When masters of abstraction run into a concrete wall: Experts failing arithmetic word problems. Hippolyte Gros, Emmanuel Sander, Jean-Pierre Thibaut. June 28 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2Fs13423-019-01628-3
Abstract: Can our knowledge about apples, cars, or smurfs hinder our ability to solve mathematical problems involving these entities? We argue that such daily-life knowledge interferes with arithmetic word problem solving, to the extent that experts can be led to failure in problems involving trivial mathematical notions. We created problems evoking different aspects of our non-mathematical, general knowledge. They were solvable by one single subtraction involving small quantities, such as 14 – 2 = 12. A first experiment studied how university-educated adults dealt with seemingly simple arithmetic problems evoking knowledge that was either congruent or incongruent with the problems’ solving procedure. Results showed that in the latter case, the proportion of participants incorrectly deeming the problems “unsolvable” increased significantly, as did response times for correct answers. A second experiment showed that expert mathematicians were also subject to this bias. These results demonstrate that irrelevant non-mathematical knowledge interferes with the identification of basic, single-step solutions to arithmetic word problems, even among experts who have supposedly mastered abstract, context-independent reasoning.
Keywords: Encoding effects Mathematical cognition Mental models Semantics
Friday, July 19, 2019
The relationship between disgust levels and sexual behaviors as moderated by self-perceived pathogen exposure
The relationship between disgust levels and sexual behaviors as moderated by self-perceived pathogen exposure. Jessica K. Hlay, Graham Albert, Zeynep Senveli, Steven Arnocky, Carolyn R. HodgesSimeon. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: Many studies have tested if environmental pathogen load affects mating behavior. Here we investigate if: (1) self-perceived pathogen load predicts pathogen and sexual disgust; (2) disgust variables predict respondents’ sociosexual attitude and desire; and (3) sociosexual attitude and desire predict behavior. We analyzed responses from 322 participants (160 women and 162 men) recruited through Amazon’s online platform, MTurk. Respondents reported information on environmental pathogen load, sexual and pathogen disgust, general health, and sociosexual desire, behavior, and attitude. We conducted a structural equation model and interpreted the regressions and correlations between latent variables, as well as between latent and observed variables. Self-reported pathogen load, along with general health, significantly predicted levels of sexual disgust, but not pathogen disgust. Those with a significantly higher level of sexual disgust had more conservative sociosexual attitudes and lower levels of sociosexual desire. Individuals’ sociosexual attitude and their levels of sexual disgust, but not sociosexual desire, positively predicted sexual behavior. These results support a growing body of literature on the behavioral immune system, as individuals who perceive themselves to be more exposed to pathogens experience higher rates of sexual disgust and alter their sociosexual behavior, perhaps as a means to prevent infection.
Abstract: Many studies have tested if environmental pathogen load affects mating behavior. Here we investigate if: (1) self-perceived pathogen load predicts pathogen and sexual disgust; (2) disgust variables predict respondents’ sociosexual attitude and desire; and (3) sociosexual attitude and desire predict behavior. We analyzed responses from 322 participants (160 women and 162 men) recruited through Amazon’s online platform, MTurk. Respondents reported information on environmental pathogen load, sexual and pathogen disgust, general health, and sociosexual desire, behavior, and attitude. We conducted a structural equation model and interpreted the regressions and correlations between latent variables, as well as between latent and observed variables. Self-reported pathogen load, along with general health, significantly predicted levels of sexual disgust, but not pathogen disgust. Those with a significantly higher level of sexual disgust had more conservative sociosexual attitudes and lower levels of sociosexual desire. Individuals’ sociosexual attitude and their levels of sexual disgust, but not sociosexual desire, positively predicted sexual behavior. These results support a growing body of literature on the behavioral immune system, as individuals who perceive themselves to be more exposed to pathogens experience higher rates of sexual disgust and alter their sociosexual behavior, perhaps as a means to prevent infection.
Vocal signals linked to emotions (e.g., laughter, screams) are in part conserved among phylogenetically related species, which may yield cross-species recognition of affective information
Is there phylogenetic continuity in emotional vocalizations? Roza Kamiloğlu, Katie E. Slocombe, Frank Eisner, Daniel B. M. Haun, Disa A. Sauter. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: Vocal signals linked to emotions (e.g., laughter, screams) are in part conserved among phylogenetically related species. Such shared evolutionary roots of emotional vocalizations may yield cross-species recognition of affective information from vocalizations. We draw on two main approaches to phylogenetic continuity in emotional expressions, and test whether human listeners can identify 1) the context in which chimpanzee vocalizations were produced, and 2) core affect dimensions (arousal and valence) from chimpanzee vocalizations. In a laboratory experiment, participants (N = 310) listened to 155 chimpanzee vocalizations produced in 10 different behavioral contexts. Listeners judged the context in which they thought each vocalization was produced and indicated the extent to which they thought the individual who produced the vocalization was feeling negative/positive and aroused. The results show that listeners were able to accurately recognize the levels of arousal (high, medium, low) and valence (positive, negative) from the vocalizations, but not the production context. Judgments of arousal level and valence of vocalizations produced in negative contexts were more accurate compared to vocalizations of positive contexts. The greater crossspecies continuity in information transfer might be linked to evolutionary mechanisms that cross-species emotion recognition is more successful for negative contexts bearing high survival costs.
Links: https://osf.io/mkde8/?view_only=55c61b406eb44714bc723643ae7c94c0
Abstract: Vocal signals linked to emotions (e.g., laughter, screams) are in part conserved among phylogenetically related species. Such shared evolutionary roots of emotional vocalizations may yield cross-species recognition of affective information from vocalizations. We draw on two main approaches to phylogenetic continuity in emotional expressions, and test whether human listeners can identify 1) the context in which chimpanzee vocalizations were produced, and 2) core affect dimensions (arousal and valence) from chimpanzee vocalizations. In a laboratory experiment, participants (N = 310) listened to 155 chimpanzee vocalizations produced in 10 different behavioral contexts. Listeners judged the context in which they thought each vocalization was produced and indicated the extent to which they thought the individual who produced the vocalization was feeling negative/positive and aroused. The results show that listeners were able to accurately recognize the levels of arousal (high, medium, low) and valence (positive, negative) from the vocalizations, but not the production context. Judgments of arousal level and valence of vocalizations produced in negative contexts were more accurate compared to vocalizations of positive contexts. The greater crossspecies continuity in information transfer might be linked to evolutionary mechanisms that cross-species emotion recognition is more successful for negative contexts bearing high survival costs.
Links: https://osf.io/mkde8/?view_only=55c61b406eb44714bc723643ae7c94c0
Experimental evidence for sex differences in sexual novelty preferences
Experimental evidence for sex differences in sexual novelty preferences. Susan M. Hughes, Marissa A. Harrison, Toe Aung, Gordon G. Gallup, Jr. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: We examined sex differences in preferences for sexual novelty to explore whether the Coolidge Effect plays a role in human sexuality. In an experimental task, participants were asked to play a hypothetical dating game and select between novel and familiar faces as short-term dating partners. Participants were presented with two facial images on a screen and were asked to select the person they would prefer to date short term. The presentation software was response-adaptive, and depending upon participant choice, the next pairing included a presentation of their previously selected photo with a novel photo. We found that men were more likely than women to select a novel person to date. Further, when participants selected a repeated picture over a novel picture, men took longer to make this decision than women. It seems women exhibited greater cognitive ease than men when selecting a familiar individual to date, whereas men needed more time to deliberate between selecting a familiar mate over a novel mate. These findings lend support to the idea that sex differences in preferences for sexual novelty are a salient sex-specific evolved component of the repertoire of human mating strategies.
Abstract: We examined sex differences in preferences for sexual novelty to explore whether the Coolidge Effect plays a role in human sexuality. In an experimental task, participants were asked to play a hypothetical dating game and select between novel and familiar faces as short-term dating partners. Participants were presented with two facial images on a screen and were asked to select the person they would prefer to date short term. The presentation software was response-adaptive, and depending upon participant choice, the next pairing included a presentation of their previously selected photo with a novel photo. We found that men were more likely than women to select a novel person to date. Further, when participants selected a repeated picture over a novel picture, men took longer to make this decision than women. It seems women exhibited greater cognitive ease than men when selecting a familiar individual to date, whereas men needed more time to deliberate between selecting a familiar mate over a novel mate. These findings lend support to the idea that sex differences in preferences for sexual novelty are a salient sex-specific evolved component of the repertoire of human mating strategies.
Men perceive sexual images quite differently than women; some of this difference may be due to sex differences in to disgust, in particular, disgust related to pathogen avoidance
Predictors of perceptions of sexual images. Jessica Hehman, Catherine Salmon. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: Much of the debate over pornography has focused on whether it is inherently degrading toward women. Previous work has examined this question through content analysis of heterosexual and homosexual pornography, demonstrating no significant differences between these two genres (other than the sex of the participants). However, the question remains that some individuals perceive pornographic images differently than others and some evidence suggests that men perceive such images quite differently than women. Some of this difference may be due to sex differences in to disgust, in particular, disgust related to pathogen avoidance. There is a large literature that focuses on how pathogen avoidance has shaped human behavior from political ideology to in-group/outgroup behavior to sexual risk taking/avoidance. This study examined sex differences in perceptions and how they are influenced by the emotional context of the image as well as participant variables including disgust sensitivity, mate value, and sexual behaviors and attitudes. Males tend to have more positive perceptions of female sexual images whereas females tend to have more positive perceptions of male sexual images. The exception being when there is a negative emotional context in the male sexual images. Further analyses predicting perceptions and their implications will be discussed.
Abstract: Much of the debate over pornography has focused on whether it is inherently degrading toward women. Previous work has examined this question through content analysis of heterosexual and homosexual pornography, demonstrating no significant differences between these two genres (other than the sex of the participants). However, the question remains that some individuals perceive pornographic images differently than others and some evidence suggests that men perceive such images quite differently than women. Some of this difference may be due to sex differences in to disgust, in particular, disgust related to pathogen avoidance. There is a large literature that focuses on how pathogen avoidance has shaped human behavior from political ideology to in-group/outgroup behavior to sexual risk taking/avoidance. This study examined sex differences in perceptions and how they are influenced by the emotional context of the image as well as participant variables including disgust sensitivity, mate value, and sexual behaviors and attitudes. Males tend to have more positive perceptions of female sexual images whereas females tend to have more positive perceptions of male sexual images. The exception being when there is a negative emotional context in the male sexual images. Further analyses predicting perceptions and their implications will be discussed.
These findings suggest that both nucleus accumbens activation and self-reported pleasure may be heritable and that their phenotypic correlation may be partially explained by shared genetic variation
Inheritance of Neural Substrates for Motivation and Pleasure. Zhi Li et al. Psychological Science, July 18, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619859340
Abstract: Despite advances in the understanding of the reward system and the role of dopamine in recent decades, the heritability of the underlying neural mechanisms is not known. In the present study, we examined the hemodynamic activation of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), a key hub of the reward system, in 86 healthy monozygotic twins and 88 healthy dizygotic twins during a monetary-incentive-delay task. The participants also completed self-report measures of pleasure. Using voxelwise heritability mapping, we found that activation of the bilateral NAcc during the anticipation of monetary gains had significant heritability (h2 = .20–.49). Moreover, significant shared genetic covariance was observed between pleasure and NAcc activation during the anticipation of monetary gain. These findings suggest that both NAcc activation and self-reported pleasure may be heritable and that their phenotypic correlation may be partially explained by shared genetic variation.
Keywords: reward system, nucleus accumbens, heritability, motivation, pleasure
Abstract: Despite advances in the understanding of the reward system and the role of dopamine in recent decades, the heritability of the underlying neural mechanisms is not known. In the present study, we examined the hemodynamic activation of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), a key hub of the reward system, in 86 healthy monozygotic twins and 88 healthy dizygotic twins during a monetary-incentive-delay task. The participants also completed self-report measures of pleasure. Using voxelwise heritability mapping, we found that activation of the bilateral NAcc during the anticipation of monetary gains had significant heritability (h2 = .20–.49). Moreover, significant shared genetic covariance was observed between pleasure and NAcc activation during the anticipation of monetary gain. These findings suggest that both NAcc activation and self-reported pleasure may be heritable and that their phenotypic correlation may be partially explained by shared genetic variation.
Keywords: reward system, nucleus accumbens, heritability, motivation, pleasure
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Alcohol produces dramatically larger positive mood enhancing and negative mood relieving effects when consumed in social contexts compared to when it is consumed in isolation
Understanding social factors in alcohol reward and risk for problem drinking. Catharine E. Fairbairn, Brynne A. Velia. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, July 18 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.plm.2019.05.001
Abstract: Researchers have long sought to capture acute rewarding effects associated with drinking alcohol with the view that a better understanding of alcohol's rewards will ultimately inform our knowledge of factors motivating problematic drinking. Importantly, however, although most everyday alcohol consumption occurs in social contexts, and drinkers report that socially enhancing effects of alcohol motivate their drinking, researchers studying alcohol's effects have often examined participants drinking alone and have neglected social elements of alcohol's impact on experience. Here, we present a program of work aimed at examining the social rewards individuals gain from alcohol consumption with the aim of achieving a more complete picture of factors that might reinforce alcohol consumption and potentially lead some to drink excessively. Using methods and measures aimed at tapping social elements of experience, we revisit questions that have been of enduring interest in the alcohol literature, including the question of what mechanisms might explain alcohol's rewarding effects, whether there exist individual differences in sensitivity to alcohol's rewards, as well as the extent to which context-level factors might moderate rewards gained from alcohol. We also explore questions left unanswered within this body of work, together with ongoing and future research directions.
Abstract: Researchers have long sought to capture acute rewarding effects associated with drinking alcohol with the view that a better understanding of alcohol's rewards will ultimately inform our knowledge of factors motivating problematic drinking. Importantly, however, although most everyday alcohol consumption occurs in social contexts, and drinkers report that socially enhancing effects of alcohol motivate their drinking, researchers studying alcohol's effects have often examined participants drinking alone and have neglected social elements of alcohol's impact on experience. Here, we present a program of work aimed at examining the social rewards individuals gain from alcohol consumption with the aim of achieving a more complete picture of factors that might reinforce alcohol consumption and potentially lead some to drink excessively. Using methods and measures aimed at tapping social elements of experience, we revisit questions that have been of enduring interest in the alcohol literature, including the question of what mechanisms might explain alcohol's rewarding effects, whether there exist individual differences in sensitivity to alcohol's rewards, as well as the extent to which context-level factors might moderate rewards gained from alcohol. We also explore questions left unanswered within this body of work, together with ongoing and future research directions.
Analysis of 22,484 pornography websites indicated that 93% leak user data to a third party; tracking on these sites is highly concentrated by Google, Oracle and Facebook
Tracking sex: The implications of widespread sexual data leakage and tracking on porn websites. Elena Maris, Timothy Libert, Jennifer Henrichsen. arXiv, Jul 15 2019. https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.06520
Abstract: This paper explores tracking and privacy risks on pornography websites. Our analysis of 22,484 pornography websites indicated that 93% leak user data to a third party. Tracking on these sites is highly concentrated by a handful of major companies, which we identify. We successfully extracted privacy policies for 3,856 sites, 17% of the total. The policies were written such that one might need a two-year college education to understand them. Our content analysis of the sample's domains indicated 44.97% of them expose or suggest a specific gender/sexual identity or interest likely to be linked to the user. We identify three core implications of the quantitative results: 1) the unique/elevated risks of porn data leakage versus other types of data, 2) the particular risks/impact for vulnerable populations, and 3) the complications
Abstract: This paper explores tracking and privacy risks on pornography websites. Our analysis of 22,484 pornography websites indicated that 93% leak user data to a third party. Tracking on these sites is highly concentrated by a handful of major companies, which we identify. We successfully extracted privacy policies for 3,856 sites, 17% of the total. The policies were written such that one might need a two-year college education to understand them. Our content analysis of the sample's domains indicated 44.97% of them expose or suggest a specific gender/sexual identity or interest likely to be linked to the user. We identify three core implications of the quantitative results: 1) the unique/elevated risks of porn data leakage versus other types of data, 2) the particular risks/impact for vulnerable populations, and 3) the complications
Robust relation between higher testosterone & increased unfaithful behavior; in this sample of men aged between 40 & 75 years, 37.5% answered having been unfaithful in the current relationship
Higher testosterone levels are associated with unfaithful behavior in men. C. Klimas et al. Biological Psychology, July 18 2019, 107730. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2019.107730
Highlights
• A robust relation between higher testosterone and increased unfaithful behavior was observed.
• Infidelity was measured using direct and sensitive indirect (crosswise) questioning.
• In this sample of men aged between 40 and 75 years, 37.5% men answered having been unfaithful in the current relationship
• Subsample analysis indicates a positive association between testosterone and infidelity to be present primarily in men without sexual dysfunction.
Abstract
Background: Infidelity in romantic relationships is a common, but severe issue often causing breakup and severe psychological impairment. Higher levels of testosterone are related to mating-behavior, sexual desire, and infidelity in men with sexual dysfunctions. Previous studies, have insufficiently addressed the potential role of testosterone in infidelity in healthy men.
Methods: A sample of 224 middle-aged self-reporting healthy men being currently in a relationship completed questionnaires on relationship characteristics, infidelity, and provided overnight-fasting saliva samples for testosterone quantification.
Results: In the sample, 37.5% men answered having been unfaithful in the current relationship, while 29% were identified as fulfilling criteria for a sexual dysfunction. Adjusting for covariates, a significant positive association for the frequency of unfaithful behavior and testosterone levels emerged. Subsample analysis indicates a positive association between testosterone and infidelity only to be present in men without sexual dysfunction.
Conclusion: Unfaithful behavior in males is associated with higher testosterone levels.
Highlights
• A robust relation between higher testosterone and increased unfaithful behavior was observed.
• Infidelity was measured using direct and sensitive indirect (crosswise) questioning.
• In this sample of men aged between 40 and 75 years, 37.5% men answered having been unfaithful in the current relationship
• Subsample analysis indicates a positive association between testosterone and infidelity to be present primarily in men without sexual dysfunction.
Abstract
Background: Infidelity in romantic relationships is a common, but severe issue often causing breakup and severe psychological impairment. Higher levels of testosterone are related to mating-behavior, sexual desire, and infidelity in men with sexual dysfunctions. Previous studies, have insufficiently addressed the potential role of testosterone in infidelity in healthy men.
Methods: A sample of 224 middle-aged self-reporting healthy men being currently in a relationship completed questionnaires on relationship characteristics, infidelity, and provided overnight-fasting saliva samples for testosterone quantification.
Results: In the sample, 37.5% men answered having been unfaithful in the current relationship, while 29% were identified as fulfilling criteria for a sexual dysfunction. Adjusting for covariates, a significant positive association for the frequency of unfaithful behavior and testosterone levels emerged. Subsample analysis indicates a positive association between testosterone and infidelity only to be present in men without sexual dysfunction.
Conclusion: Unfaithful behavior in males is associated with higher testosterone levels.
Emotional Expressions Reconsidered: Challenges to Inferring Emotion From Human Facial Movements
Emotional Expressions Reconsidered: Challenges to Inferring Emotion From Human Facial Movements. Lisa Feldman Barrett et al. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, July 17, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100619832930
Abstract: It is commonly assumed that a person’s emotional state can be readily inferred from his or her facial movements, typically called emotional expressions or facial expressions. This assumption influences legal judgments, policy decisions, national security protocols, and educational practices; guides the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric illness, as well as the development of commercial applications; and pervades everyday social interactions as well as research in other scientific fields such as artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and computer vision. In this article, we survey examples of this widespread assumption, which we refer to as the common view, and we then examine the scientific evidence that tests this view, focusing on the six most popular emotion categories used by consumers of emotion research: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. The available scientific evidence suggests that people do sometimes smile when happy, frown when sad, scowl when angry, and so on, as proposed by the common view, more than what would be expected by chance. Yet how people communicate anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise varies substantially across cultures, situations, and even across people within a single situation. Furthermore, similar configurations of facial movements variably express instances of more than one emotion category. In fact, a given configuration of facial movements, such as a scowl, often communicates something other than an emotional state. Scientists agree that facial movements convey a range of information and are important for social communication, emotional or otherwise. But our review suggests an urgent need for research that examines how people actually move their faces to express emotions and other social information in the variety of contexts that make up everyday life, as well as careful study of the mechanisms by which people perceive instances of emotion in one another. We make specific research recommendations that will yield a more valid picture of how people move their faces to express emotions and how they infer emotional meaning from facial movements in situations of everyday life. This research is crucial to provide consumers of emotion research with the translational information they require.
Keywords: emotion perception, emotional expression, emotion recognition
Faces are a ubiquitous part of everyday life for humans. People greet each other with smiles or nods. They have face-to-face conversations on a daily basis, whether in person or via computers. They capture faces with smartphones and tablets, exchanging photos of themselves and of each other on Instagram, Snapchat, and other social-media platforms. The ability to perceive faces is one of the first capacities to emerge after birth: An infant begins to perceive faces within the first few days of life, equipped with a preference for face-like arrangements that allows the brain to wire itself, with experience, to become expert at perceiving faces (Arcaro, Schade, Vincent, Ponce, & Livingstone, 2017; Cassia, Turati, & Simion, 2004; Gandhi, Singh, Swami, Ganesh, & Sinhaet, 2017; Grossmann, 2015; L. B. Smith, Jayaraman, Clerkin, & Yu, 2018; Turati, 2004; but see Young and Burton, 2018, for a more qualified claim). Faces offer a rich, salient source of information for navigating the social world: They play a role in deciding whom to love, whom to trust, whom to help, and who is found guilty of a crime (Todorov, 2017; Zebrowitz, 1997, 2017; Zhang, Chen, & Yang, 2018). Beginning with the ancient Greeks (Aristotle, in the 4th century BCE) and Romans (Cicero), various cultures have viewed the human face as a window on the mind. But to what extent can a raised eyebrow, a curled lip, or a narrowed eye reveal what someone is thinking or feeling, allowing a perceiver’s brain to guess what that someone will do next?1 The answers to these questions have major consequences for human outcomes as they unfold in the living room, the classroom, the courtroom, and even on the battlefield. They also powerfully shape the direction of research in a broad array of scientific fields, from basic neuroscience to psychiatry.
Understanding what facial movements might reveal about a person’s emotions is made more urgent by the fact that many people believe they already know. Specific configurations of facial-muscle movements2 appear as if they summarily broadcast or display a person’s emotions, which is why they are routinely referred to as emotional expressions and facial expressions. A simple Google search for the phrase “emotional facial expressions” (see Box 1 in the Supplemental Material available online) reveals the ubiquity with which, at least in certain parts of the world, people believe that certain emotion categories are reliably signaled or revealed by certain facial-muscle movement configurations—a set of beliefs we refer to as the common view (also called the classical view; L. F. Barrett, 2017b). Likewise, many cultural products testify to the common view. Here are several examples:
Technology companies are investing tremendous resources to figure out how to objectively “read” emotions in people by detecting their presumed facial expressions, such as scowling faces, frowning faces, and smiling faces, in an automated fashion. Several companies claim to have already done it (e.g., Affectiva.com, 2018; Microsoft Azure, 2018). For example, Microsoft’s Emotion API promises to take video images of a person’s face to detect what that individual is feeling. Microsoft’s website states that its software “integrates emotion recognition, returning the confidence across a set of emotions . . . such as anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, neutral, sadness, and surprise. These emotions are understood to be cross-culturally and universally communicated with particular facial expressions” (screen 3).
Countless electronic messages are annotated with emojis or emoticons that are schematized versions of the proposed facial expressions for various emotion categories (Emojipedia.org, 2019).
Putative emotional expressions are taught to preschool children by displaying scowling faces, frowning faces, smiling faces, and so on, in posters (e.g., use “feeling chart for children” in a Google image search), games (e.g., Miniland emotion games; Miniland Group, 2019), books (e.g., Cain, 2000; T. Parr, 2005), and episodes of Sesame Street (among many examples, see Morenoff, 2014; Pliskin, 2015; Valentine & Lehmann, 2015).3
Television shows (e.g., Lie to Me; Baum & Grazer, 2009), movies (e.g., Inside Out; Docter, Del Carmen, LeFauve, Cooley, and Lassetter, 2015), and documentaries (e.g., The Human Face, produced by the British Broadcasting Company; Cleese, Erskine, & Stewart, 2001) customarily depict certain facial configurations as universal expressions of emotions.
Magazine and newspaper articles routinely feature stories in kind: facial configurations depicting a scowl are referred to as “expressions of anger,” facial configurations depicting a smile are referred to as “expressions of happiness,” facial configurations depicting a frown are referred to as “expressions of sadness,” and so on.
Agents of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) were trained to detect emotions and other intentions using these facial configurations, with the goal of identifying and thwarting terrorists (R. Heilig, special agent with the FBI, personal communication, December 15, 2014; L. F. Barrett, 2017c).4
The facial configurations that supposedly diagnose emotional states also figure prominently in the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders. One of the most widely used tasks in autism research, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, asks test takers to match photos of the upper (eye) region of a posed facial configuration with specific mental state words, including emotion words (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001). Treatment plans for people living with autism and other brain disorders often include learning to recognize these facial configurations as emotional expressions (Baron-Cohen, Golan, Wheelwright, & Hill, 2004; Kouo & Egel, 2016). This training does not generalize well to real-world skills, however (Berggren et al., 2018; Kouo & Egel, 2016).
“Reading” the emotions of a defendant—in the words of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, to “know the heart and mind of the offender” (Riggins v. Nevada, 1992, p. 142)—is one pillar of a fair trial in the U.S. legal system and in many legal systems in the Western world. Legal actors such as jurors and judges routinely rely on facial movements to determine the guilt and remorse of a defendant (e.g., Bandes, 2014; Zebrowitz, 1997). For example, defendants who are perceived as untrustworthy receive harsher sentences than they otherwise would (J. P. Wilson & Rule, 2015, 2016), and such perceptions are more likely when a person appears to be angry (i.e., the person’s facial structure looks similar to the hypothesized facial expression of anger, which is a scowl; Todorov, 2017). An incorrect inference about defendants’ emotional state can cost them their children, their freedom, or even their lives (for recent examples, see L. F. Barrett, 2017b, beginning on page 183).
But can a person’s emotional state be reasonably inferred from that person’s facial movements? In this article, we offer a systematic review of the evidence, testing the common view that instances of an emotion category are signaled with a distinctive configuration of facial movements that has enough reliability and specificity to serve as a diagnostic marker of those instances. We focus our review on evidence pertaining to six emotion categories that have received the lion’s share of attention in scientific research—anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise—and that, correspondingly, are the focus of the common view (as evidenced by our Google search, summarized in Box 1 in the Supplemental Material). Our conclusions apply, however, to all emotion categories that have thus far been scientifically studied. We open the article with a brief discussion of its scope, approach, and intended audience. We then summarize evidence on how people actually move their faces during episodes of emotion, referred to as studies of expression production, following which we examine evidence on which emotions are actually inferred from looking at facial movements, referred to as studies of emotion perception. We identify three key shortcomings in the scientific research that have contributed to a general misunderstanding about how emotions are expressed and perceived in facial movements and that limit the translation of this scientific evidence for other uses:
Limited reliability (i.e., instances of the same emotion category are neither reliably expressed through nor perceived from a common set of facial movements).
Lack of specificity (i.e., there is no unique mapping between a configuration of facial movements and instances of an emotion category).
Limited generalizability (i.e., the effects of context and culture have not been sufficiently documented and accounted for).
We then discuss our conclusions, followed by proposals for consumers on how they might use the existing scientific literature. We also provide recommendations for future research on emotion production and perception with consumers of that research in mind. We have included additional detail on some topics of import or interest in the Supplemental Material.
Abstract: It is commonly assumed that a person’s emotional state can be readily inferred from his or her facial movements, typically called emotional expressions or facial expressions. This assumption influences legal judgments, policy decisions, national security protocols, and educational practices; guides the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric illness, as well as the development of commercial applications; and pervades everyday social interactions as well as research in other scientific fields such as artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and computer vision. In this article, we survey examples of this widespread assumption, which we refer to as the common view, and we then examine the scientific evidence that tests this view, focusing on the six most popular emotion categories used by consumers of emotion research: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. The available scientific evidence suggests that people do sometimes smile when happy, frown when sad, scowl when angry, and so on, as proposed by the common view, more than what would be expected by chance. Yet how people communicate anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise varies substantially across cultures, situations, and even across people within a single situation. Furthermore, similar configurations of facial movements variably express instances of more than one emotion category. In fact, a given configuration of facial movements, such as a scowl, often communicates something other than an emotional state. Scientists agree that facial movements convey a range of information and are important for social communication, emotional or otherwise. But our review suggests an urgent need for research that examines how people actually move their faces to express emotions and other social information in the variety of contexts that make up everyday life, as well as careful study of the mechanisms by which people perceive instances of emotion in one another. We make specific research recommendations that will yield a more valid picture of how people move their faces to express emotions and how they infer emotional meaning from facial movements in situations of everyday life. This research is crucial to provide consumers of emotion research with the translational information they require.
Keywords: emotion perception, emotional expression, emotion recognition
Faces are a ubiquitous part of everyday life for humans. People greet each other with smiles or nods. They have face-to-face conversations on a daily basis, whether in person or via computers. They capture faces with smartphones and tablets, exchanging photos of themselves and of each other on Instagram, Snapchat, and other social-media platforms. The ability to perceive faces is one of the first capacities to emerge after birth: An infant begins to perceive faces within the first few days of life, equipped with a preference for face-like arrangements that allows the brain to wire itself, with experience, to become expert at perceiving faces (Arcaro, Schade, Vincent, Ponce, & Livingstone, 2017; Cassia, Turati, & Simion, 2004; Gandhi, Singh, Swami, Ganesh, & Sinhaet, 2017; Grossmann, 2015; L. B. Smith, Jayaraman, Clerkin, & Yu, 2018; Turati, 2004; but see Young and Burton, 2018, for a more qualified claim). Faces offer a rich, salient source of information for navigating the social world: They play a role in deciding whom to love, whom to trust, whom to help, and who is found guilty of a crime (Todorov, 2017; Zebrowitz, 1997, 2017; Zhang, Chen, & Yang, 2018). Beginning with the ancient Greeks (Aristotle, in the 4th century BCE) and Romans (Cicero), various cultures have viewed the human face as a window on the mind. But to what extent can a raised eyebrow, a curled lip, or a narrowed eye reveal what someone is thinking or feeling, allowing a perceiver’s brain to guess what that someone will do next?1 The answers to these questions have major consequences for human outcomes as they unfold in the living room, the classroom, the courtroom, and even on the battlefield. They also powerfully shape the direction of research in a broad array of scientific fields, from basic neuroscience to psychiatry.
Understanding what facial movements might reveal about a person’s emotions is made more urgent by the fact that many people believe they already know. Specific configurations of facial-muscle movements2 appear as if they summarily broadcast or display a person’s emotions, which is why they are routinely referred to as emotional expressions and facial expressions. A simple Google search for the phrase “emotional facial expressions” (see Box 1 in the Supplemental Material available online) reveals the ubiquity with which, at least in certain parts of the world, people believe that certain emotion categories are reliably signaled or revealed by certain facial-muscle movement configurations—a set of beliefs we refer to as the common view (also called the classical view; L. F. Barrett, 2017b). Likewise, many cultural products testify to the common view. Here are several examples:
Technology companies are investing tremendous resources to figure out how to objectively “read” emotions in people by detecting their presumed facial expressions, such as scowling faces, frowning faces, and smiling faces, in an automated fashion. Several companies claim to have already done it (e.g., Affectiva.com, 2018; Microsoft Azure, 2018). For example, Microsoft’s Emotion API promises to take video images of a person’s face to detect what that individual is feeling. Microsoft’s website states that its software “integrates emotion recognition, returning the confidence across a set of emotions . . . such as anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, neutral, sadness, and surprise. These emotions are understood to be cross-culturally and universally communicated with particular facial expressions” (screen 3).
Countless electronic messages are annotated with emojis or emoticons that are schematized versions of the proposed facial expressions for various emotion categories (Emojipedia.org, 2019).
Putative emotional expressions are taught to preschool children by displaying scowling faces, frowning faces, smiling faces, and so on, in posters (e.g., use “feeling chart for children” in a Google image search), games (e.g., Miniland emotion games; Miniland Group, 2019), books (e.g., Cain, 2000; T. Parr, 2005), and episodes of Sesame Street (among many examples, see Morenoff, 2014; Pliskin, 2015; Valentine & Lehmann, 2015).3
Television shows (e.g., Lie to Me; Baum & Grazer, 2009), movies (e.g., Inside Out; Docter, Del Carmen, LeFauve, Cooley, and Lassetter, 2015), and documentaries (e.g., The Human Face, produced by the British Broadcasting Company; Cleese, Erskine, & Stewart, 2001) customarily depict certain facial configurations as universal expressions of emotions.
Magazine and newspaper articles routinely feature stories in kind: facial configurations depicting a scowl are referred to as “expressions of anger,” facial configurations depicting a smile are referred to as “expressions of happiness,” facial configurations depicting a frown are referred to as “expressions of sadness,” and so on.
Agents of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) were trained to detect emotions and other intentions using these facial configurations, with the goal of identifying and thwarting terrorists (R. Heilig, special agent with the FBI, personal communication, December 15, 2014; L. F. Barrett, 2017c).4
The facial configurations that supposedly diagnose emotional states also figure prominently in the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders. One of the most widely used tasks in autism research, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, asks test takers to match photos of the upper (eye) region of a posed facial configuration with specific mental state words, including emotion words (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001). Treatment plans for people living with autism and other brain disorders often include learning to recognize these facial configurations as emotional expressions (Baron-Cohen, Golan, Wheelwright, & Hill, 2004; Kouo & Egel, 2016). This training does not generalize well to real-world skills, however (Berggren et al., 2018; Kouo & Egel, 2016).
“Reading” the emotions of a defendant—in the words of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, to “know the heart and mind of the offender” (Riggins v. Nevada, 1992, p. 142)—is one pillar of a fair trial in the U.S. legal system and in many legal systems in the Western world. Legal actors such as jurors and judges routinely rely on facial movements to determine the guilt and remorse of a defendant (e.g., Bandes, 2014; Zebrowitz, 1997). For example, defendants who are perceived as untrustworthy receive harsher sentences than they otherwise would (J. P. Wilson & Rule, 2015, 2016), and such perceptions are more likely when a person appears to be angry (i.e., the person’s facial structure looks similar to the hypothesized facial expression of anger, which is a scowl; Todorov, 2017). An incorrect inference about defendants’ emotional state can cost them their children, their freedom, or even their lives (for recent examples, see L. F. Barrett, 2017b, beginning on page 183).
But can a person’s emotional state be reasonably inferred from that person’s facial movements? In this article, we offer a systematic review of the evidence, testing the common view that instances of an emotion category are signaled with a distinctive configuration of facial movements that has enough reliability and specificity to serve as a diagnostic marker of those instances. We focus our review on evidence pertaining to six emotion categories that have received the lion’s share of attention in scientific research—anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise—and that, correspondingly, are the focus of the common view (as evidenced by our Google search, summarized in Box 1 in the Supplemental Material). Our conclusions apply, however, to all emotion categories that have thus far been scientifically studied. We open the article with a brief discussion of its scope, approach, and intended audience. We then summarize evidence on how people actually move their faces during episodes of emotion, referred to as studies of expression production, following which we examine evidence on which emotions are actually inferred from looking at facial movements, referred to as studies of emotion perception. We identify three key shortcomings in the scientific research that have contributed to a general misunderstanding about how emotions are expressed and perceived in facial movements and that limit the translation of this scientific evidence for other uses:
Limited reliability (i.e., instances of the same emotion category are neither reliably expressed through nor perceived from a common set of facial movements).
Lack of specificity (i.e., there is no unique mapping between a configuration of facial movements and instances of an emotion category).
Limited generalizability (i.e., the effects of context and culture have not been sufficiently documented and accounted for).
We then discuss our conclusions, followed by proposals for consumers on how they might use the existing scientific literature. We also provide recommendations for future research on emotion production and perception with consumers of that research in mind. We have included additional detail on some topics of import or interest in the Supplemental Material.
Are Children a Joy or a Burden? The educated hold more negative views
Are Children a Joy or a Burden? Individual- and Macro-level
Characteristics and the Perception of Children. Haya Stier, Amit Kaplan.
European Journal of Population, July 16 2019.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10680-019-09535-y
Abstract: This study examines how individuals perceive children, focusing on two dimensions—the positive aspects of having children and the perception of children as a burden—and taking into account relations with both individual- and macro-level characteristics. Three dimensions are examined on the macro-level: policies that support families, the cultural environment, and economic conditions. The study is based on the 2012 ISSP module on “Family and Gender Roles” and covers 24 OECD countries. The findings show that countries vary widely in their negative perceptions of children, but evince relatively greater similarity in their positive perceptions. Institutional support for children and working parents and traditional family values as captured by religiosity are important factors in explaining cross-country variation in negative perceptions of children. Further, policies may help men and women adopt a more positive view of children and reduce differences among educational groups in relation to children.
Keywords: Children Attitudes ISSP Comparative study
Abstract: This study examines how individuals perceive children, focusing on two dimensions—the positive aspects of having children and the perception of children as a burden—and taking into account relations with both individual- and macro-level characteristics. Three dimensions are examined on the macro-level: policies that support families, the cultural environment, and economic conditions. The study is based on the 2012 ISSP module on “Family and Gender Roles” and covers 24 OECD countries. The findings show that countries vary widely in their negative perceptions of children, but evince relatively greater similarity in their positive perceptions. Institutional support for children and working parents and traditional family values as captured by religiosity are important factors in explaining cross-country variation in negative perceptions of children. Further, policies may help men and women adopt a more positive view of children and reduce differences among educational groups in relation to children.
Keywords: Children Attitudes ISSP Comparative study
Visually attending to a video together facilitates great ape social closeness
Visually attending to a video together facilitates great ape social closeness. Wouter Wolf and Michael Tomasello. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Volume 286, Issue 1907, July 17 2019. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0488
Abstract: Humans create social closeness with one another through a variety of shared social activities in which they align their emotions or mental states towards an external stimulus such as dancing to music together, playing board games together or even engaging in minimal shared experiences such as watching a movie together. Although these specific behaviours would seem to be uniquely human, it is unclear whether the underlying psychology is unique to the species, or if other species might possess some form of this psychological mechanism as well. Here we show that great apes who have visually attended to a video together with a human (study 1) and a conspecific (study 2) subsequently approach that individual faster (study 1) or spend more time in their proximity (study 2) than when they had attended to something different. Our results suggest that one of the most basic mechanisms of human social bonding—feeling closer to those with whom we act or attend together—is present in both humans and great apes, and thus has deeper evolutionary roots than previously suspected.
1. Introduction
Humans create and maintain social relationships in ways that are seemingly unique in the animal kingdom. Specifically, humans are able to create social closeness through all kinds of shared activities and experiences that do not require direct physical interaction but instead seem to satisfy a fundamental need to share the experience with other individuals [1]. Although the precise psychological mechanisms through which such activities result in social closeness remain unclear, humans have been shown to connect with one another by doing such things as making music together [2], acting together in synchrony [3], dancing together [4,5], playing team sports together [6] or by sharing experiences through gossip [7] or attitudes [8], or disclosing personal information [9]. In a recent study, Wolf et al. [10] demonstrated that even after a minimal shared interaction in which participants were attending to the same thing without otherwise communicating, they reported feeling closer to that participant [11].
Throughout the animal kingdom, the individuals of many species act in coordination with conspecifics. For example, dolphins often behave in synchrony [12], many bird species coordinate their song and dance in a mating context [13,14], and great apes travel together [15] and sometimes hunt monkeys together [16]. But do behavioural interactions in which individuals focus on an external stimulus together create stronger social relationships or bonds between participants? To our knowledge, there are no studies examining such a relationship in any non-human species, and indeed some theorists have suggested that this method of social bonding might be uniquely human [5,10].
As always in comparison with humans, great apes are a special case because of their close phylogenetic connection. Operational definitions of social closeness (bonding) in great ape research usually rely on interactions involving physical closeness (e.g. grooming and physical play [17–19] and/or spatial proximity [20]. However, given that apes do engage in a variety of coordinated (and even to some degree cooperative activities) such as building and fighting in coalitions and alliances [21], as well as travelling and hunting in groups [22], the question is whether, like humans, great apes have evolved a psychological mechanism that leads them to create social closeness with others through shared experiences. On the other hand, it might be that connecting with others through shared experiences is a uniquely human phenomenon.
To answer this question, we adapted Wolf et al.’s [10] paradigm for apes and conducted two studies in which participants shared the experience of attending to a video together with a human experimenter (study 1) or a conspecific (study 2). In the control condition, a human experimenter (study 1) or conspecific (study 2) sat in the same place but was not watching the video. We then compared the apes' subsequent behaviour towards their partner—approaching and/or remaining in physical proximity—between the two conditions.
Abstract: Humans create social closeness with one another through a variety of shared social activities in which they align their emotions or mental states towards an external stimulus such as dancing to music together, playing board games together or even engaging in minimal shared experiences such as watching a movie together. Although these specific behaviours would seem to be uniquely human, it is unclear whether the underlying psychology is unique to the species, or if other species might possess some form of this psychological mechanism as well. Here we show that great apes who have visually attended to a video together with a human (study 1) and a conspecific (study 2) subsequently approach that individual faster (study 1) or spend more time in their proximity (study 2) than when they had attended to something different. Our results suggest that one of the most basic mechanisms of human social bonding—feeling closer to those with whom we act or attend together—is present in both humans and great apes, and thus has deeper evolutionary roots than previously suspected.
1. Introduction
Humans create and maintain social relationships in ways that are seemingly unique in the animal kingdom. Specifically, humans are able to create social closeness through all kinds of shared activities and experiences that do not require direct physical interaction but instead seem to satisfy a fundamental need to share the experience with other individuals [1]. Although the precise psychological mechanisms through which such activities result in social closeness remain unclear, humans have been shown to connect with one another by doing such things as making music together [2], acting together in synchrony [3], dancing together [4,5], playing team sports together [6] or by sharing experiences through gossip [7] or attitudes [8], or disclosing personal information [9]. In a recent study, Wolf et al. [10] demonstrated that even after a minimal shared interaction in which participants were attending to the same thing without otherwise communicating, they reported feeling closer to that participant [11].
Throughout the animal kingdom, the individuals of many species act in coordination with conspecifics. For example, dolphins often behave in synchrony [12], many bird species coordinate their song and dance in a mating context [13,14], and great apes travel together [15] and sometimes hunt monkeys together [16]. But do behavioural interactions in which individuals focus on an external stimulus together create stronger social relationships or bonds between participants? To our knowledge, there are no studies examining such a relationship in any non-human species, and indeed some theorists have suggested that this method of social bonding might be uniquely human [5,10].
As always in comparison with humans, great apes are a special case because of their close phylogenetic connection. Operational definitions of social closeness (bonding) in great ape research usually rely on interactions involving physical closeness (e.g. grooming and physical play [17–19] and/or spatial proximity [20]. However, given that apes do engage in a variety of coordinated (and even to some degree cooperative activities) such as building and fighting in coalitions and alliances [21], as well as travelling and hunting in groups [22], the question is whether, like humans, great apes have evolved a psychological mechanism that leads them to create social closeness with others through shared experiences. On the other hand, it might be that connecting with others through shared experiences is a uniquely human phenomenon.
To answer this question, we adapted Wolf et al.’s [10] paradigm for apes and conducted two studies in which participants shared the experience of attending to a video together with a human experimenter (study 1) or a conspecific (study 2). In the control condition, a human experimenter (study 1) or conspecific (study 2) sat in the same place but was not watching the video. We then compared the apes' subsequent behaviour towards their partner—approaching and/or remaining in physical proximity—between the two conditions.
In recent decades, educational fields have resisted intelligence research; we created a survey of beliefs about intelligence & administered it to a sample of the general public & a sample of teachers
Warne, Russell T., and Jared Z. Burton. 2019. “Beliefs About Human Intelligence in a Modern American Sample.” PsyArXiv. July 17. doi:10.31234/osf.io/uctxp
Abstract: Research in educational psychology consistently finds a relationship between intelligence and academic performance. However, in recent decades, educational fields, including gifted education, have resisted intelligence research, and there are some experts who argue that intelligence testing should not be used in identifying giftedness. Hoping to better understand this resistance to intelligence research, we created a survey of beliefs about intelligence and administered it online to a sample of the general public and a sample of teachers. We found that there are conflicts between currently accepted intelligence theory and beliefs from the American public and teachers, which has important unintended consequences on gifted education, educational policy and the effectiveness of interventions.
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There may be a tendency for the public to support empirical theories on intelligence when they support egalitarian ideals, & are less accepted as they appear contrary to these principles
Abstract: Research in educational psychology consistently finds a relationship between intelligence and academic performance. However, in recent decades, educational fields, including gifted education, have resisted intelligence research, and there are some experts who argue that intelligence testing should not be used in identifying giftedness. Hoping to better understand this resistance to intelligence research, we created a survey of beliefs about intelligence and administered it online to a sample of the general public and a sample of teachers. We found that there are conflicts between currently accepted intelligence theory and beliefs from the American public and teachers, which has important unintended consequences on gifted education, educational policy and the effectiveness of interventions.
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There may be a tendency for the public to support empirical theories on intelligence when they support egalitarian ideals, & are less accepted as they appear contrary to these principles
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Women who believe that desirable mates are hard to come by, tend to be warier of women in general; wariness of women is linked to less reported number of good female friends
Mate Scarcity Effects on Women’s Wariness of Other Women. Jovana
Vukovic, Rudy Jean-Bart, Daniela Branson, Jason Zephir, Alexandra
Wright. EvoS Journal, Jul 2019.
http://evostudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Vukovic-et-al_Vol10SpIss1.pdf
Abstract: Previous studies have found that the scarcity of potential mates in the environment may influence mate-choice relevant behaviors, including intrasexual competition. In the current study, we investigated the relationship between the scarcity of Black men and women’s perceptions of other women (i.e., potential competitors). Since Black men are factually scarce in Broward County, we predicted that women who believe that Black men are scarce may hold less favorable opinions of other women (i.e., potential competitors). We interpreted attitudes of wariness toward other women as likely proxies to intrasexual competition. Our results show that women who believe that desirable mates are hard to come by, tend to be warier of women in general. We also found a negative correlation between wariness of women and reported number of good female friends. These results are consistent with previous findings suggesting heightened intrasexual competition when competition for desirable mates is high due to a sex ratio imbalance.
KEYWORDS: Sex Ratio Imbalance, Intrasexual Competition, Female Friendship, Mate Scarcity
Part of the survey:
Rate the following statements on a scale from 1 (disagree strongly) to 10 (agree strongly):
Women are vengeful.
Women are competitive.
Women make good best friends.
I trust other women.
I feel more defensive around women than I do men.
I feel more comfortable around men than I do around women.
I am sometimes jealous of my female friends.
In the past, I have gossiped about a female friend who was flirting with the person I liked in a romantic way.
In the past, I started a rumor to get back at a friend who flirted with the person I liked in a romantic way.
Abstract: Previous studies have found that the scarcity of potential mates in the environment may influence mate-choice relevant behaviors, including intrasexual competition. In the current study, we investigated the relationship between the scarcity of Black men and women’s perceptions of other women (i.e., potential competitors). Since Black men are factually scarce in Broward County, we predicted that women who believe that Black men are scarce may hold less favorable opinions of other women (i.e., potential competitors). We interpreted attitudes of wariness toward other women as likely proxies to intrasexual competition. Our results show that women who believe that desirable mates are hard to come by, tend to be warier of women in general. We also found a negative correlation between wariness of women and reported number of good female friends. These results are consistent with previous findings suggesting heightened intrasexual competition when competition for desirable mates is high due to a sex ratio imbalance.
KEYWORDS: Sex Ratio Imbalance, Intrasexual Competition, Female Friendship, Mate Scarcity
Part of the survey:
Rate the following statements on a scale from 1 (disagree strongly) to 10 (agree strongly):
Women are vengeful.
Women are competitive.
Women make good best friends.
I trust other women.
I feel more defensive around women than I do men.
I feel more comfortable around men than I do around women.
I am sometimes jealous of my female friends.
In the past, I have gossiped about a female friend who was flirting with the person I liked in a romantic way.
In the past, I started a rumor to get back at a friend who flirted with the person I liked in a romantic way.
Are We Monogamous? A Review of the Evolution of Pair-Bonding in Humans and Its Contemporary Variation Cross-Culturally
Are
We Monogamous? A Review of the Evolution of Pair-Bonding in Humans and
Its Contemporary Variation Cross-Culturally. Ryan Schacht and Karen L.
Kramer. Front. Ecol. Evol., July 17 2019,
https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2019.00230
Abstract; Despite a long history of study, consensus on a human-typical mating system remains elusive. While a simple classification would be useful for cross-species comparisons, monogamous, polyandrous, and polygynous marriage systems exist across contemporary human societies. Moreover, sexual relationships occur outside of or in tandem with marriage, resulting in most societies exhibiting multiple kinds of marriage and mating relationships. Further complicating a straightforward classification of mating system are the multiple possible interpretations of biological traits typical of humans used to indicate ancestral mating patterns. While challenging to characterize, our review of the literature offers several key insights. 1) Although polygyny is socially sanctioned in most societies, monogamy is the dominant marriage-type within any one group cross-culturally. 2) Sex outside of marriage occurs across societies, yet human extra pair paternity rates are relatively low when compared to those of socially monogamous birds and mammals. 3) Though the timing of the evolution of certain anatomical characteristics is open to debate, human levels of sexual dimorphism and relative testis size point to a diverging history of sexual selection from our great ape relatives. Thus, we conclude that while there are many ethnographic examples of variation across human societies in terms of marriage patterns, extramarital affairs, the stability of relationships, and the ways in which fathers invest, the pair-bond is a ubiquitous feature of human mating relationships. This may be expressed through polygyny and/or polyandry but is most commonly observed in the form of serial monogamy.
Conclusion
Consensus on a human-typical mating system has remained elusive in the literature. Across human societies today, monogamous, polyandrous, polygynous, and short-term mating patterns are present, with most societies exhibiting multiple types of marriages and mating relationships. Further complicating a straightforward classification of mating system are the multiple possible interpretations of biological traits typical of humans used to indicate ancestral mating patterns. While challenging, our review of the literature offers several key insights. 1) Although polygyny is socially sanctioned in most societies, monogamy is the dominant marriage-type within any one group cross-culturally. 2) Sex outside of marriage occurs across societies, yet human extra pair paternity rates are relatively low when compared to those of socially monogamous birds and mammals. 3) While the timing of the evolution of certain anatomical characteristics is open to debate, human levels of sexual dimorphism and relative testis size point to a diverging history of sexual selection from our great ape relatives.
In sum, we conclude that while there are many ethnographic examples of variation across human societies in terms of mating patterns, the stability of relationships, and the ways in which fathers invest, the residential pair-bond is a ubiquitous feature of human mating relationships. This, at times, is expressed through polygyny and/or polyandry, but is most commonly observed in the form of monogamous marriage that is serial and characterized by low levels of extra-pair paternity and high levels of paternal care.
Abstract; Despite a long history of study, consensus on a human-typical mating system remains elusive. While a simple classification would be useful for cross-species comparisons, monogamous, polyandrous, and polygynous marriage systems exist across contemporary human societies. Moreover, sexual relationships occur outside of or in tandem with marriage, resulting in most societies exhibiting multiple kinds of marriage and mating relationships. Further complicating a straightforward classification of mating system are the multiple possible interpretations of biological traits typical of humans used to indicate ancestral mating patterns. While challenging to characterize, our review of the literature offers several key insights. 1) Although polygyny is socially sanctioned in most societies, monogamy is the dominant marriage-type within any one group cross-culturally. 2) Sex outside of marriage occurs across societies, yet human extra pair paternity rates are relatively low when compared to those of socially monogamous birds and mammals. 3) Though the timing of the evolution of certain anatomical characteristics is open to debate, human levels of sexual dimorphism and relative testis size point to a diverging history of sexual selection from our great ape relatives. Thus, we conclude that while there are many ethnographic examples of variation across human societies in terms of marriage patterns, extramarital affairs, the stability of relationships, and the ways in which fathers invest, the pair-bond is a ubiquitous feature of human mating relationships. This may be expressed through polygyny and/or polyandry but is most commonly observed in the form of serial monogamy.
Conclusion
Consensus on a human-typical mating system has remained elusive in the literature. Across human societies today, monogamous, polyandrous, polygynous, and short-term mating patterns are present, with most societies exhibiting multiple types of marriages and mating relationships. Further complicating a straightforward classification of mating system are the multiple possible interpretations of biological traits typical of humans used to indicate ancestral mating patterns. While challenging, our review of the literature offers several key insights. 1) Although polygyny is socially sanctioned in most societies, monogamy is the dominant marriage-type within any one group cross-culturally. 2) Sex outside of marriage occurs across societies, yet human extra pair paternity rates are relatively low when compared to those of socially monogamous birds and mammals. 3) While the timing of the evolution of certain anatomical characteristics is open to debate, human levels of sexual dimorphism and relative testis size point to a diverging history of sexual selection from our great ape relatives.
In sum, we conclude that while there are many ethnographic examples of variation across human societies in terms of mating patterns, the stability of relationships, and the ways in which fathers invest, the residential pair-bond is a ubiquitous feature of human mating relationships. This, at times, is expressed through polygyny and/or polyandry, but is most commonly observed in the form of monogamous marriage that is serial and characterized by low levels of extra-pair paternity and high levels of paternal care.
Students are Almost as Effective as Professors in University Teaching
Students
are Almost as Effective as Professors in University Teaching. Jan Feld,
Nicolás alamanca, Ulf Zölitz, Economics of Education Review, July 16
2019, 101912, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.101912
Abstract: In a previous paper, we have shown that academic rank is largely unrelated to tutorial teaching effectiveness. In this paper, we further explore the effectiveness of the lowest-ranked instructors: students. We confirm that students are almost as effective as senior instructors, and we produce results informative on the effects of expanding the use of student instructors. We conclude that hiring moderately more student instructors would not harm students, but exclusively using them will likely negatively affect student outcomes. Given how inexpensive student instructors are, however, such a policy might still be worth it.
Abstract: In a previous paper, we have shown that academic rank is largely unrelated to tutorial teaching effectiveness. In this paper, we further explore the effectiveness of the lowest-ranked instructors: students. We confirm that students are almost as effective as senior instructors, and we produce results informative on the effects of expanding the use of student instructors. We conclude that hiring moderately more student instructors would not harm students, but exclusively using them will likely negatively affect student outcomes. Given how inexpensive student instructors are, however, such a policy might still be worth it.
We overestimate how much observers think our one-off success or failure offers insight about a competence; we think their seeing a performance in a specific skill will reveal a lot about a general skill
Moon, A., Gan, M., & Critcher, C. R. (2019). The overblown implications effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000204
Abstract: People frequently engage in behaviors that put their competencies on display. However, do such actors understand how others view them in light of these performances? Eight studies support an overblown implications effect (OIE): Actors overestimate how much observers think an actor’s one-off success or failure offers clear insight about a relevant competency (Study 1). Furthermore, actors overblow performances’ implications even in prospect, before there are experienced successes or failures on which to ruminate (Studies 2 and 3). To explain the OIE, we introduce the construct of working trait definitions—accessible beliefs about what specific skills define a general trait or competency. When actors try to adopt observers’ perspective, the narrow performance domain seems disproportionately important in defining the general trait (Study 4). By manipulating actors’ working trait definitions to include other (unobserved) trait-relevant behaviors, we eliminated the OIE (Study 5). The final 3 studies (Studies 6a–6c) more precisely localized the error. Although actors and observers agreed on what a single success or failure (e.g., the quality of a single batch of cookies) could reveal about actors’ narrow competence (e.g., skill at baking cookies), actors erred in thinking observers would feel this performance would reveal a considerable amount about the more general skill (e.g., cooking ability) and related specific competencies (e.g., skill at making omelets). Discussion centers on how the present theoretical account differs from previous explanations why metaperceptions err and identifies important open questions for future research.
Abstract: People frequently engage in behaviors that put their competencies on display. However, do such actors understand how others view them in light of these performances? Eight studies support an overblown implications effect (OIE): Actors overestimate how much observers think an actor’s one-off success or failure offers clear insight about a relevant competency (Study 1). Furthermore, actors overblow performances’ implications even in prospect, before there are experienced successes or failures on which to ruminate (Studies 2 and 3). To explain the OIE, we introduce the construct of working trait definitions—accessible beliefs about what specific skills define a general trait or competency. When actors try to adopt observers’ perspective, the narrow performance domain seems disproportionately important in defining the general trait (Study 4). By manipulating actors’ working trait definitions to include other (unobserved) trait-relevant behaviors, we eliminated the OIE (Study 5). The final 3 studies (Studies 6a–6c) more precisely localized the error. Although actors and observers agreed on what a single success or failure (e.g., the quality of a single batch of cookies) could reveal about actors’ narrow competence (e.g., skill at baking cookies), actors erred in thinking observers would feel this performance would reveal a considerable amount about the more general skill (e.g., cooking ability) and related specific competencies (e.g., skill at making omelets). Discussion centers on how the present theoretical account differs from previous explanations why metaperceptions err and identifies important open questions for future research.
Oldest European accounts that describe the reactions of animals to their own reflections on the surface of a body of water or in a mirror
Ancient and Medieval Animals and Self-recognition: Observations from Early European Sources in Early Science and Medicine- Lucyna Kostuch, Beata Wojciechowska and Sylwia Konarska-Zimnicka. Early Science and Medicine, Volume 24: Issue 2, Jul 2 2019. https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-00242P01
Abstract: This article presents the oldest European accounts that describe the reactions of animals to their own reflections on the surface of a body of water or in a mirror. The analysed sources will encompass Greco-Roman accounts, including the reception of these accounts in the Middle Ages. While this article belongs to the field of the history of science, it seeks to provide a historical commentary with insights from contemporary studies (the mirror test, MSR). The article presents surviving ancient and medieval accounts about particular animal species that describe their ability or inability to recognise a mirror reflection. The species discussed are the horse, mule, dog, birds (sparrow, partridge, rooster, quail, jackdaw, starling and pheasant), the monkey and tiger. Brief mention is also made of the sheep, pigeon, goose, parrot, raven and cat.
Keywords: ancient and medieval animals ; mirror test ; self-recognition
Abstract: This article presents the oldest European accounts that describe the reactions of animals to their own reflections on the surface of a body of water or in a mirror. The analysed sources will encompass Greco-Roman accounts, including the reception of these accounts in the Middle Ages. While this article belongs to the field of the history of science, it seeks to provide a historical commentary with insights from contemporary studies (the mirror test, MSR). The article presents surviving ancient and medieval accounts about particular animal species that describe their ability or inability to recognise a mirror reflection. The species discussed are the horse, mule, dog, birds (sparrow, partridge, rooster, quail, jackdaw, starling and pheasant), the monkey and tiger. Brief mention is also made of the sheep, pigeon, goose, parrot, raven and cat.
Keywords: ancient and medieval animals ; mirror test ; self-recognition
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
Sample of 2364 apartment buildings in 48 US states: 60% of names contained nature words, 6% contained nature-analogous, and only 32% contained non-nature words
Home is where the nature is: A content analysis of apartment complexes. Rebecka Hahnel, Aaron Goetz. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: Natural selection resulted in human’s evolved preferences and motivations to seek landscapes that provide lush resources while avoiding life-threatening risks (Orians, 1980). These evolved preferences may influence several aspects of modernday society—including how we manipulate our urban environment. In our study, we explored the relationship between evolved landscape preferences and naming conventions of new constructions—specifically apartment complexes. We hypothesized there would be more nature words in apartment complex names than non-nature words. A content analysis of 2,364 names of apartment buildings was conducted utilizing a program that makes use of Google Maps to gather names from each of the 48 contiguous states of the United States of America. Each apartment name was rated as having nature words (e.g., river, arbor), nature-analogous words (e.g., summer, ranch), or non-nature words (e.g., 4th street, Washington). Sixty percent (n = 1428) of apartment buildings contained nature words, 6% (n = 158) contained nature-analogous, and only 32% (n =807) contained non-nature words (ꭕ2 (2, 2364) = 606.550, p < 0.001). Results supported our hypothesis that there are statistically more nature words than non-nature words in the names of apartment buildings. Our landscape preferences may affect how developers name our homesteads—exploiting our biophilia.
Abstract: Natural selection resulted in human’s evolved preferences and motivations to seek landscapes that provide lush resources while avoiding life-threatening risks (Orians, 1980). These evolved preferences may influence several aspects of modernday society—including how we manipulate our urban environment. In our study, we explored the relationship between evolved landscape preferences and naming conventions of new constructions—specifically apartment complexes. We hypothesized there would be more nature words in apartment complex names than non-nature words. A content analysis of 2,364 names of apartment buildings was conducted utilizing a program that makes use of Google Maps to gather names from each of the 48 contiguous states of the United States of America. Each apartment name was rated as having nature words (e.g., river, arbor), nature-analogous words (e.g., summer, ranch), or non-nature words (e.g., 4th street, Washington). Sixty percent (n = 1428) of apartment buildings contained nature words, 6% (n = 158) contained nature-analogous, and only 32% (n =807) contained non-nature words (ꭕ2 (2, 2364) = 606.550, p < 0.001). Results supported our hypothesis that there are statistically more nature words than non-nature words in the names of apartment buildings. Our landscape preferences may affect how developers name our homesteads—exploiting our biophilia.
Building upon recent insights that morality evolves to secure fitness advantages of cooperation, we propose that conservation ethics is based in interest in cooperation between humans & non-humans
Value of species and the evolution of conservation ethics. Darragh Hare, Bernd Blossey, H. Kern Reeve. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: The theory of evolution by natural selection can help explain why people care about other species. Building upon recent insights that morality evolves to secure fitness advantages of cooperation, we propose that conservation ethics (moral beliefs, attitudes, intuitions and norms regarding other species) could be adaptations that support cooperation between humans and non-humans. We present eco-evolutionary cost–benefit models of conservation behaviors as interspecific cooperation (altruism towards members of other species). We find that an evolutionary rule identical in structure to Hamilton's rule (which explains altruistic behavior towards related conspecifics) can explain altruistic behavior towards members of other species. Natural selection will favor traits for selectively altering the success of members of other species (e.g. conserving them) in ways that maximize inclusive fitness return benefits. Conservation behaviors and the ethics that evolve to reinforce them will be sensitive to local ecological and socio-cultural conditions, so will assume different contours in different places. Difficulties accurately assessing costs and benefits provided by other species, time required to adapt to ecological and socio-cultural change and barriers to collective action could explain the apparent contradiction between the widespread existence of conservation ethics and patterns of biodiversity decline globally.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.181038
Abstract: The theory of evolution by natural selection can help explain why people care about other species. Building upon recent insights that morality evolves to secure fitness advantages of cooperation, we propose that conservation ethics (moral beliefs, attitudes, intuitions and norms regarding other species) could be adaptations that support cooperation between humans and non-humans. We present eco-evolutionary cost–benefit models of conservation behaviors as interspecific cooperation (altruism towards members of other species). We find that an evolutionary rule identical in structure to Hamilton's rule (which explains altruistic behavior towards related conspecifics) can explain altruistic behavior towards members of other species. Natural selection will favor traits for selectively altering the success of members of other species (e.g. conserving them) in ways that maximize inclusive fitness return benefits. Conservation behaviors and the ethics that evolve to reinforce them will be sensitive to local ecological and socio-cultural conditions, so will assume different contours in different places. Difficulties accurately assessing costs and benefits provided by other species, time required to adapt to ecological and socio-cultural change and barriers to collective action could explain the apparent contradiction between the widespread existence of conservation ethics and patterns of biodiversity decline globally.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.181038
Is altruistic punishment altruistic?
Is altruistic punishment altruistic? Ricardo Andrés Guzmán, Cristián Candia, Leda Cosmides, Carlos Rodriguez-Sickert. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: The aim of this investigation is to determine if altruistic punishment in social dilemmas is a robust phenomenon or an artifact of the standard experimental designs, as some authors have suggested (Carpenter and Matthews 2012; Pedersen, Kurzban, and McCullough 2013). To this end we have designed a variant of the public good game with peer punishment. In our public good game, a group of subjects is partitioned into subgroups that play a one-shot public good game. After the game finishes the subjects can punish free riders, even if they belong to other subgroups. Unlike standard social dilemma experiments, our experimental design allows to discriminate altruistic punishment (for the sake of the group) from self-interested punishment (for the sake of the individual who punishes). We hypothesize that the selfish and altruistic (if there is any) motivations will combine in the PG case (N=4) where no subgroups are created, so punishment in this case will be greater than selfish punishment with respect to the case in which experimental subjects participate in two simultaneous prisoner dilemma games. In addition, our experimental design eliminates several artifacts of standard experiments, such as demand characteristics and the preclusion of the bystander effect.
Abstract: The aim of this investigation is to determine if altruistic punishment in social dilemmas is a robust phenomenon or an artifact of the standard experimental designs, as some authors have suggested (Carpenter and Matthews 2012; Pedersen, Kurzban, and McCullough 2013). To this end we have designed a variant of the public good game with peer punishment. In our public good game, a group of subjects is partitioned into subgroups that play a one-shot public good game. After the game finishes the subjects can punish free riders, even if they belong to other subgroups. Unlike standard social dilemma experiments, our experimental design allows to discriminate altruistic punishment (for the sake of the group) from self-interested punishment (for the sake of the individual who punishes). We hypothesize that the selfish and altruistic (if there is any) motivations will combine in the PG case (N=4) where no subgroups are created, so punishment in this case will be greater than selfish punishment with respect to the case in which experimental subjects participate in two simultaneous prisoner dilemma games. In addition, our experimental design eliminates several artifacts of standard experiments, such as demand characteristics and the preclusion of the bystander effect.
Sexual concordance, matching of self-reported sexual orientation & genital response when introduced to erotic stimuli (audio, visual, audiovisual, etc.), is very low for heterosexual cisgender women
The mystery of low sexual concordance among heterosexual cisgender females. Jesse E. Kavieff, Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford, Zach W. Sundin, Todd K. Shackelford. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: Sexual concordance (SC) refers to matching of self-reported sexual orientation (SO) and genital response when introduced to erotic stimuli (audio, visual, audiovisual, etc.). Men of all SO demonstrate high SC (i.e., near 100%) when exposed to erotic stimuli (Mustanski, Chivers, & Bailey, 2002; Chivers, 2005, 2017; Chivers et. al, 2004; Chivers & Bailey 2005;). Queer cisgender women and transgender women across the SO also match reported sexual orientation to genital response with high SC (Chivers, 2017; Chivers et. al, 2004, 2015; Lawrence et. al, 2005). Cisgender heterosexual Females (CHF), however, show relatively low SC in comparison to cisgender queer, transgender women and men. Furthermore, CHF show slight genital lubrication response to nonhuman mating videos (Chivers, & Bailey, 2005). Genital response and arousal in CHF is marked by vasocongestion in the clitoris and vagina, vaginal pulsation measured by vaginal photoplesmagraph, and by lubrication released from the Skene's and Bartholin's glands. Low SC in CHF is analyzed by both the preparation hypothesis (byproduct hypothesis) and the greater variability in sexual rewards among androphilic women hypothesis (adaptation hypothesis) (Sushinsky & Lalumiere, 2004; Chivers, 2017); more research is required to better understand female sexuality and perhaps discourage misdiagnoses of sexual dysfunction in CHF.
Check also A Life History Approach to the Female Sexual Orientation Spectrum: Evolution, Development, Causal Mechanisms, and Health. Severi Luoto, Indrikis Krams, Markus J. Rantala. Archives of Sexual Behavior, https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/09/feedback-loop-of-environmental.html
And Are Women Sexually Fluid? The Nature of Female Same-Sex Attraction and Its Evolutionary Origins. Menelaos Apostolou. Evolutionary Psychological Science, https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2017/11/are-women-sexually-fluid-nature-of.html
And The evolution of female same-sex attraction: The male choice hypothesis. Menelaos Apostolou et al. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 116, 1 October 2017, Pages 372-378, http://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2017/08/the-evolution-of-female-same-sex.html
Abstract: Sexual concordance (SC) refers to matching of self-reported sexual orientation (SO) and genital response when introduced to erotic stimuli (audio, visual, audiovisual, etc.). Men of all SO demonstrate high SC (i.e., near 100%) when exposed to erotic stimuli (Mustanski, Chivers, & Bailey, 2002; Chivers, 2005, 2017; Chivers et. al, 2004; Chivers & Bailey 2005;). Queer cisgender women and transgender women across the SO also match reported sexual orientation to genital response with high SC (Chivers, 2017; Chivers et. al, 2004, 2015; Lawrence et. al, 2005). Cisgender heterosexual Females (CHF), however, show relatively low SC in comparison to cisgender queer, transgender women and men. Furthermore, CHF show slight genital lubrication response to nonhuman mating videos (Chivers, & Bailey, 2005). Genital response and arousal in CHF is marked by vasocongestion in the clitoris and vagina, vaginal pulsation measured by vaginal photoplesmagraph, and by lubrication released from the Skene's and Bartholin's glands. Low SC in CHF is analyzed by both the preparation hypothesis (byproduct hypothesis) and the greater variability in sexual rewards among androphilic women hypothesis (adaptation hypothesis) (Sushinsky & Lalumiere, 2004; Chivers, 2017); more research is required to better understand female sexuality and perhaps discourage misdiagnoses of sexual dysfunction in CHF.
Check also A Life History Approach to the Female Sexual Orientation Spectrum: Evolution, Development, Causal Mechanisms, and Health. Severi Luoto, Indrikis Krams, Markus J. Rantala. Archives of Sexual Behavior, https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018/09/feedback-loop-of-environmental.html
And Are Women Sexually Fluid? The Nature of Female Same-Sex Attraction and Its Evolutionary Origins. Menelaos Apostolou. Evolutionary Psychological Science, https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2017/11/are-women-sexually-fluid-nature-of.html
And The evolution of female same-sex attraction: The male choice hypothesis. Menelaos Apostolou et al. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 116, 1 October 2017, Pages 372-378, http://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2017/08/the-evolution-of-female-same-sex.html
Biologically defined Alzheimer disease is more prevalent than clinically defined probable Alzheimer disease at any age and is 3 times more prevalent at age 85 for both men and women
Prevalence of Biologically vs Clinically Defined Alzheimer Spectrum Entities Using the National Institute on Aging–Alzheimer’s Association Research Framework. Clifford R. Jack Jr et al. JAMA Neurol. Published online July 15, 2019. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2019.1971
Key Points
Question How does the prevalence of 3 imaging biomarker–based definitions of the Alzheimer disease spectrum from the National Institute on Aging–Alzheimer’s Association research framework compare with clinically defined diagnostic entities commonly linked with Alzheimer disease?
Findings Among a sample of 5213 individuals from Olmsted County, Minnesota, in this population-based cohort study, biologically defined Alzheimer disease is more prevalent than clinically diagnosed probable Alzheimer disease at any age and is 3 times more prevalent at age 85 years among both women and men.
Meaning Most patients with biologically defined Alzheimer disease are not symptomatic, which creates potential confusion around the definition of Alzheimer disease.
Abstract
Importance A National Institute on Aging–Alzheimer’s Association (NIA-AA) workgroup recently published a research framework in which Alzheimer disease is defined by neuropathologic or biomarker evidence of β-amyloid plaques and tau tangles and not by clinical symptoms.
Objectives To estimate the sex- and age-specific prevalence of 3 imaging biomarker–based definitions of the Alzheimer disease spectrum from the NIA-AA research framework and to compare these entities with clinically defined diagnostic entities commonly linked with Alzheimer disease.
Design, Setting, and Participants The Mayo Clinic Study of Aging (MCSA) is a population-based cohort study of cognitive aging in Olmsted County, Minnesota. The MCSA in-person participants (n = 4660) and passively ascertained (ie, through the medical record rather than in-person) individuals with dementia (n = 553) aged 60 to 89 years were included. Subsets underwent amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) (n = 1524) or both amyloid and tau PET (n = 576). Therefore, this study included 3 nested cohorts examined between November 29, 2004, and June 5, 2018. Data were analyzed between February 19, 2018, and March 26, 2019.
Main Outcomes and Measures The sex- and age-specific prevalence of the following 3 biologically defined diagnostic entities was estimated: Alzheimer continuum (abnormal amyloid regardless of tau status), Alzheimer pathologic change (abnormal amyloid but normal tau), and Alzheimer disease (abnormal amyloid and tau). These were compared with the prevalence of 3 clinically defined diagnostic groups (mild cognitive impairment or dementia, dementia, and clinically defined probable Alzheimer disease).
Results The median (interquartile range) age was 77 (72-83) years in the clinical cohort (n = 5213 participants), 77 (70-83) years in the amyloid PET cohort (n = 1524 participants), and 77 (69-83) years in the tau PET cohort (n = 576 participants). There were roughly equal numbers of women and men. The prevalence of all diagnostic entities (biological and clinical) increased rapidly with age, with the exception of Alzheimer pathologic change. The prevalence of biological Alzheimer disease was greater than clinically defined probable Alzheimer disease for women and men. Among women, these values were 10% (95% CI, 6%-14%) vs 1% (95% CI, 1%-1%) at age 70 years and 33% (95% CI, 25%-41%) vs 10% (95% CI, 9%-12%) at age 85 years (P < .001). Among men, these values were 9% (95% CI, 5%-12%) vs 1% (95% CI, 0%-1%) at age 70 years and 31% (95% CI, 24%-38%) vs 9% (95% CI, 8%-11%) at age 85 years (P < .001). The only notable difference by sex was a greater prevalence of the mild cognitive impairment or dementia clinical category among men than women.
Conclusions and Relevance Results of this study suggest that biologically defined Alzheimer disease is more prevalent than clinically defined probable Alzheimer disease at any age and is 3 times more prevalent at age 85 years among both women and men. This difference is mostly driven by asymptomatic individuals with biological Alzheimer disease. These findings illustrate the magnitude of the consequences on public health that potentially exist by intervening with disease-specific treatments to prevent symptom onset.
Introduction
Since 1984, a diagnosis of probable Alzheimer disease has been based on clinical findings of a progressive amnestic multidomain cognitive impairment culminating in dementia after other potential causes were excluded.1-3 Neuropathologic identification of β-amyloid plaques and tau tangles has always been required for a definite diagnosis of Alzheimer disease. Numerous studies have identified discrepancies between the clinical syndrome and the neuropathologic diagnosis of Alzheimer disease.4 Many individuals who meet neuropathologic criteria either do not have symptoms or have symptoms that differ from the classic amnestic presentation. National Institute on Aging–Alzheimer’s Association (NIA-AA) committees in 2011 and the International Work Group addressed this conundrum by adding biomarkers to clinical criteria to improve the specificity of the clinical diagnosis.3,5-8 These modified clinical diagnostic criteria cast Alzheimer disease as a clinical biomarker entity, but the diagnosis was not divorced from clinical impairment.3,5-8 The NIA-AA 2011 preclinical Alzheimer disease recommendations were an exception,9 as were the 2012 NIA-AA neuropathologic guidelines, which separated the neuropathologic definition of Alzheimer disease from the clinical syndrome.10,11
Building on the work above, a workgroup commissioned by the NIA-AA recently published a research framework12 defining Alzheimer disease biologically throughout its entire course. Alzheimer disease was defined either by neuropathologic examination or, in living persons, by positron emission tomography (PET) or biofluid biomarkers of the 2 hallmark diagnostic proteinopathies, namely, β-amyloid plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles. The NIA-AA research framework harmonized the in vivo with the previously established neuropathologic10,11 definition of Alzheimer disease.
Epidemiologic studies estimating the prevalence of Alzheimer disease have typically used the clinical criteria by McKhann et al1,3 to define the condition. The new NIA-AA research framework12 leads to the following question: what is the prevalence of Alzheimer disease defined biologically using biomarkers compared with the prevalence using conventional definitions based on clinical symptoms? To address this question in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging (MCSA) population, we estimated the sex- and age-specific prevalence of 3 imaging biomarker–based definitions of the Alzheimer disease spectrum from the NIA-AA research framework and compared these estimates with the prevalence of clinically defined diagnostic entities commonly linked with Alzheimer disease. Although biomarkers are now commonly used in aging and dementia research, most cohorts deeply phenotyped by biomarkers are clinic based and not population based. However, the MCSA is a population-based sample (ie, a random sample from a defined geographic area) with deep biomarker phenotyping.
In Discussion:
A biological definition leads to an increase in the apparent prevalence of Alzheimer disease compared with a syndromal definition. This is not surprising; the same is true for any other disease (eg, cancer, diabetes, etc) in which tests can detect disease in both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. Even though there are no therapies proven to alter clinical outcomes, our data illustrate that a significant opportunity exists to influence public health by intervention in the preclinical phase of the disease if that proves to be efficacious.56-58 As other late-life diseases become better controlled, there is an imperative to delay or prevent symptoms due to Alzheimer disease; otherwise, those gains in life expectancy will be transformed into longer life with dementia. Intervention to prevent symptom onset was explicitly identified as a major public health objective in the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease.36
Key Points
Question How does the prevalence of 3 imaging biomarker–based definitions of the Alzheimer disease spectrum from the National Institute on Aging–Alzheimer’s Association research framework compare with clinically defined diagnostic entities commonly linked with Alzheimer disease?
Findings Among a sample of 5213 individuals from Olmsted County, Minnesota, in this population-based cohort study, biologically defined Alzheimer disease is more prevalent than clinically diagnosed probable Alzheimer disease at any age and is 3 times more prevalent at age 85 years among both women and men.
Meaning Most patients with biologically defined Alzheimer disease are not symptomatic, which creates potential confusion around the definition of Alzheimer disease.
Abstract
Importance A National Institute on Aging–Alzheimer’s Association (NIA-AA) workgroup recently published a research framework in which Alzheimer disease is defined by neuropathologic or biomarker evidence of β-amyloid plaques and tau tangles and not by clinical symptoms.
Objectives To estimate the sex- and age-specific prevalence of 3 imaging biomarker–based definitions of the Alzheimer disease spectrum from the NIA-AA research framework and to compare these entities with clinically defined diagnostic entities commonly linked with Alzheimer disease.
Design, Setting, and Participants The Mayo Clinic Study of Aging (MCSA) is a population-based cohort study of cognitive aging in Olmsted County, Minnesota. The MCSA in-person participants (n = 4660) and passively ascertained (ie, through the medical record rather than in-person) individuals with dementia (n = 553) aged 60 to 89 years were included. Subsets underwent amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) (n = 1524) or both amyloid and tau PET (n = 576). Therefore, this study included 3 nested cohorts examined between November 29, 2004, and June 5, 2018. Data were analyzed between February 19, 2018, and March 26, 2019.
Main Outcomes and Measures The sex- and age-specific prevalence of the following 3 biologically defined diagnostic entities was estimated: Alzheimer continuum (abnormal amyloid regardless of tau status), Alzheimer pathologic change (abnormal amyloid but normal tau), and Alzheimer disease (abnormal amyloid and tau). These were compared with the prevalence of 3 clinically defined diagnostic groups (mild cognitive impairment or dementia, dementia, and clinically defined probable Alzheimer disease).
Results The median (interquartile range) age was 77 (72-83) years in the clinical cohort (n = 5213 participants), 77 (70-83) years in the amyloid PET cohort (n = 1524 participants), and 77 (69-83) years in the tau PET cohort (n = 576 participants). There were roughly equal numbers of women and men. The prevalence of all diagnostic entities (biological and clinical) increased rapidly with age, with the exception of Alzheimer pathologic change. The prevalence of biological Alzheimer disease was greater than clinically defined probable Alzheimer disease for women and men. Among women, these values were 10% (95% CI, 6%-14%) vs 1% (95% CI, 1%-1%) at age 70 years and 33% (95% CI, 25%-41%) vs 10% (95% CI, 9%-12%) at age 85 years (P < .001). Among men, these values were 9% (95% CI, 5%-12%) vs 1% (95% CI, 0%-1%) at age 70 years and 31% (95% CI, 24%-38%) vs 9% (95% CI, 8%-11%) at age 85 years (P < .001). The only notable difference by sex was a greater prevalence of the mild cognitive impairment or dementia clinical category among men than women.
Conclusions and Relevance Results of this study suggest that biologically defined Alzheimer disease is more prevalent than clinically defined probable Alzheimer disease at any age and is 3 times more prevalent at age 85 years among both women and men. This difference is mostly driven by asymptomatic individuals with biological Alzheimer disease. These findings illustrate the magnitude of the consequences on public health that potentially exist by intervening with disease-specific treatments to prevent symptom onset.
Introduction
Since 1984, a diagnosis of probable Alzheimer disease has been based on clinical findings of a progressive amnestic multidomain cognitive impairment culminating in dementia after other potential causes were excluded.1-3 Neuropathologic identification of β-amyloid plaques and tau tangles has always been required for a definite diagnosis of Alzheimer disease. Numerous studies have identified discrepancies between the clinical syndrome and the neuropathologic diagnosis of Alzheimer disease.4 Many individuals who meet neuropathologic criteria either do not have symptoms or have symptoms that differ from the classic amnestic presentation. National Institute on Aging–Alzheimer’s Association (NIA-AA) committees in 2011 and the International Work Group addressed this conundrum by adding biomarkers to clinical criteria to improve the specificity of the clinical diagnosis.3,5-8 These modified clinical diagnostic criteria cast Alzheimer disease as a clinical biomarker entity, but the diagnosis was not divorced from clinical impairment.3,5-8 The NIA-AA 2011 preclinical Alzheimer disease recommendations were an exception,9 as were the 2012 NIA-AA neuropathologic guidelines, which separated the neuropathologic definition of Alzheimer disease from the clinical syndrome.10,11
Building on the work above, a workgroup commissioned by the NIA-AA recently published a research framework12 defining Alzheimer disease biologically throughout its entire course. Alzheimer disease was defined either by neuropathologic examination or, in living persons, by positron emission tomography (PET) or biofluid biomarkers of the 2 hallmark diagnostic proteinopathies, namely, β-amyloid plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles. The NIA-AA research framework harmonized the in vivo with the previously established neuropathologic10,11 definition of Alzheimer disease.
Epidemiologic studies estimating the prevalence of Alzheimer disease have typically used the clinical criteria by McKhann et al1,3 to define the condition. The new NIA-AA research framework12 leads to the following question: what is the prevalence of Alzheimer disease defined biologically using biomarkers compared with the prevalence using conventional definitions based on clinical symptoms? To address this question in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging (MCSA) population, we estimated the sex- and age-specific prevalence of 3 imaging biomarker–based definitions of the Alzheimer disease spectrum from the NIA-AA research framework and compared these estimates with the prevalence of clinically defined diagnostic entities commonly linked with Alzheimer disease. Although biomarkers are now commonly used in aging and dementia research, most cohorts deeply phenotyped by biomarkers are clinic based and not population based. However, the MCSA is a population-based sample (ie, a random sample from a defined geographic area) with deep biomarker phenotyping.
In Discussion:
A biological definition leads to an increase in the apparent prevalence of Alzheimer disease compared with a syndromal definition. This is not surprising; the same is true for any other disease (eg, cancer, diabetes, etc) in which tests can detect disease in both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. Even though there are no therapies proven to alter clinical outcomes, our data illustrate that a significant opportunity exists to influence public health by intervention in the preclinical phase of the disease if that proves to be efficacious.56-58 As other late-life diseases become better controlled, there is an imperative to delay or prevent symptoms due to Alzheimer disease; otherwise, those gains in life expectancy will be transformed into longer life with dementia. Intervention to prevent symptom onset was explicitly identified as a major public health objective in the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease.36
13,871 children aged 9 to 12: Weak relationships emerged between digital media use & subjective well-being; heavy users nonetheless are almost twice as likely to suffer from low levels of well-being
Does the use of digital media affect psychological well-being? An empirical test among children aged 9 to 12. Helena Bruggeman et al. Computers in Human Behavior, July 16 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.07.015
Highlights
• A sample of 13,871 children aged 9 to 12 was collected.
• Weak relationships emerged between digital media use and subjective well-being. Heavy users nonetheless are almost twice as likely to suffer from low levels of well-being.
• Almost 20% of the children had a Facebook profile.
• Online social network effects on well-being dissipated when taking into account offline relations.
• Studies should investigate the long term effects of digital media use of young children.
Abstract: Does digital media use support or undermine psychological well-being? This question has not only elicited a lot of attention in the popular media, but it also has been investigated empirically in scientific literature. Much of these studies have been conducted in samples of adolescents and adults, reporting both positive and negative effects of digital media use on well-being, leading to at least four theoretical positions about this relationship. In each of these theories the relationship between digital media use and well-being is explained by people's social network. In the present study, we address the question whether digital media use is related to psychological well-being in a large sample (N = 13,871) of children aged 9–12 year. The results revealed rather weak linear relationships (r's < 0.10), but at the same time it has been shown that highest frequency users of digital media in terms of daily use had a relative risk of 2.0 and beyond to score lower on well-being. In the specific group of children who have a Facebook profile (N = 2,528, 18.2%), their offline social network was a much stronger predictor of well-being compared to their online social network. Based on these cross sectional results, it is concluded that heavy use of digital media by young children has an adverse impact on their psychological well-being, but that mild use of such media has very limited effects in this respect.
Highlights
• A sample of 13,871 children aged 9 to 12 was collected.
• Weak relationships emerged between digital media use and subjective well-being. Heavy users nonetheless are almost twice as likely to suffer from low levels of well-being.
• Almost 20% of the children had a Facebook profile.
• Online social network effects on well-being dissipated when taking into account offline relations.
• Studies should investigate the long term effects of digital media use of young children.
Abstract: Does digital media use support or undermine psychological well-being? This question has not only elicited a lot of attention in the popular media, but it also has been investigated empirically in scientific literature. Much of these studies have been conducted in samples of adolescents and adults, reporting both positive and negative effects of digital media use on well-being, leading to at least four theoretical positions about this relationship. In each of these theories the relationship between digital media use and well-being is explained by people's social network. In the present study, we address the question whether digital media use is related to psychological well-being in a large sample (N = 13,871) of children aged 9–12 year. The results revealed rather weak linear relationships (r's < 0.10), but at the same time it has been shown that highest frequency users of digital media in terms of daily use had a relative risk of 2.0 and beyond to score lower on well-being. In the specific group of children who have a Facebook profile (N = 2,528, 18.2%), their offline social network was a much stronger predictor of well-being compared to their online social network. Based on these cross sectional results, it is concluded that heavy use of digital media by young children has an adverse impact on their psychological well-being, but that mild use of such media has very limited effects in this respect.
Rolf Deggen summarizing... Sex differences in personality are large if measured in combination. Successful replication of provocative finding.
Global Sex Differences in Personality: Replication with an Open Online Dataset. Tim Kaiser, Marco del Giudice, Tom Booth. Journal of Personality, July 2019. DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12500
Abstract
Objective: Sex differences in personality are a matter of continuing debate. In a study on the US standardization sample of Cattell’s 16PF (fifth edition), Del Giudice and colleagues (2012; PLoS ONE, 7, e29265) estimated global sex differences in personality with multigroup covariance and mean structure analysis (MG-CMSA). The study found a surprisingly large multivariate effect, D = 2.71. Here we replicated the original analysis with an open online dataset employing an equivalent version of the 16PF.
Method: We closely replicated the original MG-MCSA analysis on N = 21,567 US participants (63% females, age 16-90); for robustness, we also analyzed N = 31,637 participants across English-speaking countries (61% females, age 16-90).
Results: The size of global sex differences was D = 2.06 in the US and D = 2.10 across English-speaking countries. Parcel-allocation variability analysis showed that results were robust to changes in parceling (US: median D = 2.09, IQR [1.89, 2.37]; English-speaking countries: median D = 2.17, IQR [1.98, 2.47]).
Conclusions: Our results corroborate the original study (with a comparable if somewhat smaller effect size) and provide new information on the impact of parcel allocation. We discuss the implications of these and similar findings for the psychology of sex differences
Abstract
Objective: Sex differences in personality are a matter of continuing debate. In a study on the US standardization sample of Cattell’s 16PF (fifth edition), Del Giudice and colleagues (2012; PLoS ONE, 7, e29265) estimated global sex differences in personality with multigroup covariance and mean structure analysis (MG-CMSA). The study found a surprisingly large multivariate effect, D = 2.71. Here we replicated the original analysis with an open online dataset employing an equivalent version of the 16PF.
Method: We closely replicated the original MG-MCSA analysis on N = 21,567 US participants (63% females, age 16-90); for robustness, we also analyzed N = 31,637 participants across English-speaking countries (61% females, age 16-90).
Results: The size of global sex differences was D = 2.06 in the US and D = 2.10 across English-speaking countries. Parcel-allocation variability analysis showed that results were robust to changes in parceling (US: median D = 2.09, IQR [1.89, 2.37]; English-speaking countries: median D = 2.17, IQR [1.98, 2.47]).
Conclusions: Our results corroborate the original study (with a comparable if somewhat smaller effect size) and provide new information on the impact of parcel allocation. We discuss the implications of these and similar findings for the psychology of sex differences
Nighttime crime: Interaction of full moon light and street light
Kaplan, Jacob, The Effect of Moonlight on Outdoor Nighttime Crime (April 9, 2019). SSRN, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3369228
Abstract: The use of outdoor lighting, particularly through street lights, is a common tool for policy makers attempting to reduce crime. Research on the effect of lights on crime, however, are limited as installing or improving street lighting may affect the community in ways beyond merely increasing outdoor lighting. Welsh and Farrington’s (2008) study suggested that improving street lighting may also improve informal social control in the area as it reflects improved street usage and investments in the community. This paper uses moonlight as a unique measure of outdoor ambient lighting that avoids the issue of community cohesion and examines the effect of lighting directly. The amount of actual moonlight a city receives each night is measured using the interaction between the percent of the moon illuminated and the proportion of the night without clouds. This interaction creates significant variation in moonlight between cities and across nights in the same city. Contrary to past research on lighting, this study finds that brighter nights, those with a full moon and no clouds, have significantly more crime than nights without any moonlight. These results suggest that there are heterogeneous effects of outdoor lighting by dosage and that more research on possible criminogenic effects of low dosages of outdoor lights are needed.
Keywords: CPTED, crime prevention, school crime
Abstract: The use of outdoor lighting, particularly through street lights, is a common tool for policy makers attempting to reduce crime. Research on the effect of lights on crime, however, are limited as installing or improving street lighting may affect the community in ways beyond merely increasing outdoor lighting. Welsh and Farrington’s (2008) study suggested that improving street lighting may also improve informal social control in the area as it reflects improved street usage and investments in the community. This paper uses moonlight as a unique measure of outdoor ambient lighting that avoids the issue of community cohesion and examines the effect of lighting directly. The amount of actual moonlight a city receives each night is measured using the interaction between the percent of the moon illuminated and the proportion of the night without clouds. This interaction creates significant variation in moonlight between cities and across nights in the same city. Contrary to past research on lighting, this study finds that brighter nights, those with a full moon and no clouds, have significantly more crime than nights without any moonlight. These results suggest that there are heterogeneous effects of outdoor lighting by dosage and that more research on possible criminogenic effects of low dosages of outdoor lights are needed.
Keywords: CPTED, crime prevention, school crime
Perceived differences in moral values increased hurting & decreased helping behavior, and are strongly correlated to perceived differences in political ideology, for both liberals & conservatives
When moral identity harms: The impact of perceived differences in core values on helping and hurting. Sarah Gotowie. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 151, December 1 2019, 109489, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.06.032
Highlights
• Moral identity does not unequivocally predict helping behavior.
• Conservatism and liberalism do not predict willingness to harm.
• Moral values are central to political values.
Abstract: This research investigates moral self-regulatory individual differences and perceived differences in core moral-political values as predictors of helping and hurting behavior in liberals and conservatives. Study 1 (N = 249) demonstrated that self-reported liberals and conservatives do not differ on moral disengagement, moral identity, or trait aggression. Study 2 (N = 149) used an online version of the Tangram Task paradigm and showed that perceived differences in moral values: i) predict increased hurting and decreased helping behavior, ii) interact with moral identity to strengthen the relationship between moral disengagement and hurting behavior, and iii) are strongly correlated to perceived differences in political ideology. These patterns were similar for both liberals and conservatives. These studies demonstrate that moral identity does not unequivocally predict helping behavior, conservatism and liberalism do not predict willingness to harm one another, and that moral values are central to political values. The findings are discussed in relation to ideological conflict hypothesis and moral self-regulation literature, along with applied implications.
Highlights
• Moral identity does not unequivocally predict helping behavior.
• Conservatism and liberalism do not predict willingness to harm.
• Moral values are central to political values.
Abstract: This research investigates moral self-regulatory individual differences and perceived differences in core moral-political values as predictors of helping and hurting behavior in liberals and conservatives. Study 1 (N = 249) demonstrated that self-reported liberals and conservatives do not differ on moral disengagement, moral identity, or trait aggression. Study 2 (N = 149) used an online version of the Tangram Task paradigm and showed that perceived differences in moral values: i) predict increased hurting and decreased helping behavior, ii) interact with moral identity to strengthen the relationship between moral disengagement and hurting behavior, and iii) are strongly correlated to perceived differences in political ideology. These patterns were similar for both liberals and conservatives. These studies demonstrate that moral identity does not unequivocally predict helping behavior, conservatism and liberalism do not predict willingness to harm one another, and that moral values are central to political values. The findings are discussed in relation to ideological conflict hypothesis and moral self-regulation literature, along with applied implications.
Harlequin romance novels' covert art: As time progresses, the covers focus more on the couple (at the exclusion of other individuals), & portray stronger intimacy, given shifts in socio-cultural permissiveness
A temporal analysis of cover art on Harlequin romance novels. Maryanne L. Fisher, Tami M. Meredith. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: We present an analysis of Harlequin romance novel cover images that we used to determine women’s evolved mating behaviours, as well socio-cultural change in issues such as gender norms. We analyzed 500 covers from the 1950s until 2014. Our findings show that as time progresses, the covers focus more on the couple (at the exclusion of other individuals), and portray stronger intimacy as indicated by more reclining poses, more physical contact, more interaction, and increased direct eye gaze between the couple. We contend that although the covers have always addressed female mate preferences and interests due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of readers are women, the covers have become increasingly explicit in terms of sexuality and intimacy given shifts in socio-cultural permissiveness. Therefore, Harlequin romance novel covers represent an innovative way to examine evolutionary and sociocultural forces pertaining to women’s sexuality and mating interests
Abstract: We present an analysis of Harlequin romance novel cover images that we used to determine women’s evolved mating behaviours, as well socio-cultural change in issues such as gender norms. We analyzed 500 covers from the 1950s until 2014. Our findings show that as time progresses, the covers focus more on the couple (at the exclusion of other individuals), and portray stronger intimacy as indicated by more reclining poses, more physical contact, more interaction, and increased direct eye gaze between the couple. We contend that although the covers have always addressed female mate preferences and interests due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of readers are women, the covers have become increasingly explicit in terms of sexuality and intimacy given shifts in socio-cultural permissiveness. Therefore, Harlequin romance novel covers represent an innovative way to examine evolutionary and sociocultural forces pertaining to women’s sexuality and mating interests
Those women who espoused anti-feminist values—that is, those high in hostile sexism—had faked significantly more orgasms over their lifetime
Beliefs About Gender Predict Faking Orgasm in Heterosexual Women. Emily A. Harris, Matthew J. Hornsey, Hannah F. Larsen, Fiona Kate Barlow. Archives of Sexual Behavior, July 15 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01510-2
Abstract: The majority of women have faked an orgasm at least once in their lives. In the current study, we assessed how women’s worldviews about gender relate to their faking orgasm behavior. A survey of 462 heterosexual women from the UK (Mage=38.38 years) found that those who espoused anti-feminist values—that is, those high in hostile sexism—had faked significantly more orgasms over their lifetime. In contrast, those who espoused ostensibly positive but restrictive ideas of gender relations—that is, those high in benevolent sexism—had faked significantly fewer orgasms over their lifetime. Furthermore, the more that women believed female orgasm was necessary for men’s sexual gratification, the more likely they were to have faked an orgasm at least once in their lives compared to women who had never faked an orgasm. These effects were small to moderate and emerged after controlling for demographics, sexual history, ease of orgasm, and previously established psychological correlates of faking orgasm, including suspected partner infidelity and intrasexual competition.
Keywords: Faking orgasm Ideology Hostile sexism Benevolent sexism Gender
Check also Motivations for faking orgasm and orgasm consistency among young adult women. Michael D. Barnett et al. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 149, 15 October 2019, Pages 83-87. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/06/women-who-faked-orgasm-in-order-to.html
Abstract: The majority of women have faked an orgasm at least once in their lives. In the current study, we assessed how women’s worldviews about gender relate to their faking orgasm behavior. A survey of 462 heterosexual women from the UK (Mage=38.38 years) found that those who espoused anti-feminist values—that is, those high in hostile sexism—had faked significantly more orgasms over their lifetime. In contrast, those who espoused ostensibly positive but restrictive ideas of gender relations—that is, those high in benevolent sexism—had faked significantly fewer orgasms over their lifetime. Furthermore, the more that women believed female orgasm was necessary for men’s sexual gratification, the more likely they were to have faked an orgasm at least once in their lives compared to women who had never faked an orgasm. These effects were small to moderate and emerged after controlling for demographics, sexual history, ease of orgasm, and previously established psychological correlates of faking orgasm, including suspected partner infidelity and intrasexual competition.
Keywords: Faking orgasm Ideology Hostile sexism Benevolent sexism Gender
Check also Motivations for faking orgasm and orgasm consistency among young adult women. Michael D. Barnett et al. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 149, 15 October 2019, Pages 83-87. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/06/women-who-faked-orgasm-in-order-to.html
Monday, July 15, 2019
Americans appear to be in greater pain than citizens of other countries, and most sub-groups of citizens have downwardly trended happiness levels
Unhappiness and Pain in Modern America: A Review Essay, and Further
Evidence, on Carol Graham's Happiness for All? David G. Blanchflower,
Andrew Oswald. NBER Working Paper No. 24087, November 2017.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w24087
In Happiness for All?, Carol Graham raises disquieting ideas about today’s United States. The challenge she puts forward is an important one. Here we review the intellectual case and offer additional evidence. We conclude broadly on the author’s side. Strikingly, Americans appear to be in greater pain than citizens of other countries, and most sub-groups of citizens have downwardly trended happiness levels. There is, however, one bright side to an otherwise dark story. The happiness of black Americans has risen strongly since the 1970s. It is now almost equal to that of white Americans.
In Happiness for All?, Carol Graham raises disquieting ideas about today’s United States. The challenge she puts forward is an important one. Here we review the intellectual case and offer additional evidence. We conclude broadly on the author’s side. Strikingly, Americans appear to be in greater pain than citizens of other countries, and most sub-groups of citizens have downwardly trended happiness levels. There is, however, one bright side to an otherwise dark story. The happiness of black Americans has risen strongly since the 1970s. It is now almost equal to that of white Americans.
Humans go through a dramatic developmental shift during the second year of life in the way they evaluate individuals based on the outcomes of conflict
Infants prefer those who 'bow out' of zero-sum. conflicts. Ashley J. Thomas, Barbara W. Sarnecka. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: Cooperation and conflict are basic to human social life. From early infancy, humans seem to recognize cooperation and to prefer cooperative individuals. They also seem to recognize conflict, expecting larger individuals or those with more allies to prevail. The present paper asks how infants feel about others who either win or lose (by yielding) in a conflict. We present a total of nine experiments. In four of the experiments, infants ages 10 to 16 months watched vignettes showing two puppets in a conflict. Infants preferred (reached for) the puppet that yielded to another puppet, rather than the puppet who was yielded to. Five more experiments ruled out alternative explanations for the main findings, including that the infants preferred the yielding puppet because it helped the other puppet achieve its goal. These results are striking in light of earlier findings showing that only five months later, at age 21 months, children emphatically prefer the winner (non-yielding puppet) in such conflicts. These results suggest that humans go through a dramatic developmental shift during the second year of life in the way they evaluate individuals based on the outcomes of conflict
Abstract: Cooperation and conflict are basic to human social life. From early infancy, humans seem to recognize cooperation and to prefer cooperative individuals. They also seem to recognize conflict, expecting larger individuals or those with more allies to prevail. The present paper asks how infants feel about others who either win or lose (by yielding) in a conflict. We present a total of nine experiments. In four of the experiments, infants ages 10 to 16 months watched vignettes showing two puppets in a conflict. Infants preferred (reached for) the puppet that yielded to another puppet, rather than the puppet who was yielded to. Five more experiments ruled out alternative explanations for the main findings, including that the infants preferred the yielding puppet because it helped the other puppet achieve its goal. These results are striking in light of earlier findings showing that only five months later, at age 21 months, children emphatically prefer the winner (non-yielding puppet) in such conflicts. These results suggest that humans go through a dramatic developmental shift during the second year of life in the way they evaluate individuals based on the outcomes of conflict
Rational, impartial, dispassionate, neutral, above-human scientists to whom the lawmaker must hear: “More scientists are bringing their emotions and hearts to the forefront of their work”
It’s the End of the World as They Know It: The distinct burden of being a climate scientist. David Corn; Photos by Devin Yalkin. Mother Jones, July 8, 2019. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/weight-of-the-world-climate-change-scientist-grief
“More scientists are bringing their emotions and hearts to the forefront of their work—getting bolder, more impassioned, more provocative”
Selection of statements:
“More scientists are bringing their emotions and hearts to the forefront of their work—getting bolder, more impassioned, more provocative”
Selection of statements:
“I’m tired of processing this incredible and immense decline”
”[...] knows of a looming catastrophe but must struggle to function in a world that does not comprehend what is coming and, worse, largely ignores the warnings of those who do.”
“it’s deep grief—having eyes wide open to what is playing out in our world”
“I lose sleep over climate change almost every single night”
“Climate change is its own unique trauma. It has to do with human existence.”
“I have no child and I have one dog, and thank god he’ll be dead in 10 years.”
Infants map pyramidal position to social dominance as soon as they associate it with relative physical size, suggesting that infant concepts of dominance are formed akin to human dominance hierarchies.
The structure of dominance: Preverbal infants map pyramidal position to social dominance. Lotte Thomsen, Erik Kjos Fohn, Joakim Haugane Zahl, Oda Eidjar, Susan Carey. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: The learnability problem of the social world suggests that evolution may have built core relational concepts (Thomsen & Carey, 2013). Indeed, preverbal infants represent social dominance (Thomsen et al, 2011). Across cultures and language families, UP-DOWN is mapped to social hierarchies such that higher-ranked superiors are placed and spoken metaphorically as above lowly inferiors (Fiske, 1992; Lakoff & Johnson,1980). However, human dominance hierarchies are pyramidal, such that more people are at the bottom than at the top. Consistent with this, adults across cultures readily interpret a pyramidal structure as hierarchy, but not a vertical line (Thomsen, 2010). Here, we demonstrate that 11-16 month-olds, after watching six same-size agents “flying” in a pyramidal structure, expect the top agent to prevail in a subsequent right-of-way conflict, looking significantly longer if it yields to a bottom one than vice versa. Study 2 replicated these effects among 9-10 month-olds. A control study instead familiarized infants to an inverted pyramid. These results demonstrate that infants map pyramidal position to social dominance as soon as they associate it with relative physical size, suggesting that infant concepts of dominance are formed as pyramidal structures, akin to human dominance hierarchies.
Abstract: The learnability problem of the social world suggests that evolution may have built core relational concepts (Thomsen & Carey, 2013). Indeed, preverbal infants represent social dominance (Thomsen et al, 2011). Across cultures and language families, UP-DOWN is mapped to social hierarchies such that higher-ranked superiors are placed and spoken metaphorically as above lowly inferiors (Fiske, 1992; Lakoff & Johnson,1980). However, human dominance hierarchies are pyramidal, such that more people are at the bottom than at the top. Consistent with this, adults across cultures readily interpret a pyramidal structure as hierarchy, but not a vertical line (Thomsen, 2010). Here, we demonstrate that 11-16 month-olds, after watching six same-size agents “flying” in a pyramidal structure, expect the top agent to prevail in a subsequent right-of-way conflict, looking significantly longer if it yields to a bottom one than vice versa. Study 2 replicated these effects among 9-10 month-olds. A control study instead familiarized infants to an inverted pyramid. These results demonstrate that infants map pyramidal position to social dominance as soon as they associate it with relative physical size, suggesting that infant concepts of dominance are formed as pyramidal structures, akin to human dominance hierarchies.
Coalitions compete in a collective, zero-sum fashion for status (relative entitlement to determine outcomes); lack of support for inflammatory representations, however inaccurate, is seen as immoral & disloyal
Tableaux, camera angles and outrage lock: the political cognition and cultural epidemiology of group-relevant events. John Tooby. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: Coalitions compete in a collective, zero-sum fashion for status (relative entitlement to determine outcomes). This selected for an evolved, group-directed motivational system that is designed to link individuals together to act as a unit to enhance, defend or repair their status, or initiate aggression in the interest of exploitive supremacism. The status of the group is a public good to its members. Hence, harms (“outrages”) to one or more members of the ingroup (or proxy members) by one or more members of an outgroup advertise potentially undeterred mistreatment as a new public precedent for tolerated mistreatment and low status. Typically, joint attention on outrages triggers collective responses, and so representations of outrages and grievances function as group-mobilizing resources, and are nurtured, embroidered, and exaggerated for their utility in advancing the group’s interests, including in subordinating outgroup members. Lack of support for inflammatory representations, however inaccurate, is treated as immoral and disloyal, leading to outrage lock, where extreme representations maintain themselves in the group long after whatever underlying reality has dissipated. The cultural epidemiology of representations of significant outrages and emblematic events become cognitively stylized imagery—what might be called tableaux—built out of underlying evolved systems of situation representation.
Abstract: Coalitions compete in a collective, zero-sum fashion for status (relative entitlement to determine outcomes). This selected for an evolved, group-directed motivational system that is designed to link individuals together to act as a unit to enhance, defend or repair their status, or initiate aggression in the interest of exploitive supremacism. The status of the group is a public good to its members. Hence, harms (“outrages”) to one or more members of the ingroup (or proxy members) by one or more members of an outgroup advertise potentially undeterred mistreatment as a new public precedent for tolerated mistreatment and low status. Typically, joint attention on outrages triggers collective responses, and so representations of outrages and grievances function as group-mobilizing resources, and are nurtured, embroidered, and exaggerated for their utility in advancing the group’s interests, including in subordinating outgroup members. Lack of support for inflammatory representations, however inaccurate, is treated as immoral and disloyal, leading to outrage lock, where extreme representations maintain themselves in the group long after whatever underlying reality has dissipated. The cultural epidemiology of representations of significant outrages and emblematic events become cognitively stylized imagery—what might be called tableaux—built out of underlying evolved systems of situation representation.
Sunday, July 14, 2019
People touch their sexual partner’s saliva with little discomfort; partially from such observations, proposal is that pathogen avoidance also depends on target relationship value
More valued relationship partners engender less pathogen avoidance. Joshua Tybur. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: People touch their own infant’s snot and their sexual partner’s saliva with little discomfort. Based partially on such observations, recent models have proposed that interpersonal pathogen avoidance varies not only as a function of perceived infection risk, but also target relationship value. The current work tested this hypothesis. In both of two studies (N’s = 504 and 430), participants were randomly assigned to think of a target who was: (1) their romantic partner; (2) their closest friend; (3) an acquaintance; or (4) a disliked other. They then indicated their comfort with 10 examples of infectious indirect contact with the target (e.g., touching a handkerchief used by the target). Finally, they completed a welfare-tradeoff task, which assessed the value they place on their relationship with the target. Study 1 revealed that comfort with infectious contact was strongly related to target relationship value, r = .68, p < .001; this effect remained after controlling for target category (e.g., romantic partner versus acquaintance), β = .21, p < .001. Study 2 replicated this finding, r = .62, p < .001, and further found that relationship value related to contact comfort independent of target category, attractiveness, and hygiene, β = .28, p < .001.
27 societies around the world: Long-term familial bonds are positively associated with psychological well-being, but mate-seeking motives are associated with anxiety and depression
Ko, Ahra, Cari M. Pick, Jung Y. Kwon, Michael Barlev, Jaimie Krems, Michael E. W. Varnum, PhD, Rebecca Neel, et al. 2019. “Family Matters: Rethinking the Psychology of Human Social Motivation.” PsyArXiv. July 14. doi:10.31234/osf.io/u8h3x
Abstract: What motives do people prioritize in their social lives? Historically, social psychologists, especially those adopting an evolutionary perspective, have devoted a great deal of research attention to sexual attraction and romantic partner choice (mate-seeking). Research on long-term familial bonds (mate retention and kin care) has been less thoroughly connected to relevant comparative and evolutionary work on other species, and in the case of kin care, less well researched. Examining varied sources of data from 27 societies around the world, we found that people generally view familial motives as primary in importance, and mate-seeking motives as relatively low in importance. College students, single people, and males place relatively higher emphasis on mate-seeking, but even those samples rated kin care motives as more important. Further, motives linked to long-term familial bonds are positively associated with psychological well-being, but mate-seeking motives are associated with anxiety and depression. We address theoretical and empirical reasons why there has been extensive research on mate-seeking, and why people prioritize goals related to long-term familial bonds over mating goals. Reallocating relatively greater research effort toward long-term familial relationships would likely yield many interesting new findings relevant to everyday people’s highest social priorities.
Abstract: What motives do people prioritize in their social lives? Historically, social psychologists, especially those adopting an evolutionary perspective, have devoted a great deal of research attention to sexual attraction and romantic partner choice (mate-seeking). Research on long-term familial bonds (mate retention and kin care) has been less thoroughly connected to relevant comparative and evolutionary work on other species, and in the case of kin care, less well researched. Examining varied sources of data from 27 societies around the world, we found that people generally view familial motives as primary in importance, and mate-seeking motives as relatively low in importance. College students, single people, and males place relatively higher emphasis on mate-seeking, but even those samples rated kin care motives as more important. Further, motives linked to long-term familial bonds are positively associated with psychological well-being, but mate-seeking motives are associated with anxiety and depression. We address theoretical and empirical reasons why there has been extensive research on mate-seeking, and why people prioritize goals related to long-term familial bonds over mating goals. Reallocating relatively greater research effort toward long-term familial relationships would likely yield many interesting new findings relevant to everyday people’s highest social priorities.
Saturday, July 13, 2019
The positive lessons learned from previous sex, romance, & cohabitation seem overwhelmed by the negative carryover, affecting relationship attitudes, sexual satisfaction, commitment, & stability
Busby, D. M., Willoughby, B. J., & McDonald, M. L. (2019). Is it the sex, the romance, or the living together? The differential impact of past sexual, romantic, and cohabitation histories on current relationship functioning. Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice, 8(2), 90-104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cfp0000117
Abstract: Before their current relationship, individuals may have had a variety of previous relationships such as romantic relationships, sexual relationships, and cohabiting relationships. In this study we explored the common or shared influence of these 3 types of previous relationships, and the unique influence of each type, on current relationship functioning. With a sample of more than 4,000 individuals we found that there was a significantly negative shared influence for previous romantic, sexual, and cohabiting relationships on current relationship attitudes, sexual satisfaction, commitment, and stability. Above and beyond the shared influence, there was also a unique negative influence for previous sexual and cohabiting relationships on current relationship stability. The effects were largely similar for women and for men. It appears that on average the positive lessons that are learned from previous relationship experiences are likely being overwhelmed by the negative carryover, especially in regard to relationship attitudes and relationship stability.
Abstract: Before their current relationship, individuals may have had a variety of previous relationships such as romantic relationships, sexual relationships, and cohabiting relationships. In this study we explored the common or shared influence of these 3 types of previous relationships, and the unique influence of each type, on current relationship functioning. With a sample of more than 4,000 individuals we found that there was a significantly negative shared influence for previous romantic, sexual, and cohabiting relationships on current relationship attitudes, sexual satisfaction, commitment, and stability. Above and beyond the shared influence, there was also a unique negative influence for previous sexual and cohabiting relationships on current relationship stability. The effects were largely similar for women and for men. It appears that on average the positive lessons that are learned from previous relationship experiences are likely being overwhelmed by the negative carryover, especially in regard to relationship attitudes and relationship stability.
Sensitive periods are widespread in nature; for plasticity to be adaptive, organisms require reliable information about the environment, but information's reliability varies
Phenotypic plasticity across the lifespan: a model of sensitive periods when the reliability of information varies. Nicole Walasek, Willem Frankenhuis. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y
Abstract: Sensitive periods are widespread in nature. Much work investigates the neuralphysiological underpinnings of variation in sensitive periods between and within species. Recently, complementary research using formal theoretical modeling has explored the evolutionary pressures that shape the development of sensitive periods. Most models acknowledge that, for plasticity to be adaptive, organisms require reliable information about the environment. However, they have yet to explore how withinlifetime variation in the reliability of information affects the development of sensitive periods. Our model fills this gap. We consider organisms that incrementally tailor their phenotype to their environment by using cues (i.e. sampled information) and assume that cue reliability is not fixed, but instead varies across time. We then simulate developmental trajectories over a range of ecologies. Additionally, we offer multiple ways to quantify sensitive periods in order to closely match a variety of empirical study paradigms (e.g. migration, adoption, and cross-fostering studies). Our model shows that natural selection may favor sensitive periods in developmental windows other than early life (e.g., adolescence), and generates testable predictions about the environmental conditions in which "mid-life sensitive periods" are likely to evolve, and about individual differences in the onset and offset of such periods as a function of experience.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2015.2439
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2011.0055
Abstract: Sensitive periods are widespread in nature. Much work investigates the neuralphysiological underpinnings of variation in sensitive periods between and within species. Recently, complementary research using formal theoretical modeling has explored the evolutionary pressures that shape the development of sensitive periods. Most models acknowledge that, for plasticity to be adaptive, organisms require reliable information about the environment. However, they have yet to explore how withinlifetime variation in the reliability of information affects the development of sensitive periods. Our model fills this gap. We consider organisms that incrementally tailor their phenotype to their environment by using cues (i.e. sampled information) and assume that cue reliability is not fixed, but instead varies across time. We then simulate developmental trajectories over a range of ecologies. Additionally, we offer multiple ways to quantify sensitive periods in order to closely match a variety of empirical study paradigms (e.g. migration, adoption, and cross-fostering studies). Our model shows that natural selection may favor sensitive periods in developmental windows other than early life (e.g., adolescence), and generates testable predictions about the environmental conditions in which "mid-life sensitive periods" are likely to evolve, and about individual differences in the onset and offset of such periods as a function of experience.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2015.2439
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2011.0055
Aggressive Video Games are Not a Risk Factor for Future Aggression in Youth: A Longitudinal Study
Aggressive Video Games are Not a Risk Factor for Future Aggression in Youth: A Longitudinal Study. Christopher J. Ferguson1●C. K. John Wang. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Accepted June 20 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01069-01
Abstract: The issue of whether video games with aggressive or violent content (henceforth aggressive video games) contribute to aggressive behavior in youth remains an issue of significant debate. One issue that has been raised is that some studies may inadvertently inflate effect sizes by use of questionable researcher practices and unstandardized assessments of predictors and outcomes, or lack of proper theory-driven controls. In the current article, a large sample of 3034 youth (72.8% male12Mage=11.2) in Singapore were assessed for links between aggressive game play and seven aggression or prosocial outcomes 2 years later. Theoretically relevant controls for prior aggression, poor impulse control, gender and family involvement were used. Effect sizes were compared to sixnonsenseoutcomes specifically chosen to be theoretically unrelated to aggressive game play. The use of nonsense outcomes allows for a comparison of effect sizes between theoretically relevant and irrelevant outcomes, to help assess whether any statistically significant outcomes may be spurious in large datasets. Preregistration was employed to reduce questionable researcher practices. Results indicate that aggressive video games were unrelated to any of the outcomes using the study criteria for significance. It would take 27 h/day of M-rated game play to produce clinically noticeable changes in aggression. Effect sizes for aggression/prosocial outcomes were little different than for nonsense outcomes. Evidence from this study does not support the conclusion that aggressive video games are a predictor of later aggression or reduced prosocial behavior in youth.
Keywords: Video games●Aggression●Violence●Preregistration
Abstract: The issue of whether video games with aggressive or violent content (henceforth aggressive video games) contribute to aggressive behavior in youth remains an issue of significant debate. One issue that has been raised is that some studies may inadvertently inflate effect sizes by use of questionable researcher practices and unstandardized assessments of predictors and outcomes, or lack of proper theory-driven controls. In the current article, a large sample of 3034 youth (72.8% male12Mage=11.2) in Singapore were assessed for links between aggressive game play and seven aggression or prosocial outcomes 2 years later. Theoretically relevant controls for prior aggression, poor impulse control, gender and family involvement were used. Effect sizes were compared to sixnonsenseoutcomes specifically chosen to be theoretically unrelated to aggressive game play. The use of nonsense outcomes allows for a comparison of effect sizes between theoretically relevant and irrelevant outcomes, to help assess whether any statistically significant outcomes may be spurious in large datasets. Preregistration was employed to reduce questionable researcher practices. Results indicate that aggressive video games were unrelated to any of the outcomes using the study criteria for significance. It would take 27 h/day of M-rated game play to produce clinically noticeable changes in aggression. Effect sizes for aggression/prosocial outcomes were little different than for nonsense outcomes. Evidence from this study does not support the conclusion that aggressive video games are a predictor of later aggression or reduced prosocial behavior in youth.
Keywords: Video games●Aggression●Violence●Preregistration
Friday, July 12, 2019
Psychiatric diagnostic classification: DSM-5 contains heterogeneous diagnostic categories; pragmatic criteria give clinical flexibility but undermine the diagnostic model, which is a disingenious categorical system
Heterogeneity in psychiatric diagnostic classification. Kate Allsopp, John Read, Rhiannon Corcoran, Peter Kinderman. Psychiatry Research, Volume 279, September 2019, Pages 15-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2019.07.005
Highlights
• Theory and practice of diagnostic assessment is central yet contentious in psychiatry.
• DSM-5 contains heterogeneous diagnostic categories.
• Pragmatic criteria give clinical flexibility but undermine the diagnostic model.
• Trauma has a limited causal role in DSM-5, despite research evidence to the contrary.
Abstract: The theory and practice of psychiatric diagnosis are central yet contentious. This paper examines the heterogeneous nature of categories within the DSM-5, how this heterogeneity is expressed across diagnostic criteria, and its consequences for clinicians, clients, and the diagnostic model. Selected chapters of the DSM-5 were thematically analysed: schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders; bipolar and related disorders; depressive disorders; anxiety disorders; and trauma- and stressor-related disorders. Themes identified heterogeneity in specific diagnostic criteria, including symptom comparators, duration of difficulties, indicators of severity, and perspective used to assess difficulties. Wider variations across diagnostic categories examined symptom overlap across categories, and the role of trauma. Pragmatic criteria and difficulties that recur across multiple diagnostic categories offer flexibility for the clinician, but undermine the model of discrete categories of disorder. This nevertheless has implications for the way cause is conceptualised, such as implying that trauma affects only a limited number of diagnoses despite increasing evidence to the contrary. Individual experiences and specific causal pathways within diagnostic categories may also be obscured. A pragmatic approach to psychiatric assessment, allowing for recognition of individual experience, may therefore be a more effective way of understanding distress than maintaining commitment to a disingenuous categorical system.
Highlights
• Theory and practice of diagnostic assessment is central yet contentious in psychiatry.
• DSM-5 contains heterogeneous diagnostic categories.
• Pragmatic criteria give clinical flexibility but undermine the diagnostic model.
• Trauma has a limited causal role in DSM-5, despite research evidence to the contrary.
Abstract: The theory and practice of psychiatric diagnosis are central yet contentious. This paper examines the heterogeneous nature of categories within the DSM-5, how this heterogeneity is expressed across diagnostic criteria, and its consequences for clinicians, clients, and the diagnostic model. Selected chapters of the DSM-5 were thematically analysed: schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders; bipolar and related disorders; depressive disorders; anxiety disorders; and trauma- and stressor-related disorders. Themes identified heterogeneity in specific diagnostic criteria, including symptom comparators, duration of difficulties, indicators of severity, and perspective used to assess difficulties. Wider variations across diagnostic categories examined symptom overlap across categories, and the role of trauma. Pragmatic criteria and difficulties that recur across multiple diagnostic categories offer flexibility for the clinician, but undermine the model of discrete categories of disorder. This nevertheless has implications for the way cause is conceptualised, such as implying that trauma affects only a limited number of diagnoses despite increasing evidence to the contrary. Individual experiences and specific causal pathways within diagnostic categories may also be obscured. A pragmatic approach to psychiatric assessment, allowing for recognition of individual experience, may therefore be a more effective way of understanding distress than maintaining commitment to a disingenuous categorical system.
Ineffective altruism: "Doing the “most good” can actually come to be viewed as less moral when it incurs the opportunity cost of helping someone socially closer in much less severe need."
Law, Kyle F., Dylan Campbell, and Brendan Gaesser. 2019. “Biased Benevolence: The Morality of Effective Altruism.” PsyArXiv. July 11. doi:10.31234/osf.io/qzx67
Abstract: A great deal of work across psychology and philosophy on altruism has been devoted to increasing helping behavior, decreasing social biases, and documenting the positive moral judgments associated with helping others in need. But is altruism always morally good, or is the morality of altruism fundamentally shaped by the social opportunity costs that often accompany helping decisions? Across four studies, we reveal that, although helping both socially closer and socially distant others is generally perceived favorably (Study 1), in cases of realistic tradeoffs in social distance and gains in welfare where helping socially distant others (e.g., strangers in a distant country) necessitates not helping socially closer others (e.g., friends and family) with the same resources, helping is deemed as less morally acceptable (Studies 2-4). Further, making helping decisions at a cost to socially closer others negatively affects judgments of relationship quality, leading one to be perceived as a worse family member, friend, community member, and countryperson (Study 3), and in turn, decreases cooperative behavior with the helper (Study 4). Yet individual differences in identification with humanity consistently attenuated the effect of social distance on people’s moral judgments of helping. Considered together, these findings challenge notions that more helping will always be viewed as more moral and reveal that attempts to decrease biases in helping may have previously unconsidered consequences for moral judgments, relationships, and cooperation.
Abstract: A great deal of work across psychology and philosophy on altruism has been devoted to increasing helping behavior, decreasing social biases, and documenting the positive moral judgments associated with helping others in need. But is altruism always morally good, or is the morality of altruism fundamentally shaped by the social opportunity costs that often accompany helping decisions? Across four studies, we reveal that, although helping both socially closer and socially distant others is generally perceived favorably (Study 1), in cases of realistic tradeoffs in social distance and gains in welfare where helping socially distant others (e.g., strangers in a distant country) necessitates not helping socially closer others (e.g., friends and family) with the same resources, helping is deemed as less morally acceptable (Studies 2-4). Further, making helping decisions at a cost to socially closer others negatively affects judgments of relationship quality, leading one to be perceived as a worse family member, friend, community member, and countryperson (Study 3), and in turn, decreases cooperative behavior with the helper (Study 4). Yet individual differences in identification with humanity consistently attenuated the effect of social distance on people’s moral judgments of helping. Considered together, these findings challenge notions that more helping will always be viewed as more moral and reveal that attempts to decrease biases in helping may have previously unconsidered consequences for moral judgments, relationships, and cooperation.
Parenthood leads to considerable changes in individual risk attitudes over time; risk aversion increase as early as two years before becoming a parent; effects disappear when the child becomes older
Parenthood, risk attitudes and risky behavior. Katja Görlitz, Marcus Tamm. Journal of Economic Psychology, July 11 2019, 102189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2019.102189
Highlights
• Parenthood leads to considerable changes in individual risk attitudes over time.
• Risk aversion increase as early as two years before becoming a parent.
• Effects disappear when the child becomes older.
• Risky labor market behavior remains unaffected by parenthood.
Abstract: This study analyzes how risk attitudes change when individuals experience the major life event of becoming a parent by using longitudinal data for a large and representative sample of individuals from Germany. The analysis uses a survey-based measure of risk aversion. The estimation is based on an individual fixed effects model similar to an event study. On average, men and women experience a considerable increase in risk aversion around the time of first childbirth. This increase already starts as early as two years before they become parents, it is largest shortly after childbirth and it disappears when the child becomes older. When analyzing risky choices, the results indicate that risky labor market behavior remains unaffected by parenthood.
Highlights
• Parenthood leads to considerable changes in individual risk attitudes over time.
• Risk aversion increase as early as two years before becoming a parent.
• Effects disappear when the child becomes older.
• Risky labor market behavior remains unaffected by parenthood.
Abstract: This study analyzes how risk attitudes change when individuals experience the major life event of becoming a parent by using longitudinal data for a large and representative sample of individuals from Germany. The analysis uses a survey-based measure of risk aversion. The estimation is based on an individual fixed effects model similar to an event study. On average, men and women experience a considerable increase in risk aversion around the time of first childbirth. This increase already starts as early as two years before they become parents, it is largest shortly after childbirth and it disappears when the child becomes older. When analyzing risky choices, the results indicate that risky labor market behavior remains unaffected by parenthood.
Brain activity and connectivity changes in response to nutritive natural sugars, non-nutritive natural sugar replacements and artificial sweeteners
Brain activity and connectivity changes in response to nutritive natural sugars, non-nutritive natural sugar replacements and artificial sweeteners. Anna M. Van Opstal et al. Nutritional Neuroscience, Jul 10 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/1028415X.2019.1639306
Abstract
Introduction: The brain plays an important regulatory role in directing energy homeostasis and eating behavior. The increased ingestion of sugars and sweeteners over the last decades makes investigating the effects of these substances on the regulatory function of the brain of particular interest. We investigated whole brain functional response to the ingestion of nutrient shakes sweetened with either the nutritive natural sugars glucose and fructose, the low- nutritive natural sugar replacement allulose or the non-nutritive artificial sweetener sucralose.
Methods: Twenty healthy, normal weight, adult males underwent functional MRI on four separate visits. In a double-blind randomized study setup, participants received shakes sweetened with glucose, fructose, allulose or sucralose. Resting state functional MRI was performed before and after ingestion. Changes in Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) signal, functional network connectivity and voxel based connectivity by Eigenvector Centrality Mapping (ECM) were measured.
Results: Glucose and fructose led to significant decreased BOLD signal in the cingulate cortex, insula and the basal ganglia. Glucose led to a significant increase in eigen vector centrality throughout the brain and a significant decrease in eigen vector centrality in the midbrain. Sucralose and allulose had no effect on BOLD signal or network connectivity but sucralose did lead to a significant increase in eigen vector centrality values in the cingulate cortex, central gyri and temporal lobe.
Discussion: Taken together our findings show that even in a shake containing fat and protein, the type of sweetener can affect brain responses and might thus affect reward and satiety responses and feeding behavior. The sweet taste without the corresponding energy content of the non-nutritive sweeteners appeared to have only small effects on the brain. Indicating that the while ingestion of nutritive sugars could have a strong effect on feeding behavior, both in a satiety aspect as well as rewarding aspects, non-nutritive sweeteners appear to not have these effects.
KEYWORDS: MRI, energy ingestion, brain activity, eigen vector centrality, functional network connectivity, nutritive sweeteners, non-nutritive sweeteners, artificial sweeteners
Abstract
Introduction: The brain plays an important regulatory role in directing energy homeostasis and eating behavior. The increased ingestion of sugars and sweeteners over the last decades makes investigating the effects of these substances on the regulatory function of the brain of particular interest. We investigated whole brain functional response to the ingestion of nutrient shakes sweetened with either the nutritive natural sugars glucose and fructose, the low- nutritive natural sugar replacement allulose or the non-nutritive artificial sweetener sucralose.
Methods: Twenty healthy, normal weight, adult males underwent functional MRI on four separate visits. In a double-blind randomized study setup, participants received shakes sweetened with glucose, fructose, allulose or sucralose. Resting state functional MRI was performed before and after ingestion. Changes in Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) signal, functional network connectivity and voxel based connectivity by Eigenvector Centrality Mapping (ECM) were measured.
Results: Glucose and fructose led to significant decreased BOLD signal in the cingulate cortex, insula and the basal ganglia. Glucose led to a significant increase in eigen vector centrality throughout the brain and a significant decrease in eigen vector centrality in the midbrain. Sucralose and allulose had no effect on BOLD signal or network connectivity but sucralose did lead to a significant increase in eigen vector centrality values in the cingulate cortex, central gyri and temporal lobe.
Discussion: Taken together our findings show that even in a shake containing fat and protein, the type of sweetener can affect brain responses and might thus affect reward and satiety responses and feeding behavior. The sweet taste without the corresponding energy content of the non-nutritive sweeteners appeared to have only small effects on the brain. Indicating that the while ingestion of nutritive sugars could have a strong effect on feeding behavior, both in a satiety aspect as well as rewarding aspects, non-nutritive sweeteners appear to not have these effects.
KEYWORDS: MRI, energy ingestion, brain activity, eigen vector centrality, functional network connectivity, nutritive sweeteners, non-nutritive sweeteners, artificial sweeteners
Analyzed over 1 million posts from over 4,000 individuals, several social media platforms: Human behavior qualitatively and quantitatively conforms to the principles of reward learning (like rats)
Lindström, Björn, Martin Bellander, Allen Chang, Philippe N. Tobler, and David M. Amodio. 2019. “A Computational Reinforcement Learning Account of Social Media Engagement.” PsyArXiv. July 11. doi:10.31234/osf.io/78mh5
Abstract: Social media has become the modern arena for human life, with billions of daily users worldwide. The intense popularity of social media is often attributed to a psychological need for social rewards (“likes”), which turns the online world into a “Skinner Box” for the modern human. Yet despite such common portrayals, empirical evidence for social media engagement as reward-based behavior remains scant. We applied a computational approach to directly test whether reward learning mechanisms contribute to social media behavior. We analyzed over one million posts from over 4,000 individuals on several social media platforms, using computational models based on reward reinforcement learning theory. Our results consistently show that human behavior on social media qualitatively and quantitatively conforms to the principles of reward learning. Results further reveal meaningful individual differences in social reward learning on social media, explained in part by variability in users’ tendency for social comparison. Together, these findings support the social reinforcement learning view of social media engagement and offer key new insights into this emergent mode of modern human behavior on an unprecedented scale.
Abstract: Social media has become the modern arena for human life, with billions of daily users worldwide. The intense popularity of social media is often attributed to a psychological need for social rewards (“likes”), which turns the online world into a “Skinner Box” for the modern human. Yet despite such common portrayals, empirical evidence for social media engagement as reward-based behavior remains scant. We applied a computational approach to directly test whether reward learning mechanisms contribute to social media behavior. We analyzed over one million posts from over 4,000 individuals on several social media platforms, using computational models based on reward reinforcement learning theory. Our results consistently show that human behavior on social media qualitatively and quantitatively conforms to the principles of reward learning. Results further reveal meaningful individual differences in social reward learning on social media, explained in part by variability in users’ tendency for social comparison. Together, these findings support the social reinforcement learning view of social media engagement and offer key new insights into this emergent mode of modern human behavior on an unprecedented scale.
Urban Civility: City Dwellers Are Not Less Prososcial Than Their Rural Counterparts
Urban Civility: City Dwellers Are Not Less Prososcial Than Their Rural Counterparts. Grace Westlake, David Coall. Evolutionary Psychological Science, July 11 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-019-00206-z
Abstract: Urban living is often thought to promote incivility, but the existing sociological evidence paints a mixed picture. We aimed to examine the urban incivility phenomenon from an evolutionist’s perspective. Small communities are expected to show a higher incidence of helping because the applicability of theories such as kin selection, direct reciprocity and indirect reciprocity to acts of cooperative behaviour is augmented in small-scale demographic settings. Smaller communities have a reduced total pool of individuals to interact with, increasing the likelihood of encountering any given individual multiple times. This makes it easier for individuals to form cooperative relationships with one another, which may facilitate prosociality within smaller communities. Using the lost letter technique, our results show that city dwelling, compared with rural residence, per se does not negatively influence prosociality. This contradicts the expected erosion of cooperative behaviour in anonymous cities and adds to our understanding of the interplay between human macroecology and individual behavioural tendencies.
Keywords: Cooperation Prosociality Lost letter experiment Urban incivility
Abstract: Urban living is often thought to promote incivility, but the existing sociological evidence paints a mixed picture. We aimed to examine the urban incivility phenomenon from an evolutionist’s perspective. Small communities are expected to show a higher incidence of helping because the applicability of theories such as kin selection, direct reciprocity and indirect reciprocity to acts of cooperative behaviour is augmented in small-scale demographic settings. Smaller communities have a reduced total pool of individuals to interact with, increasing the likelihood of encountering any given individual multiple times. This makes it easier for individuals to form cooperative relationships with one another, which may facilitate prosociality within smaller communities. Using the lost letter technique, our results show that city dwelling, compared with rural residence, per se does not negatively influence prosociality. This contradicts the expected erosion of cooperative behaviour in anonymous cities and adds to our understanding of the interplay between human macroecology and individual behavioural tendencies.
Keywords: Cooperation Prosociality Lost letter experiment Urban incivility
Those who possess extreme political views are also found to report higher levels of happiness
Happy partisans and extreme political views: The impact of national versus local representation on well-being. Jeremy Jackson. European Journal of Political Economy, Volume 58, June 2019, Pages 192-202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2018.12.002
Abstract: The political party of elected officials can affect the happiness of the voting public through several different channels. Partisan voters will be happier whenever a member of their party controls political office regardless of the policies implemented. It is hypothesized that congruence between individual party identity and state politician affiliations should have a greater impact on citizen happiness than congruence with politicians at the national level due to results from the literature on Tiebout sorting. It is further hypothesized that individuals with extreme ideological views may report greater happiness as their ideology fulfills basic psychological needs for certainty and structure. Using data from the Generalized Social Survey the effect of party congruence of individuals with national and state politicians on happiness is estimated. The effect of extreme ideological political views on happiness is also estimated. Results find that congruence with presidential party affiliation has a much greater impact on happiness than congruence with national legislative affiliation, gubernatorial, or state legislative affiliation contradicting the hypothesis. Those who possess extreme political views are also found to report higher levels of happiness.
Check also Political Extremity, Social Media Use, Social Support, and Well-Being for Emerging Adults During the 2016 Presidential Election Campaign. Dana C. Leighton, Mark J. Brandt, Lindsay A. Kennedy. Emerging Adulthood, January 1, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167696818810618
Abstract: The political party of elected officials can affect the happiness of the voting public through several different channels. Partisan voters will be happier whenever a member of their party controls political office regardless of the policies implemented. It is hypothesized that congruence between individual party identity and state politician affiliations should have a greater impact on citizen happiness than congruence with politicians at the national level due to results from the literature on Tiebout sorting. It is further hypothesized that individuals with extreme ideological views may report greater happiness as their ideology fulfills basic psychological needs for certainty and structure. Using data from the Generalized Social Survey the effect of party congruence of individuals with national and state politicians on happiness is estimated. The effect of extreme ideological political views on happiness is also estimated. Results find that congruence with presidential party affiliation has a much greater impact on happiness than congruence with national legislative affiliation, gubernatorial, or state legislative affiliation contradicting the hypothesis. Those who possess extreme political views are also found to report higher levels of happiness.
Check also Political Extremity, Social Media Use, Social Support, and Well-Being for Emerging Adults During the 2016 Presidential Election Campaign. Dana C. Leighton, Mark J. Brandt, Lindsay A. Kennedy. Emerging Adulthood, January 1, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167696818810618
Abstract: The 2016 U.S. presidential election was marked by hostile political discourse, often on social media, where users were exposed to divergent, and potentially distressing, political discourse. This research explores the effects of this election on the well-being of emerging adults who receive the majority of their news via social media. Using data from the Emerging Adulthood Measured at Multiple Institutions 2 Study, we expected greater social media use to be associated with greater perceived stress, and lower well-being, among emerging adults who are more politically extreme, and expected these relationships would be moderated by social support and social media use. Our preregistered analysis did not support our hypotheses. Although there were some effects of extremity on stress and well-being, overall the direction of the effects were inconsistent and neither social media use nor social support was found to moderate the effects of extremity on stress and well-being.
Keywords: political ideology, political extremity, social media, well-being, health, social support, emerging adults, elections
Thursday, July 11, 2019
For women, having a child/children, higher scores on neuroticism, substance abuse predicted relationship formation; for men, age & openness were predictors
Demographics, Personality and Substance-Use Characteristics Associated with Forming Romantic Relationships. Eilin K Erevik et al. Evolutionary Psychological Science, July 11 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-019-00203-2
Abstract: The current study aimed to identify demographic, personality and substance-use characteristics associated with forming romantic relationships. Data were collected by two online surveys among students in Bergen, Norway, during the autumn of 2015 (T1) and by a follow-up survey that was conducted 12 months later (T2). The current sample consists of the 2404 participants who reported being single at T1 (mean age 23.2) and who participated in both waves of the survey. Binary logistic regression analyses were conducted. Separate analyses were conducted for both sexes and for the entire sample of participants. High extroversion scores predicted relationship formation. For women, having a child/children, higher scores on neuroticism, alcohol use and illegal substance use positively predicted relationship formation, while for men, age and openness were positive predictors. The study contributes with several novel findings. In general, characteristics related to a need for support predicted romantic relationship formation among women, while characteristics associated with increased resource acquisition potential predicted relationship formation among men. The general pattern of findings is in line with established evolutionary theories such as the sexual strategies theory and the parental investment theory.
Keywords: Romantic relationships Students Personality Substance use Parental status Sex
Romantic relationships are typically considered as relatively long-term, mainly monogamous commitments between two individuals. Romantic relationships play a pivotal role in human societies and seem to be preferred over short-term mating (Lovejoy 1981; Waal 2006). Individuals in romantic relationships tend to be healthier and live longer than single individuals suggesting that pair-bonding may involve survival advantages (Averett et al. 2008; Kiecolt-Glaser and Newton 2001). Several evolutionary explanations have been suggested as to why humans commonly arrange intersex mating through monogamous romantic relationships. For one, monogamy may have reduced infanticide, as being close to the mother and offspring would enable the biological father to protect the offspring from infanticidal males (Opie et al. 2013). Monogamy may also have increased the offspring’s likelihood of survival in general, as having two caretakers would imply more resources and protection compared to having only one caretaker (Opie et al. 2013). Furthermore, monogamy may have been adaptive through reducing same-sex competition, hence fostering same-sex cooperation and increasing the likelihood of group survival (Desmond 1967; Waal and Gavrilets 2013). Finally, some evolutionary scholars have argued that monogamy may have evolved because food shortage forced women to live quite isolated from their group of origin (Lukas and Clutton-Brock 2013; Waal and Gavrilets 2013). This isolation of women would make a long-term mating strategy adaptive for men, as short-term and/or polygamic mating strategies would involve too much migration (Lukas and Clutton-Brock 2013). Evolutionary research on romantic relationships has traditionally centred on opposite-sex couples, but same-sex romantic relationships are suggested to entail survival and reproductive advantages as well (Kirkpatrick et al. 2000).
There are individual differences in the ability/tendency to engage in romantic relationships. Moreover, an increasing percentage of single and childless individuals in many Western and Asian societies have raised concern about the sustainability of social welfare systems (Adamczyk 2017; Nargund 2009). Knowledge of characteristics predicting relationship formation may be conducive if one wishes to understand the mechanisms promoting relationship formation and pregnancies. From an evolutionary perspective, one can expect factors such as demographics, personality and substance use to predict who forms romantic relationships (Buss 2007, 2009; Petraitis et al. 2014). Individual characteristics may affect the likelihood of forming a romantic relationship in three main ways. Firstly, individual characteristics relate to mate value, where potential mates perceive some characteristics (e.g. physical attractiveness) as compelling traits (Buss 2007). Secondly, individual characteristics may affect the individual’s motivation for different mating strategies (i.e. short-term versus long-term mating strategies) (Buss 2007). For instance, paternal absence during childhood has been found to predict short-term mating strategies (Draper and Harpending 1982). Finally, some individual characteristics, like humour, may make the individual better equipped to chase off same-sex competitors and consequently make the person more successful at securing a long-term mate (Buss 1989). Existing research has primarily investigated the mate value of different individual characteristics, while the associations between individual characteristics and actual relationship outcomes have received less attention.
Abstract: The current study aimed to identify demographic, personality and substance-use characteristics associated with forming romantic relationships. Data were collected by two online surveys among students in Bergen, Norway, during the autumn of 2015 (T1) and by a follow-up survey that was conducted 12 months later (T2). The current sample consists of the 2404 participants who reported being single at T1 (mean age 23.2) and who participated in both waves of the survey. Binary logistic regression analyses were conducted. Separate analyses were conducted for both sexes and for the entire sample of participants. High extroversion scores predicted relationship formation. For women, having a child/children, higher scores on neuroticism, alcohol use and illegal substance use positively predicted relationship formation, while for men, age and openness were positive predictors. The study contributes with several novel findings. In general, characteristics related to a need for support predicted romantic relationship formation among women, while characteristics associated with increased resource acquisition potential predicted relationship formation among men. The general pattern of findings is in line with established evolutionary theories such as the sexual strategies theory and the parental investment theory.
Keywords: Romantic relationships Students Personality Substance use Parental status Sex
Romantic relationships are typically considered as relatively long-term, mainly monogamous commitments between two individuals. Romantic relationships play a pivotal role in human societies and seem to be preferred over short-term mating (Lovejoy 1981; Waal 2006). Individuals in romantic relationships tend to be healthier and live longer than single individuals suggesting that pair-bonding may involve survival advantages (Averett et al. 2008; Kiecolt-Glaser and Newton 2001). Several evolutionary explanations have been suggested as to why humans commonly arrange intersex mating through monogamous romantic relationships. For one, monogamy may have reduced infanticide, as being close to the mother and offspring would enable the biological father to protect the offspring from infanticidal males (Opie et al. 2013). Monogamy may also have increased the offspring’s likelihood of survival in general, as having two caretakers would imply more resources and protection compared to having only one caretaker (Opie et al. 2013). Furthermore, monogamy may have been adaptive through reducing same-sex competition, hence fostering same-sex cooperation and increasing the likelihood of group survival (Desmond 1967; Waal and Gavrilets 2013). Finally, some evolutionary scholars have argued that monogamy may have evolved because food shortage forced women to live quite isolated from their group of origin (Lukas and Clutton-Brock 2013; Waal and Gavrilets 2013). This isolation of women would make a long-term mating strategy adaptive for men, as short-term and/or polygamic mating strategies would involve too much migration (Lukas and Clutton-Brock 2013). Evolutionary research on romantic relationships has traditionally centred on opposite-sex couples, but same-sex romantic relationships are suggested to entail survival and reproductive advantages as well (Kirkpatrick et al. 2000).
There are individual differences in the ability/tendency to engage in romantic relationships. Moreover, an increasing percentage of single and childless individuals in many Western and Asian societies have raised concern about the sustainability of social welfare systems (Adamczyk 2017; Nargund 2009). Knowledge of characteristics predicting relationship formation may be conducive if one wishes to understand the mechanisms promoting relationship formation and pregnancies. From an evolutionary perspective, one can expect factors such as demographics, personality and substance use to predict who forms romantic relationships (Buss 2007, 2009; Petraitis et al. 2014). Individual characteristics may affect the likelihood of forming a romantic relationship in three main ways. Firstly, individual characteristics relate to mate value, where potential mates perceive some characteristics (e.g. physical attractiveness) as compelling traits (Buss 2007). Secondly, individual characteristics may affect the individual’s motivation for different mating strategies (i.e. short-term versus long-term mating strategies) (Buss 2007). For instance, paternal absence during childhood has been found to predict short-term mating strategies (Draper and Harpending 1982). Finally, some individual characteristics, like humour, may make the individual better equipped to chase off same-sex competitors and consequently make the person more successful at securing a long-term mate (Buss 1989). Existing research has primarily investigated the mate value of different individual characteristics, while the associations between individual characteristics and actual relationship outcomes have received less attention.
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