Other research during the pandemic, however, showed that the benefits of online social interactions for well-being were greater when social distancing measures were more extreme (Marinucci et al., 2022). Specifically, online social interactions predicted lower distress only during the severe isolation stage in Italy that included prohibiting people from leaving their homes except for work and urgent health reasons. The social distancing measures that our participants in the United States experienced were much milder in comparison and participants, on average, reported high but not extreme levels of practicing social distancing (M = 3.12 on a scale from 1–not at all to 4–completely). Relatedly, people in our sample did not differ much in the extent to which they practiced social distancing, potentially preventing us from detecting moderating effects. Indeed, the extent to which people varied in their social distancing practices was low in this sample at both the within (SD = 0.58) and between (SD = 0.71) person levels.

This study had several important limitations that should be discussed. First, participants self-report on their levels of phone displacement, interference, and complementarity. However, people tend to misestimate the extent to which they use their phones. Future research should use more objective techniques, such as phone tracking, or peer reports in accordance with self-reports to gain a better understanding of how people are using their phones and the extent to which it relates to well-being. In addition, we used ad hoc measures of displacement, interference, and complementarity. Though theoretically justified, it is important for future research to develop validated measures of these constructs. For example, we measured phone displacement as the amount of time people spent on their phones in bed, the extent to which they used their phones more than they wanted to, and their total screentime. This crude measure of displacement fails to distinguish between screen time that displaces positive versus negative activities. As such, future research should utilize more precise measures of phone displacement, perhaps by explicitly asking people if they chose to use their phones over partaking in specific other activities. Furthermore, this study was conducted solely in the United States. However, other countries tend to use their phones in different ways (Langer et al., 2017) and have had different responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic (Kennedy et al., 2020). Therefore, future research should collect a more diverse sample to improve the generalizability of these results.

In sum, there is consistent evidence to suggest that using one’s phone for complementary purposes is associated with increases in well-being, as indicated by better mood, feeling calmer, and feeling more energetic, whereas spending more time on one’s phone and reporting that one’s phone interferes with daily life are generally not significantly associated with feeling good, calm, or energetic. Furthermore, we do not find consistent evidence that social distancing influences these associations. This study highlights the idea that phone use can be beneficial to individual’s well-being if it is used to complement their existing experiences.