Interpreting Behavior Genetic Models: Seven Developmental Processes to Understand. Daniel A. Briley et al. Behavior Genetics, March 2019, Volume 49, Issue 2, pp 196–210, November 22 2018. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10519-018-9939-6
Abstract: Behavior genetic findings figure in debates ranging from urgent public policy matters to perennial questions about the nature of human agency. Despite a common set of methodological tools, behavior genetic studies approach scientific questions with potentially divergent goals. Some studies may be interested in identifying a complete model of how individual differences come to be (e.g., identifying causal pathways among genotypes, environments, and phenotypes across development). Other studies place primary importance on developing models with predictive utility, in which case understanding of underlying causal processes is not necessarily required. Although certainly not mutually exclusive, these two goals often represent tradeoffs in terms of costs and benefits associated with various methodological approaches. In particular, given that most empirical behavior genetic research assumes that variance can be neatly decomposed into independent genetic and environmental components, violations of model assumptions have different consequences for interpretation, depending on the particular goals. Developmental behavior genetic theories postulate complex transactions between genetic variation and environmental experiences over time, meaning assumptions are routinely violated. Here, we consider two primary questions: (1) How might the simultaneous operation of several mechanisms of gene–environment (GE)-interplay affect behavioral genetic model estimates? (2) At what level of GE-interplay does the ‘gloomy prospect’ of unsystematic and non-replicable genetic associations with a phenotype become an unavoidable certainty?
Keywords: Gene–environment interplay Human agency Personality Cognitive ability Developmental genetics
Complexity, compression, and the gloomy prospect
As a field, behavior genetics has produced substantial knowledge concerning replicable patterns of genetic and environmental influences across the lifespan (Plomin et al. 2016). Heritability is substantial (Turkheimer 2000), but each SNP explains a tiny portion of variance (Chabris et al. 2015). There is some evidence of GE-interplay, even if the empirical data to this point have not identified many replicable examples for G × E. Genetic and environmental effects shift across the lifespan as phenotypes become more stable. Although the statistical and interpretational implications of GE-interplay processes are well-known, the magnitude of each process is not well-known. Worse still, the factors that affect behavior genetic estimates all occur potentially simultaneously and continuously across development, and they may even interact with one another in a nonlinear and highly complex fashion. Researchers can increase the reasonableness of their inferences from behavior genetic models by gaining clarity on what is known and unknown concerning processes that influence parameter estimates. Ruling out potential processes can substantially shrink the number of possible interpretations.
Some basic questions remain difficult to address: what processes led to an estimate of 40% heritability? Was it additive and independent genetic effects, rGE reinforcing initial differences associated with genotype, or some form of G × E? Would heritability have been 40% if the sample was 10 years younger? Would heritability actually be 50% if assortative mating was correctly handled? Numerous papers have been written on the interpretive problems of heritability (e.g., Johnson et al. 2011; Keller et al. 2010; Turkheimer 1998). Our point here is not to retread this ground, but instead to point out the number of considerations required. Each of these considerations can be deconstructed in isolation to infer what the impact would be on behavior genetic models. The real world combines them all simultaneously in different quantities for each phenotype.
In the face of such taxing complexity, a framework with which to visualize the impact of different combinations of structural inputs would be useful. A successful model could generate phenotype levels from the ground up, starting with partners producing offspring with synthetic genomes and environments. One goal could be to identify what sets of model parameters can fill in the gaps identified in this review. As noted, there are likely several plausible sets of developmental parameters that could lead to the empirical results found in the literature. It might be the case that several potential models could produce similar observed trends, such as increasing heritability with age. We view this as a useful demonstration of the potential for equifinality in behavior genetic models, a limitation of the models that could be overlooked due to implicit assumptions about the data-generating mechanisms. A simulation approach would force these assumptions to be explicit and would allow them to be contrasted with other plausible assumptions.
In this context, we may think of phenotype development or the task of individual-level prediction as falling along a continuum of complexity. At one end is perfect simplicity: a change in an input leads to a change in the output every time, and researchers are able to make accurate predictions with easily obtainable and cognizable information. At the other end, it may be the case that there is such complexity that a description of development requires the full history of all variables at all points in time; the data stream is incapable of any compression. Under this scenario, the best anyone can do is record what happens. There is no more efficient way to express the observations, and the observations do not support any interesting predictions. Although behavior geneticists widely acknowledge that the phenotypes under study are complex (i.e., not having a single cause or simple set of causes), less consideration has been given to the potential compressibility of the phenotypes across individuals relative to the set of available variables (e.g., Li and Vitányi 1997; Wallace and Freeman 1987). By "compression," we mean the ability to represent some large set of information in a more compact manner (Braddon-Mitchell 2001; Sayood 2005; Wheeler 2016). To what extent can behavior genetics move from thousands of genetic associations toward a cognizable and useful model of development (see Kendler 2008)? This type of question has emerged most clearly in the literature surrounding the "gloomy prospect."
The need to empirically evaluate the gloomy prospect
Under the limitations of empirical data collection, little behavior genetic research exists that explicitly considers the possibility of the gloomy prospect. Plomin and Daniels (1987, p. 8) described the gloomy prospect as a situation in which "the salient environment might be unsystematic, idiosyncratic, or serendipitous events," ultimately minimizing the possibility that much scientific progress can be made. Turkheimer and Gottesman (1996) used a simulation approach to illustrate the gloomy prospect; small shifts in environmental context completely removed all specific phenotype.environment associations. Turkheimer (2000, p. 163) applied the same gloomy outlook to molecular genetic associations in the real world due to the inherent complexity of development and noted that "the underlying complex causal processes would cause the apparent results [of molecular genetic studies] to be small, and to change unpredictably from one experiment to the next."
The gloomy prospect is discouraging from an empirical standpoint as it implies that the upper limit for scientific progress in predicting and explaining future behavior at the individual-level may already have been reached or be reached without substantially more meaningful progress. If phenotype development is driven by genetic effects that manifest differently across environments that are peculiar to a given individual, then identifying the effect that a genetic variant has on development will necessarily also be idiosyncratic. If true, the clinical utility of genetic or environmental information about individuals will be largely worthless, since a plethora of interdependent factors (many of which are inaccessible due to a failure of measurement over development) must be known before reasonable predictions can be made.
Gloominess falls on a continuum, and how gloomy the prospect of giving an informative behavior genetic account depends on the phenotype. For example, it may be that things are a bit gloomier for personality compared to cognitive ability or anthropometric traits (e.g., Cheesman et al. 2017). If there is no GE-interplay and no other potentially biasing factors, then molecular genetic associations will replicate and the prospects for giving an informative account is not gloomy at all. But if, on the other hand, GE-interplay is extremely large and the effects of any genetic variant are entirely dependent on the (potentially random) environmental context, then it is unlikely that any genetic effect will replicate. This situation would be maximally gloomy. However, most phenotypes likely fall somewhere between these extremes.
We suggest that a plausible starting point for identifying the "gloominess" of a phenotype is to investigate the seven developmental processes highlighted in this manuscript. Put differently, a greater understanding of phenotype processes (i.e., how the phenotype influences engagement with the environment), structure (i.e., how phenotypes covary), and development (i.e., how phenotypes respond to engagement with the environment in the context of other relevant phenotypes across the lifespan; see Baumert et al. 2017). Each of these questions can be addressed with behavior genetic methodology. For example, the field has established the genetic and environmental structure of many related phenotypes. We suggest that gains can be made in overcoming the gloomy prospect by better understanding our phenotypes, that is to say, gaining knowledge not only of genetic and environmental structure, but also of the processes that led to such a structure across developmental time. This work toward explanation is directly relevant to researchers interested primarily in prediction as the gloomy prospect may imply some upper limit on prediction. Evaluating simultaneous GE-interplay will be challenging, but such work could provide important insight into the mechanisms of phenotype growth.
Additionally, progress toward identifying the boundaries of the gloomy prospect could be made by drawing more heavily on animal models. Although the strength of animal models is typically seen as exerting control over environmental experiences, an increasing number of studies use designs in which GE-interplay is possible (Bell and Saltz 2017; Freund et al. 2013). For example, social niche construction refers to the tendency of certain organisms to form social groups partially based on genetic differences (i.e., rGE; Saltz and Foley 2011; Saltz and Nuzhdin 2014). This behavioral tendency has also been found to be context dependent (Saltz 2011) and influence development (Saltz 2013, 2014). More generally, animals exhibit repeatable behavioral syndromes (Bell et al. 2009; Sih et al. 2004), similar to human personality, and a host of tools are available to better explain and predict these patterns (Bengston et al. 2018). This work may be better situated to address major unanswered questions in human behavior genetics, such as potential sources of Gene × Environment interaction. Lee et al. (2018) found relatively few leads on why genetic associations with educational attainment might vary across contexts (although, see Tropf et al. 2017 for an analysis with individual-level data), but the animal literature may offer further clues (see Saltz et al. 2018). Of course, evidence from animal models may be difficult to extrapolate to a phenotype like educational attainment, but the ability to track the effect of GE-interplay on development dynamically and consistently across the lifespan is a major advantage of animal models.
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
From 2014... The ultra‐social animal
The ultra‐social animal. Michael Tomasello. European Journal of Social Psychology, April 10 2014. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2015
Abstract: In evolutionary perspective, what is most remarkable about human sociality is its many and diverse forms of cooperation. Here, I provide an overview of some recent research, mostly from our laboratory, comparing human children with their nearest living relatives, the great apes, in various tests of collaboration, prosocial behavior, conformity, and group‐mindedness (e.g., following and enforcing social norms). This is done in the context of a hypothetical evolutionary scenario comprising two ordered steps: a first step in which early humans began collaborating with others in unique ways in their everyday foraging and a second step in which modern humans began forming cultural groups. Humans' unique forms of sociality help to explain their unique forms of cognition and morality.
Abstract: In evolutionary perspective, what is most remarkable about human sociality is its many and diverse forms of cooperation. Here, I provide an overview of some recent research, mostly from our laboratory, comparing human children with their nearest living relatives, the great apes, in various tests of collaboration, prosocial behavior, conformity, and group‐mindedness (e.g., following and enforcing social norms). This is done in the context of a hypothetical evolutionary scenario comprising two ordered steps: a first step in which early humans began collaborating with others in unique ways in their everyday foraging and a second step in which modern humans began forming cultural groups. Humans' unique forms of sociality help to explain their unique forms of cognition and morality.
Religious individuals had higher reproductive success (this association was especially pronounced in males); religiousness did not show associations with parental investment
Examining the link between religiousness and fitness in a behavioural ecological framework. Janko Međedović. Journal of Biosocial Science, November 26 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021932019000774
Abstract: In recent years there have been attempts to explain religiousness from an evolutionary viewpoint. However, empirical data on this topic are still lacking. In the present study, the behavioural ecological theoretical framework was used to explore the relations between religiousness, harsh environment, fitness (reproductive success and parental investment) and fitness-related outcomes (age at first birth, desired number of children and the romantic relationship duration). The data were collected from 461 individuals from a community sample who were near the end of their reproductive phase (54% females, Mage = 51.75; SD = 6.56). Positive links between religiousness, harsh environment, fitness and fitness-related outcomes were expected, with the exception of age at first birth, for which a negative association was hypothesized. Hence, the main assumption of the study was that religiousness has some attributes of fast life-history phenotypes – that it emerges from a harsh environment and enables earlier reproduction. The study findings partially confirmed these hypotheses. Religiousness was positively related to environmental harshness but only on a zero-order level. Religious individuals had higher reproductive success (this association was especially pronounced in males) but religiousness did not show associations with parental investment. Religiousness was positively associated with desired number of children and negatively associated with age at first birth, although the latter association was only marginally significant in the multivariate analyses. Finally, path analysis showed that desired number of children and age at first birth completely mediated the relation between religiousness and reproductive success. The data confirmed the biologically adaptive function of religiousness in contemporary populations and found the mediating processes that facilitate fitness in religious individuals. Furthermore, the findings initiate a more complex view of religiousness in a life-history context which could be fruitful for future research: a proposal labelled as ‘ontogeny-dependent life-history theory of religiousness’.
Discussion
The behavioural ecological framework enables the analysis of the evolution of any behavioural trait ifthe trait in question is genetically transmitted across generations. This can even be applied to com-plex, socially and culturally influenced traits such as religiousness. However, the trait can be targetedby natural selection only if it is related to evolutionary fitness. Furthermore, one of the fundamentalassumptions of behavioural ecology is that individuals adapt to their local environments. The presentresearch sought to explore the relations between religiousness and fitness, the potential mediators ofthis relation and the environmental conditions that could be involved in it. The study hypothesis wasthat religiousness is biologically adaptive (i.e. it is positively associated with fitness and other fitness-related outcomes, all except age of first reproduction where negative association was assumed) andthat it emerges from harsh environmental conditions. These hypotheses were only partially confirmed. However, the study data provide a broader and more comprehensive view of religiousnessin a behavioural ecological context, confirming its adaptiveness in a biological sense. Furthermore, it reveals some of the mechanisms that religious individuals use to achieve higher reproductive success.Finally, the results are implicative for the future life-history theory of religiousness.
The associations between fitness and fitness-related measures
From the viewpoint of behavioural ecology, it is very important to analyse the relations betweenmeasures connected with fitness. First of all, reproductive success and parental investment werefound to be uncorrelated in the present research. This is not unusual–in fact, a negative correla-tion could be expected since number of children should be negatively related to parental invest-ment in each of them; this is a major evolutionary trade-off called the‘quantity–quality trade-off’(Lawson & Mace,2009). The absence of a negative correlation probably stems from the fact thatthe research was conducted in a low-fertility population, while the magnitude of this trade-off ishigher in populations with elevated mean reproductive success (Rosset al.,2016).
Age at first birth was found to be negatively related to both fitness indicators. This findingconfirms earlier findings of a negative directional selection on the timing of first reproduction:individuals who have their first child earlier in their lifetime have higher overall fitness (Tropfet al.,2015; Sanjaket al.,2018). The desired number of children was positively related to bothfitness measures as well. At first glance, this may sound like a trivial finding, but actually it is veryimportant since it shows unique features of contemporary human evolution: fertility in humans isbased on, but far from completely determined by, intentional motivation and planning (Johnson-Hanks,2008). Furthermore, it is at least partially subject to conscious control via contraceptionand other birth control measures. Finally, the duration of the partner relationship is positively relatedto reproductive success and negatively related to age at first birth: the longer individuals are in aromantic relationship, the earlier they become parents and they have more children. It is importantto note that these links were unchanged when participants’age was controlled in the analysis. Thus,long-term mating is apparently evolutionarily adaptive. This is in line with the theories that assumethat long-term mating is a dominant mating pattern in humans since human offspring need elevatedcare and investment from both parents (Stewart-Williams & Thomas,2013). In sum, the obtaineddata regarding the relations between fitness-related outcomes are quite congruent with previous find-ings and life-histories of contemporary humans.
Behavioural ecology of religiousness
Religious individuals have been shown to desire a higher number of children at the beginning oftheir reproductive phase, and they have their offspring earlier in their lifetime (although this linkwas rather weak in the present research) and have higher total fertility in general (this association was pronounced particularly in males, but it did not reach statistical significance in a subsample of females). However, they did not show elevated parental investment. A positive relation betweenr eligiousness and parental investment was assumed since religiousness is related to a closenesstowards family members and family values in general (Jensen & Jensen,1993). The absence ofthis link may suggest that religious individuals are oriented towards offspring quantity but notnecessarily offspring quality as a way of optimizing fitness.A positive link between religiousness and reproductive success has been empirically obtained inprevious research (Sanderson,2008; Blume,2009; Fieder & Huber,2016). The present study alsofound a positive link between religiousness and the desired number of children. These data are inline with a previous finding that shows positive attitudes of religious individuals towards child-bearing (Hayford & Morgan,2008). Furthermore, major religions often advocate a higher family size (Sanderson,2008). Previous research has also obtained evidence that religious individuals tend to have their first child earlier in their lifetime (Pearce & Davis,2016). This was confirmedin the present study, although the link was relatively weak (i.e. only marginally significant in mul-tivariate analyses). Finally, religiousness may enable high fitness in a somewhat indirect way: byfacilitating longer romantic relationships via commitment to marriage, marital satisfaction and lower risk of divorce (Mahoneyet al., 2002). However, this link was not detected in the present data and this was the only fitness-related outcome that was not associated with religiousness. It isimportant to note that desired number of children and age of first birth completely mediated the link between religiousness and reproductive success. This was not expected due to a fact thatthere could be other mediators of this link; however, this result only highlights the role these twovariables have in elevating the fitness of religious individuals.In sum, the data obtained in the present research are in line with previous results suggesting that religiousness is probably under positive directional selection on fertility. Thus, selection actspositively on the genetic basis of religious attitudes. Note that this does not necessarily mean that higher phenotypic levels of religiousness in the upcoming generations should be necessarilyexpected. Many complex cultural and environmental factors act on the phenotypic developmentof religious attitudes and some of them may be opposed to selection. This is why the frequency of religious commitment has in fact been found to fall in Western populations (Zuckerman,2015).The complexity of the biological and environmental factors that shape religiousness prevents theprediction of its phenotypic levels in future populations.Towards a future life-history theory of religiousnessPrevious findings of negative associations between religiousness, sexual permissiveness andrestricted sexuality together with positive associations with serial monogamy suggest that religiousness is part of a slow life-history trajectory (Gladdenet al.,2009; Baumard &Chevallier,2015; Schmitt & Fuller,2015). However, this view may be oversimplified. If religiousness emerges from a harsh environment and enables earlier reproduction this would mean that ithas the characteristics of the fast life-history trait as well. These associations were obtained in thepresent research although they were fragile. The positive link between harsh environment andreligiousness was heavily dependent on the participants’ sex and age. The negative link between religiousness and age at first birth was low in magnitude and marginally significant. However, these associations have been found in previous studies as well, and with more convincing effect sizes (Delamontagne, 2010; Pearce,2010; Soltet al.,2011; Pearce & Davis, 2016). It should be noted that elevated offspring quantity, which is clearly associated with religiousness, is the most important indicator of a fast life-history pathway in the first place. All these data suggest that religiousness indeed has some attributes of a fast life-history trajectory.
The present study was cross-sectional by design, which prevented making conclusions aboutthe causal relations between the measures. However, perhapsa hypothesi sof religiousness’s involvement in life-history trajectories can be made. The existing data suggest that the life-history characteristics of religiousness are contingent on the stages of ontogeny. In earlier stages of development religiousness delays mating activity (expressed, for example, in negative associations between religiousness and the onset of sexual behaviour: Jones et al.,2005), which means that it has slow life-history attributes. However, in the reproductive stage itself, it is associated with earlier marriage and reproduction, thus acting as a fast life-history phenotype. When family is constituted, religiousness again turns to the slow life-history trait by decreasing sexual permissiveness and pro-moting monogamy. Hence, the life-history characteristics of religiousness are different during theontogeny. This proposition may be labelled as an‘ontogeny-dependent life-history theory of religiousness’. This hypothesis may be tested in future studies using a longitudinal approach.
Abstract: In recent years there have been attempts to explain religiousness from an evolutionary viewpoint. However, empirical data on this topic are still lacking. In the present study, the behavioural ecological theoretical framework was used to explore the relations between religiousness, harsh environment, fitness (reproductive success and parental investment) and fitness-related outcomes (age at first birth, desired number of children and the romantic relationship duration). The data were collected from 461 individuals from a community sample who were near the end of their reproductive phase (54% females, Mage = 51.75; SD = 6.56). Positive links between religiousness, harsh environment, fitness and fitness-related outcomes were expected, with the exception of age at first birth, for which a negative association was hypothesized. Hence, the main assumption of the study was that religiousness has some attributes of fast life-history phenotypes – that it emerges from a harsh environment and enables earlier reproduction. The study findings partially confirmed these hypotheses. Religiousness was positively related to environmental harshness but only on a zero-order level. Religious individuals had higher reproductive success (this association was especially pronounced in males) but religiousness did not show associations with parental investment. Religiousness was positively associated with desired number of children and negatively associated with age at first birth, although the latter association was only marginally significant in the multivariate analyses. Finally, path analysis showed that desired number of children and age at first birth completely mediated the relation between religiousness and reproductive success. The data confirmed the biologically adaptive function of religiousness in contemporary populations and found the mediating processes that facilitate fitness in religious individuals. Furthermore, the findings initiate a more complex view of religiousness in a life-history context which could be fruitful for future research: a proposal labelled as ‘ontogeny-dependent life-history theory of religiousness’.
Discussion
The behavioural ecological framework enables the analysis of the evolution of any behavioural trait ifthe trait in question is genetically transmitted across generations. This can even be applied to com-plex, socially and culturally influenced traits such as religiousness. However, the trait can be targetedby natural selection only if it is related to evolutionary fitness. Furthermore, one of the fundamentalassumptions of behavioural ecology is that individuals adapt to their local environments. The presentresearch sought to explore the relations between religiousness and fitness, the potential mediators ofthis relation and the environmental conditions that could be involved in it. The study hypothesis wasthat religiousness is biologically adaptive (i.e. it is positively associated with fitness and other fitness-related outcomes, all except age of first reproduction where negative association was assumed) andthat it emerges from harsh environmental conditions. These hypotheses were only partially confirmed. However, the study data provide a broader and more comprehensive view of religiousnessin a behavioural ecological context, confirming its adaptiveness in a biological sense. Furthermore, it reveals some of the mechanisms that religious individuals use to achieve higher reproductive success.Finally, the results are implicative for the future life-history theory of religiousness.
The associations between fitness and fitness-related measures
From the viewpoint of behavioural ecology, it is very important to analyse the relations betweenmeasures connected with fitness. First of all, reproductive success and parental investment werefound to be uncorrelated in the present research. This is not unusual–in fact, a negative correla-tion could be expected since number of children should be negatively related to parental invest-ment in each of them; this is a major evolutionary trade-off called the‘quantity–quality trade-off’(Lawson & Mace,2009). The absence of a negative correlation probably stems from the fact thatthe research was conducted in a low-fertility population, while the magnitude of this trade-off ishigher in populations with elevated mean reproductive success (Rosset al.,2016).
Age at first birth was found to be negatively related to both fitness indicators. This findingconfirms earlier findings of a negative directional selection on the timing of first reproduction:individuals who have their first child earlier in their lifetime have higher overall fitness (Tropfet al.,2015; Sanjaket al.,2018). The desired number of children was positively related to bothfitness measures as well. At first glance, this may sound like a trivial finding, but actually it is veryimportant since it shows unique features of contemporary human evolution: fertility in humans isbased on, but far from completely determined by, intentional motivation and planning (Johnson-Hanks,2008). Furthermore, it is at least partially subject to conscious control via contraceptionand other birth control measures. Finally, the duration of the partner relationship is positively relatedto reproductive success and negatively related to age at first birth: the longer individuals are in aromantic relationship, the earlier they become parents and they have more children. It is importantto note that these links were unchanged when participants’age was controlled in the analysis. Thus,long-term mating is apparently evolutionarily adaptive. This is in line with the theories that assumethat long-term mating is a dominant mating pattern in humans since human offspring need elevatedcare and investment from both parents (Stewart-Williams & Thomas,2013). In sum, the obtaineddata regarding the relations between fitness-related outcomes are quite congruent with previous find-ings and life-histories of contemporary humans.
Behavioural ecology of religiousness
Religious individuals have been shown to desire a higher number of children at the beginning oftheir reproductive phase, and they have their offspring earlier in their lifetime (although this linkwas rather weak in the present research) and have higher total fertility in general (this association was pronounced particularly in males, but it did not reach statistical significance in a subsample of females). However, they did not show elevated parental investment. A positive relation betweenr eligiousness and parental investment was assumed since religiousness is related to a closenesstowards family members and family values in general (Jensen & Jensen,1993). The absence ofthis link may suggest that religious individuals are oriented towards offspring quantity but notnecessarily offspring quality as a way of optimizing fitness.A positive link between religiousness and reproductive success has been empirically obtained inprevious research (Sanderson,2008; Blume,2009; Fieder & Huber,2016). The present study alsofound a positive link between religiousness and the desired number of children. These data are inline with a previous finding that shows positive attitudes of religious individuals towards child-bearing (Hayford & Morgan,2008). Furthermore, major religions often advocate a higher family size (Sanderson,2008). Previous research has also obtained evidence that religious individuals tend to have their first child earlier in their lifetime (Pearce & Davis,2016). This was confirmedin the present study, although the link was relatively weak (i.e. only marginally significant in mul-tivariate analyses). Finally, religiousness may enable high fitness in a somewhat indirect way: byfacilitating longer romantic relationships via commitment to marriage, marital satisfaction and lower risk of divorce (Mahoneyet al., 2002). However, this link was not detected in the present data and this was the only fitness-related outcome that was not associated with religiousness. It isimportant to note that desired number of children and age of first birth completely mediated the link between religiousness and reproductive success. This was not expected due to a fact thatthere could be other mediators of this link; however, this result only highlights the role these twovariables have in elevating the fitness of religious individuals.In sum, the data obtained in the present research are in line with previous results suggesting that religiousness is probably under positive directional selection on fertility. Thus, selection actspositively on the genetic basis of religious attitudes. Note that this does not necessarily mean that higher phenotypic levels of religiousness in the upcoming generations should be necessarilyexpected. Many complex cultural and environmental factors act on the phenotypic developmentof religious attitudes and some of them may be opposed to selection. This is why the frequency of religious commitment has in fact been found to fall in Western populations (Zuckerman,2015).The complexity of the biological and environmental factors that shape religiousness prevents theprediction of its phenotypic levels in future populations.Towards a future life-history theory of religiousnessPrevious findings of negative associations between religiousness, sexual permissiveness andrestricted sexuality together with positive associations with serial monogamy suggest that religiousness is part of a slow life-history trajectory (Gladdenet al.,2009; Baumard &Chevallier,2015; Schmitt & Fuller,2015). However, this view may be oversimplified. If religiousness emerges from a harsh environment and enables earlier reproduction this would mean that ithas the characteristics of the fast life-history trait as well. These associations were obtained in thepresent research although they were fragile. The positive link between harsh environment andreligiousness was heavily dependent on the participants’ sex and age. The negative link between religiousness and age at first birth was low in magnitude and marginally significant. However, these associations have been found in previous studies as well, and with more convincing effect sizes (Delamontagne, 2010; Pearce,2010; Soltet al.,2011; Pearce & Davis, 2016). It should be noted that elevated offspring quantity, which is clearly associated with religiousness, is the most important indicator of a fast life-history pathway in the first place. All these data suggest that religiousness indeed has some attributes of a fast life-history trajectory.
The present study was cross-sectional by design, which prevented making conclusions aboutthe causal relations between the measures. However, perhapsa hypothesi sof religiousness’s involvement in life-history trajectories can be made. The existing data suggest that the life-history characteristics of religiousness are contingent on the stages of ontogeny. In earlier stages of development religiousness delays mating activity (expressed, for example, in negative associations between religiousness and the onset of sexual behaviour: Jones et al.,2005), which means that it has slow life-history attributes. However, in the reproductive stage itself, it is associated with earlier marriage and reproduction, thus acting as a fast life-history phenotype. When family is constituted, religiousness again turns to the slow life-history trait by decreasing sexual permissiveness and pro-moting monogamy. Hence, the life-history characteristics of religiousness are different during theontogeny. This proposition may be labelled as an‘ontogeny-dependent life-history theory of religiousness’. This hypothesis may be tested in future studies using a longitudinal approach.
Although many animals display bodily & behavioural changes consistent with the occurrence of affective states similar to those seen in humans, there is controversy about whether these are accompanied by conscious experiences
Towards a comparative science of emotion: Affect and consciousness in humans and animals. Elizabeth S. Paul et al. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, November 26 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.11.014
Highlights
• Emotions comprise conscious, behavioural, physiological and cognitive elements.
• Neural correlates of conscious emotion can be investigated in humans and animals.
• Contemporary theories of consciousness have differing implications for animals.
Abstract: The componential view of human emotion recognises that affective states comprise conscious, behavioural, physiological, neural and cognitive elements. Although many animals display bodily and behavioural changes consistent with the occurrence of affective states similar to those seen in humans, the question of whether and in which species these are accompanied by conscious experiences remains controversial. Finding scientifically valid methods for investigating markers for the subjective component of affect in both humans and animals is central to developing a comparative understanding of the processes and mechanisms of affect and its evolution and distribution across taxonomic groups, to our understanding of animal welfare, and to the development of animal models of affective disorders. Here, contemporary evidence indicating potential markers of conscious processing in animals is reviewed, with a view to extending this search to include markers of conscious affective processing. We do this by combining animal-focused approaches with investigations of the components of conscious and non-conscious emotional processing in humans, and neuropsychological research into the structure and functions of conscious emotions.
[Full text, charts, references, at the link above]
8. Conclusions
The study of affective consciousness in animals falls squarely at the intersection of two longstanding controversies in psychological science – the relationship between consciousness and emotion and the measurement of nonhuman, and nonverbal, consciousness. Accordingly, the strands of empirical evidence and theoretical argument reviewed here are both richly diverse and hotly contested. But though it is beset by the twin enigmas of conceptualizing emotion and measuring consciousness, the study of animal affective consciousness is nonetheless of major potential importance, both for practical problems in animal welfare and for our efforts to get a clear view of our evolutionary kin, near and distant. We have adopted a componential view of emotions (reviewed in Section 3), in which conscious feelings constitute one component in a complex syndrome of related cognitive, motivational, expressive, and behavioural processes. And we have especially highlighted the implications of NCAC theories for a scientific understanding of how conscious feelings can, and cannot, empirically dissociate from other components of emotion, both within and across species.
In posing questions about conscious affect in animals, much (though not all1) work starts with the human case, where understanding is facilitated by subjects’ emotional reports (as well as the informal introspection the researcher employs in interpreting such reports). The human models are then used to identify candidate criteria for conscious emotion, which can be applied to observations of brain, behaviour, and physiology in different animal species. Research in this program can, in turn, be roughly divided into two classes – a wide-focus approach, which begins with general models of human consciousness (Section 4), and a narrow-focus approach, which sets out from specific models of human emotion (Section 5). The two approaches inform one another, because emotional consciousness is one form of consciousness, and together they can suggest principles for the identification of conscious affect in the absence of subjective report (Sections 6 and 7).
As our review illustrates, wide- and narrow-focus studies alike present a mixed picture of promising developments and enduring controversy. In our view, an especially promising strategy is to explicitly link proposed neurofunctional analyses of consciousness in general with a componential view of emotion in particular. This strategy is generative, suggesting novel potential resolutions to questions about conscious animal affect. Nonetheless, the stubborn persistence of core controversies (what kinds of cognition does consciousness require, and what kinds of emotional response require consciousness?) bars anything like a consensus choice among the candidate resolutions at present.
As an example of this dynamic, consider Fig. 1 and its depiction of the componential view of emotion. Here, five components of emotion (Scherer, 2005a,b) are conceptually distinguished, and the task for emotion researchers is to explain their empirical coordination in emotional responses. Such explanations may refer to hypothesized “coordinating mechanisms” that coherently control the component mechanisms (the solid lines in Fig. 1) and/or to direct links between the component mechanisms themselves (dashed lines). It is important to emphasize, however, that Fig. 1 does not, on its own, constitute a model of emotion. Rather, it supplies a conceptual framework within which empirical questions about emotion can be posed – questions which an adequate model, drawing on both wide- and narrow-focus empirical approaches, must answer. Most importantly: (1) how is the coordination of the different components of an emotional response achieved? And (2) do the various components – including emotional consciousness – play comparable or unequal roles in the process of cross-component coordination?
[Fig. 1. Componential framework for conceptualizing emotion. The five outer boxes depict component processes in emotion, similar to those identified in Scherer (2005a,b). The central box stands for possible central mechanisms (at cortical and/or subcortical levels) which may help to coordinate some or all of the components. Actions of the hypothetical central mechanisms are represented by solid lines, direct interactions between the five component processes by dashed lines.]
Different models of emotion, drawing on different views of the functional role(s) of consciousness, suggest different answers to these two critical questions. As an illustration, Fig. 2 shows how one model of conscious emotion, derived from a subset of the research reviewed here, would resolve these questions. In this model, a GW perspective on affective consciousness is assumed. That is, consciousness – affective and otherwise – is assumed to be linked to thalamocortical broadcasting of selected information for the flexible coordination of cognition and action. If consciousness is inherently linked to this coordination function, it will presumably be essential for some aspects of the coordination of component processes in human emotion. Returning to Fig. 1, this GW-inspired viewpoint would then suggest that the “coordinating mechanisms” are not neatly separable from the “consciousness” component. Rather, the consciousness component constitutes part of the coordinating mechanisms (though further unconscious mechanisms, specific to emotion, may also play a role in coordinating an emotional response). Fig. 2 shows how this neurofunctional model of conscious emotion unpacks and relates the “flat” uninterpreted relations in Fig. 1. In this way, the model offers one possible answer to the critical questions of how the emotion components relate to the coordinating process and to one another (consciousness, unlike the other components, is part of a posited central coordinating mechanism). It suggests, in turn, criteria for affective consciousness in the absence of subjective report (i.e. does the affective response reflect a level of integration and flexibility that requires the operation of the GW?).2
[Fig. 2. A possible neurofunctional interpretation of the componential framework. A GW model of conscious emotion is assumed for illustrative purposes. In this model, consciousness functions to globally integrate modular processors for the flexible control of cognition and action. On this view, consciousness is expected to play a central role in coordinating component processes, at least for those emotions which exhibit high levels of integration (i.e., responsiveness to a wide range of information inputs) and flexibility (i.e., adaptive sensitivity to a wide range of contexts). The model also allows for distinct unconscious coordinating mechanisms that may generate more stereotyped (aspects of) emotional responses.]
The model in Fig. 2 illustrates how a neurofunctional analysis of consciousness can flesh out the componential framework for emotion, implying conditions under which consciousness can(not) dissociate from the other emotion components, and hence providing principled criteria whereby consciousness can be inferred from observation of the other components. To be sure, the neurofunctional analysis of conscious emotion (a GW view) assumed in Fig. 2 is not the only available one, and it is not definitively established by the evidence reviewed here. Alternative (e.g., HOT) neurofunctional analyses may assign the consciousness component in Fig. 1 a more peripheral functional role, implying readier dissociability from other components, and hence requiring more stringent criteria for the identification of conscious feelings. At the other end of the spectrum, some views associate basic forms of consciousness (or sentience) with more elementary nervous system functions, implying that consciousness accompanies even component-responses with minimal complexity or coordination.
Nonetheless, the example illustrates the logic of leading approaches to the study of conscious emotion, highlighting both their promise and their limitations. On the one hand, developing theories of the NCAC suggest substantive interpretations of the componential framework, from which principled criteria for affective consciousness in nonverbal creatures can be derived. On the other hand, the search for NCACs itself remains closely bound up with longstanding controversies in the conceptualization of both consciousness and emotion. It is inseparable from fundamental questions, still not adequately resolved, about when, how, and why conscious experiences can be inferred from behavioural responses when subjective report is unavailable. The merging of a componential view of emotion with a neurofunctional analysis of consciousness thus opens up promising new paths toward a scientific understanding of animal affective consciousness, but also shines a sobering light on the obstacles that lie in their way.
The better-than-average effect in comparative self-evaluation: a comprehensive review and meta-analysis
Zell, E, J E, strickhourser, Sedikides, Constantine and Alicke, Mark D. (2019) The better-than-average effect in comparative self-evaluation: a comprehensive review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin (In Press), Nov 18 2019. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/435685
Abstract: The better-than-average-effect (BTAE) is the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and personality traits as superior compared to their average peer. This article offers a comprehensive review of the BTAE and the first quantitative synthesis of the BTAE literature. We define the effect, differentiate it from related phenomena, and describe relevant methodological approaches, theories, and psychological mechanisms. Next, we present a comprehensive meta-analysis of BTAE studies, including data from 124 published articles, 291 independent samples, and over 950,000 participants. Results indicated that the BTAE is robust across studies (dz = 0.78, CI [0.71, 0.84]), with little evidence of publication bias. Further, moderation tests suggested that the BTAE is larger in the case of personality traits than abilities, positive as opposed to negative dimensions, and in studies that (1) use the direct rather than the indirect method, (2) involve many rather than few dimensions, (3) sample European-Americans rather than East-Asians (especially for individualistic traits), and (4) counterbalance self and average peer judgments. Finally, the BTAE is moderately associated with self-esteem (r = .34) and life satisfaction (r = .33). Discussion highlights theoretical and empirical implications.
Abstract: The better-than-average-effect (BTAE) is the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and personality traits as superior compared to their average peer. This article offers a comprehensive review of the BTAE and the first quantitative synthesis of the BTAE literature. We define the effect, differentiate it from related phenomena, and describe relevant methodological approaches, theories, and psychological mechanisms. Next, we present a comprehensive meta-analysis of BTAE studies, including data from 124 published articles, 291 independent samples, and over 950,000 participants. Results indicated that the BTAE is robust across studies (dz = 0.78, CI [0.71, 0.84]), with little evidence of publication bias. Further, moderation tests suggested that the BTAE is larger in the case of personality traits than abilities, positive as opposed to negative dimensions, and in studies that (1) use the direct rather than the indirect method, (2) involve many rather than few dimensions, (3) sample European-Americans rather than East-Asians (especially for individualistic traits), and (4) counterbalance self and average peer judgments. Finally, the BTAE is moderately associated with self-esteem (r = .34) and life satisfaction (r = .33). Discussion highlights theoretical and empirical implications.
The tax-financing of Medicare creates mounting economic costs & increasingly untenable policy constraints, which motivate reforms that shift towards a more basic public benefit that individuals can “top-up” with private spending
Does One Medicare Fit All? The Economics of Uniform Health Insurance Benefits. Mark Shepard, Katherine Baicker, Jonathan S. Skinner. Nov 2019. Forthcoming in Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 34, Moffitt. 2019. https://www.nber.org/papers/w26472
There is increasing interest in expanding Medicare health insurance coverage in the U.S., but it is not clear whether the current program is the right foundation on which to build. Traditional Medicare covers a uniform set of benefits for all income groups and provides more generous access to providers and new treatments than public programs in other developed countries. We develop an economic framework to assess the efficiency and equity tradeoffs involved with reforming this generous, uniform structure. We argue that three major shifts make a uniform design less efficient today than when Medicare began in 1965. First, rising income inequality makes it more difficult to design a single plan that serves the needs of both higher- and lower-income people. Second, the dramatic expansion of expensive medical technology means that a generous program increasingly crowds out other public programs valued by the poor and middle class. Finally, as medical spending rises, the tax-financing of the system creates mounting economic costs and increasingly untenable policy constraints. These forces motivate reforms that shift towards a more basic public benefit that individuals can “top-up” with private spending. If combined with an increase in other progressive transfers, such a reform could improve efficiency and reduce public spending while benefiting low income populations.
There is increasing interest in expanding Medicare health insurance coverage in the U.S., but it is not clear whether the current program is the right foundation on which to build. Traditional Medicare covers a uniform set of benefits for all income groups and provides more generous access to providers and new treatments than public programs in other developed countries. We develop an economic framework to assess the efficiency and equity tradeoffs involved with reforming this generous, uniform structure. We argue that three major shifts make a uniform design less efficient today than when Medicare began in 1965. First, rising income inequality makes it more difficult to design a single plan that serves the needs of both higher- and lower-income people. Second, the dramatic expansion of expensive medical technology means that a generous program increasingly crowds out other public programs valued by the poor and middle class. Finally, as medical spending rises, the tax-financing of the system creates mounting economic costs and increasingly untenable policy constraints. These forces motivate reforms that shift towards a more basic public benefit that individuals can “top-up” with private spending. If combined with an increase in other progressive transfers, such a reform could improve efficiency and reduce public spending while benefiting low income populations.
Monday, November 25, 2019
Participants remembered their emotional responses more accurately than they predicted them. But, strikingly, they perceived their predictions to be more accurate than their memories.
Predicted and remembered emotion: tomorrow’s vividness trumps yesterday’s accuracy. Linda J. Levine et al. Memory, Nov 23 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2019.1693598
ABSTRACT: People rely on predicted and remembered emotion to guide important decisions. But how much can they trust their mental representations of emotion to be accurate, and how much do they trust them? In this investigation, participants (N = 957) reported their predicted, experienced, and remembered emotional response to the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. They also reported how accurate and vivid they perceived their predictions and memories to be, and the importance of the election. Participants remembered their emotional responses more accurately than they predicted them. But, strikingly, they perceived their predictions to be more accurate than their memories. This perception was explained by the greater importance and vividness of anticipated versus remembered experience. We also assessed whether individuals with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory for personal and public events (N = 33) showed superior ability to predict or remember their emotional responses to events. They did not and, even for this group, predicting emotion was a more intense experience than remembering emotion. These findings reveal asymmetries in the phenomenological experience of predicting and remembering emotion. The vividness of predicted emotion serves as a powerful subjective signal of accuracy even when predictions turn out to be wrong.
KEYWORDS: Emotion, prediction, memory, phenomenology, Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory
Excerpts:
Similarities found between predicted and remembered emotion
Emotion predictions and memories were similar in two
notable ways. First, participants both predicted and
remembered the intensity of their feelings about Trump’s
election fairly accurately. Past research has also shown
high accuracy when people predict or remember the intensity
of their feelings about events (e.g., Doré et al., 2016;
Kaplan et al., 2016; Lench et al., 2019; Levine et al., 2012).
Far less accuracy is found when people predict or remember
their general emotional experience, a judgment that
encompasses multiple features of emotion including intensity,
duration, and mood (e.g., Wilson et al., 2000). Second,
participants’ perceptions of the accuracy of their predictions
and memories were strongly related to their vividness
but weakly related to their actual accuracy. The phenomenological
cues of vividness and fluency can render people
poor judges of how much they have learned and will
later remember (Benjamin et al., 1998; Kruger & Dunning,
1999). We found that vividness was not a particularly
reliable guide to the actual accuracy of predicted and
remembered emotion.
Remembered emotion is more trustworthy, predicted emotion is more trusted
Predicted and remembered emotion also differed in important
ways. Participants remembered their emotional
response to Trump’s victory more accurately than they predicted
it. They also perceived their memories to be more
detailed than their predictions. Bringing to mind past
experiences and imagining future ones both involve
drawing from a complex body of knowledge (Conway &
Loveday, 2015). However, imagining future experiences
requires more cognitive acrobatics, including extracting
details from past experiences and flexibly recombining
them into a novel experience (Schacter et al., 2012; Schacter
& Addis, 2007). To simulate how they would feel in the
future if Trump won the election, participants had to piece
together episodic memories of related past experiences
and draw on semantic knowledge and appraisals. In contrast,
episodic detail about their actual emotional response
to Trump’s victory was available to participants after the
election. This likely explains why participants remembered
their emotional experience more accurately than they predicted
it. Despite the greater accuracy of memory than prediction,
the main group of participants perceived their
predictions to be more accurate. They also perceived
their predictions to be more vivid than their memories,
even adjusting for the extremity of emotion predicted
and remembered. Specifically, compared to remembering
their feelings, participants perceived the experience of predicting
their feelings to be more intense, accompanied by a
greater sense of experiencing the event, and easier to bring
to mind.
Why did participants perceive predicted emotion to be
more accurate than remembered emotion when the
reverse was the case? Emotions likely evolved to motivate
action (Miloyan & Suddendorf, 2015). Future events can be
acted on and changed but past events cannot, so people
accommodate to them (Frederick & Loewenstein, 1999;
Wilson & Gilbert, 2008). This inherent asymmetry endows
the future with greater importance than the past (Van
Boven & Caruso, 2015). Extending this view, we proposed
that the greater importance of future emotional experiences
makes predictions particularly vivid, rendering
people vulnerable to misjudging their accuracy. Consistent
with this proposal, participants viewed the outcome of the
2016 presidential election as more important when it was a
future possibility than a past certainty. Greater importance
was associated with perceiving representations of emotion
to be more accurate. Analyses of indirect effects further
showed that the association between greater importance
and perceived accuracy was fully explained by participants’
more vivid phenomenological experience when predicting
than remembering emotion. These findings suggest that
viewing an event as more important before it occurs
than afterwards imbues predicted emotion with greater
vividness than remembered emotion, which in turn is
linked to perceiving emotion predictions to be more accurate
than memories.
Researchers often use the term “vividness” to refer to
the clarity and detail of visual imagery when people
remember past experiences or imagine future ones (e.g.,
D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2004; Rubin & Kozin,
1984). Retrospection is typically associated with greater
visual clarity and detail than prospection (e.g., Cole & Berntsen,
2016). However, phenomenological properties other
than detailed imagery contribute to the vividness of
mental representations (Habermas & Diel, 2013; Kensinger,
Addis, & Atapattu, 2011; Van Boven & Ashworth, 2007). For
example, a person’s memory of their recent drive to the
grocery store might be clear and detailed but lackluster.
A person’s memory of their recent near miss on the
freeway might lack clarity and detail but be vivid. Core features
of an experience can come to mind with ease, as if
they were happening in the moment, and accompanied
by intense emotion, even if a representation is not
especially detailed (Kensinger et al., 2011). In the current
investigation, these properties of ease, experiencing, and
intensity, rather than detail, characterised anticipated
emotion more than remembered emotion.
Factors associated with the accuracy of emotion predictions and memories
We also examined two factors that we expected to be
associated with greater accuracy in representations of
emotion. Past research shows that, as episodic memory
for emotion fades, people rely on their current semantic
appraisals of the emotion-eliciting event (e.g., “How good
or bad is this event for my goals?”) to reconstruct how
they must have felt. The more people’s appraisals change
over time, the less accurately they remember how they
felt (e.g., Kaplan et al., 2016; Levine, 1997; Robinson &
Clore, 2002). In the current investigation, greater stability
in participants’ appraisals of whether Trump’s election
was good for the country was associated with greater
accuracy in their memory for how they had felt. Extending
past research, greater stability in appraisals was also associated
with greater accuracy in predicting emotion. These
findings suggest that people draw on their semantic
appraisals of events both to remember how they felt in
the past and to simulate how they will feel in the future.
We also examined whether people with detailed and
accurate episodic memories of autobiographical experiences
were better than others at remembering or predicting
emotional responses to experiences. Individuals with
Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory perform similarly
to controls on many standard cognitive tests (e.g.,
mental imagery, attention; LePort et al., 2017). They also
show similar susceptibility to memory bias when presented
with misleading post-event information (Patihis et al.,
2013). Thus, these individuals do not appear to encode personal
or public events in a unique way but they retain representations
of the events they experienced in greater
detail and for far longer than controls, suggesting unusually
efficient memory consolidation and retrieval
(LePort et al., 2012, 2016, 2017). Emotion is an important
part of autobiographical experience but memory for
emotion had never been tested in this group.
We found that participants with HSAM did not differ
from other participants in the accuracy with which they
predicted or remembered emotion. They also did not
differ from others in the perceived accuracy of emotion
predictions or memories, though they did perceive their
memories to be more detailed. Like the main group, participants
with HSAM found predicting emotion to be a more
intense experience than remembering emotion. Taken
together, these findings highlight differences between
remembering the “what”, “where”, and “when” of events
(Tulving, 2002), which individuals with HSAM do with extraordinary
accuracy and detail, and predicting or remembering
feelings about events. These findings again highlight
the important contribution of semantic appraisals to representation
of emotion. The consistency of semantic
appraisals (e.g., how good or bad is this outcome for my
goals) was associated with greater accuracy in representations
of emotion; having superior episodic memory for
events that may evoke emotion was not. The exceptional
abilities of individuals with HSAM do not appear to
extend to this type of semantic knowledge about the self.
Researchers have speculated that experiencing events
with heightened emotional intensity may be one mechanism
underlying the ability of individuals with HSAM to
retain details of autobiographical and public events
(McGaugh, 2017). However, HSAM participants did not
experience more intense emotion in response to the election
compared to the main group of participants at any
time point. These individuals also remember neutral information
more accurately than controls, such as conversations
about their day during a lab session the previous
week (LePort et al., 2017). Thus, heightened emotional
arousal is not likely to be a primary mechanism underlying
this group’s superior memory for autobiographical events.
In summary, superior memory for personal and public
events did not confer superior ability to predict or remember
emotion. These findings refine our understanding of
the abilities and limitations of a unique group, and
suggest that emotional intensity is not the mechanism
underlying their abilities. The findings also point to important
differences between remembering episodic details of
autobiographical events versus emotions, and underscore
the compelling nature of anticipated emotion.
ABSTRACT: People rely on predicted and remembered emotion to guide important decisions. But how much can they trust their mental representations of emotion to be accurate, and how much do they trust them? In this investigation, participants (N = 957) reported their predicted, experienced, and remembered emotional response to the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. They also reported how accurate and vivid they perceived their predictions and memories to be, and the importance of the election. Participants remembered their emotional responses more accurately than they predicted them. But, strikingly, they perceived their predictions to be more accurate than their memories. This perception was explained by the greater importance and vividness of anticipated versus remembered experience. We also assessed whether individuals with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory for personal and public events (N = 33) showed superior ability to predict or remember their emotional responses to events. They did not and, even for this group, predicting emotion was a more intense experience than remembering emotion. These findings reveal asymmetries in the phenomenological experience of predicting and remembering emotion. The vividness of predicted emotion serves as a powerful subjective signal of accuracy even when predictions turn out to be wrong.
KEYWORDS: Emotion, prediction, memory, phenomenology, Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory
Excerpts:
Similarities found between predicted and remembered emotion
Emotion predictions and memories were similar in two
notable ways. First, participants both predicted and
remembered the intensity of their feelings about Trump’s
election fairly accurately. Past research has also shown
high accuracy when people predict or remember the intensity
of their feelings about events (e.g., Doré et al., 2016;
Kaplan et al., 2016; Lench et al., 2019; Levine et al., 2012).
Far less accuracy is found when people predict or remember
their general emotional experience, a judgment that
encompasses multiple features of emotion including intensity,
duration, and mood (e.g., Wilson et al., 2000). Second,
participants’ perceptions of the accuracy of their predictions
and memories were strongly related to their vividness
but weakly related to their actual accuracy. The phenomenological
cues of vividness and fluency can render people
poor judges of how much they have learned and will
later remember (Benjamin et al., 1998; Kruger & Dunning,
1999). We found that vividness was not a particularly
reliable guide to the actual accuracy of predicted and
remembered emotion.
Remembered emotion is more trustworthy, predicted emotion is more trusted
Predicted and remembered emotion also differed in important
ways. Participants remembered their emotional
response to Trump’s victory more accurately than they predicted
it. They also perceived their memories to be more
detailed than their predictions. Bringing to mind past
experiences and imagining future ones both involve
drawing from a complex body of knowledge (Conway &
Loveday, 2015). However, imagining future experiences
requires more cognitive acrobatics, including extracting
details from past experiences and flexibly recombining
them into a novel experience (Schacter et al., 2012; Schacter
& Addis, 2007). To simulate how they would feel in the
future if Trump won the election, participants had to piece
together episodic memories of related past experiences
and draw on semantic knowledge and appraisals. In contrast,
episodic detail about their actual emotional response
to Trump’s victory was available to participants after the
election. This likely explains why participants remembered
their emotional experience more accurately than they predicted
it. Despite the greater accuracy of memory than prediction,
the main group of participants perceived their
predictions to be more accurate. They also perceived
their predictions to be more vivid than their memories,
even adjusting for the extremity of emotion predicted
and remembered. Specifically, compared to remembering
their feelings, participants perceived the experience of predicting
their feelings to be more intense, accompanied by a
greater sense of experiencing the event, and easier to bring
to mind.
Why did participants perceive predicted emotion to be
more accurate than remembered emotion when the
reverse was the case? Emotions likely evolved to motivate
action (Miloyan & Suddendorf, 2015). Future events can be
acted on and changed but past events cannot, so people
accommodate to them (Frederick & Loewenstein, 1999;
Wilson & Gilbert, 2008). This inherent asymmetry endows
the future with greater importance than the past (Van
Boven & Caruso, 2015). Extending this view, we proposed
that the greater importance of future emotional experiences
makes predictions particularly vivid, rendering
people vulnerable to misjudging their accuracy. Consistent
with this proposal, participants viewed the outcome of the
2016 presidential election as more important when it was a
future possibility than a past certainty. Greater importance
was associated with perceiving representations of emotion
to be more accurate. Analyses of indirect effects further
showed that the association between greater importance
and perceived accuracy was fully explained by participants’
more vivid phenomenological experience when predicting
than remembering emotion. These findings suggest that
viewing an event as more important before it occurs
than afterwards imbues predicted emotion with greater
vividness than remembered emotion, which in turn is
linked to perceiving emotion predictions to be more accurate
than memories.
Researchers often use the term “vividness” to refer to
the clarity and detail of visual imagery when people
remember past experiences or imagine future ones (e.g.,
D’Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2004; Rubin & Kozin,
1984). Retrospection is typically associated with greater
visual clarity and detail than prospection (e.g., Cole & Berntsen,
2016). However, phenomenological properties other
than detailed imagery contribute to the vividness of
mental representations (Habermas & Diel, 2013; Kensinger,
Addis, & Atapattu, 2011; Van Boven & Ashworth, 2007). For
example, a person’s memory of their recent drive to the
grocery store might be clear and detailed but lackluster.
A person’s memory of their recent near miss on the
freeway might lack clarity and detail but be vivid. Core features
of an experience can come to mind with ease, as if
they were happening in the moment, and accompanied
by intense emotion, even if a representation is not
especially detailed (Kensinger et al., 2011). In the current
investigation, these properties of ease, experiencing, and
intensity, rather than detail, characterised anticipated
emotion more than remembered emotion.
Factors associated with the accuracy of emotion predictions and memories
We also examined two factors that we expected to be
associated with greater accuracy in representations of
emotion. Past research shows that, as episodic memory
for emotion fades, people rely on their current semantic
appraisals of the emotion-eliciting event (e.g., “How good
or bad is this event for my goals?”) to reconstruct how
they must have felt. The more people’s appraisals change
over time, the less accurately they remember how they
felt (e.g., Kaplan et al., 2016; Levine, 1997; Robinson &
Clore, 2002). In the current investigation, greater stability
in participants’ appraisals of whether Trump’s election
was good for the country was associated with greater
accuracy in their memory for how they had felt. Extending
past research, greater stability in appraisals was also associated
with greater accuracy in predicting emotion. These
findings suggest that people draw on their semantic
appraisals of events both to remember how they felt in
the past and to simulate how they will feel in the future.
We also examined whether people with detailed and
accurate episodic memories of autobiographical experiences
were better than others at remembering or predicting
emotional responses to experiences. Individuals with
Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory perform similarly
to controls on many standard cognitive tests (e.g.,
mental imagery, attention; LePort et al., 2017). They also
show similar susceptibility to memory bias when presented
with misleading post-event information (Patihis et al.,
2013). Thus, these individuals do not appear to encode personal
or public events in a unique way but they retain representations
of the events they experienced in greater
detail and for far longer than controls, suggesting unusually
efficient memory consolidation and retrieval
(LePort et al., 2012, 2016, 2017). Emotion is an important
part of autobiographical experience but memory for
emotion had never been tested in this group.
We found that participants with HSAM did not differ
from other participants in the accuracy with which they
predicted or remembered emotion. They also did not
differ from others in the perceived accuracy of emotion
predictions or memories, though they did perceive their
memories to be more detailed. Like the main group, participants
with HSAM found predicting emotion to be a more
intense experience than remembering emotion. Taken
together, these findings highlight differences between
remembering the “what”, “where”, and “when” of events
(Tulving, 2002), which individuals with HSAM do with extraordinary
accuracy and detail, and predicting or remembering
feelings about events. These findings again highlight
the important contribution of semantic appraisals to representation
of emotion. The consistency of semantic
appraisals (e.g., how good or bad is this outcome for my
goals) was associated with greater accuracy in representations
of emotion; having superior episodic memory for
events that may evoke emotion was not. The exceptional
abilities of individuals with HSAM do not appear to
extend to this type of semantic knowledge about the self.
Researchers have speculated that experiencing events
with heightened emotional intensity may be one mechanism
underlying the ability of individuals with HSAM to
retain details of autobiographical and public events
(McGaugh, 2017). However, HSAM participants did not
experience more intense emotion in response to the election
compared to the main group of participants at any
time point. These individuals also remember neutral information
more accurately than controls, such as conversations
about their day during a lab session the previous
week (LePort et al., 2017). Thus, heightened emotional
arousal is not likely to be a primary mechanism underlying
this group’s superior memory for autobiographical events.
In summary, superior memory for personal and public
events did not confer superior ability to predict or remember
emotion. These findings refine our understanding of
the abilities and limitations of a unique group, and
suggest that emotional intensity is not the mechanism
underlying their abilities. The findings also point to important
differences between remembering episodic details of
autobiographical events versus emotions, and underscore
the compelling nature of anticipated emotion.
Later Life Sex Differences in Factors in Choosing a Long-Term Partner, Sexual Behaviors and Attitudes, and Sexual Fantasies
Later Life Sex Differences in Sexual Psychology and Behavior. Gavin Vance, Todd K. Shackelford, Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford. [in press, Personality and Individual Differences, November 2019]. http://toddkshackelford.com/downloads/Vance-et-al-PAID.pdf
Abstract: Several sex differences in sexual psychology and behavior have been documented across cultures and across historical periods. These differences have been investigated almost exclusively inyoung adult samples, however. Using data secured from an older adult sample of retirement center residents in Southeast Florida, USA(n= 186, M= 67.00years), we assessed the replicability of several sex differences in sexual psychology and behavior in later life. Results replicate the sex differences identified in younger adult samples, including: (1) older men more than older women report interest in a greater number of sexual partners;(2) older men require less time before consenting to sex than do older women;(3)older men more than older women prioritize attractiveness in a prospective romantic partner, whereas older women more than older men prioritize good financial prospects; and (4) older men report a higher frequency of sexual arousal and sexual fantasies than do older women. Discussion addresses limitations of the current research and directions for future research addressing later life sex differences in sexual psychology and behavior.
Keywords: older adults; later life; sexual psychology; sexual behavior; sex differences; sexual fantasies
Discussion
The results of the current study provide a compelling argument for the persistence of several sex
differences in sexual psychology and behavior among older adults, replicating the results of parallel research
on young adults. Older men desire a greater number of sexual partners than do older women, require less
time before consenting to sex, and fantasize about more sexual partners, indicating that sex differences in
sexual psychology and behavior identified in young adulthood persist into later life.
Factors in Choosing a Long-Term Partner
Older men report a preference for attractive long-term partners, as well as good housekeepers,
whereas older women report a preference for prospective partners with access to resources. Younger men
also prefer attractive long-term partners more than do younger women, indicating that attractiveness in a
long-term partner remains important for men into later life. Older women more than older men, in contrast,
report preferences for financial prospects, emotional stability, and ambition in a prospective long-term
partner. These findings are consistent with sex differences documented in younger adults; however, unlike
younger women, older women placed greater importance than did older men on emotional stability in a long term
partner (Buss et al., 2001). These results suggest that emotional stability in a long-term partner becomes
more important to women as they age, or less important to men as they age. This could be because older
women, relative to younger women, associate emotional stability more closely with earning potential or
because older women perceive emotional stability as indicative of a partner’s ability to provide adequate care
for them in their old age.
Sexual Behaviors and Attitudes
Older men are more likely than older women to report sex with someone other than their committed
romantic partner at some point in their lives, but were just as likely as older women to report that they had
been unfaithful to their current romantic partner. Because participants were asked about behaviors in the past,
it is perhaps not surprising that older men’s reported frequencies of infidelity and lifetime sexual partners are
similar to reports by younger men (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983; Buss, 1989; Wiederman, 1997).
Consistent with sex differences identified in younger adults, older men desired more sexual partners
than did older women for every future time interval from 6 months to the remainder of their lives (Buss,
1989). Although nearly all (95.5%) of the older men reported that they were currently in a romantic
relationship, they also reported a desire for more sexual partners than did older women, only 63.7% of whom
reported that they were currently in a romantic relationship. Regardless of age or relationship status, men
desire a greater number of sexual partners than do women.
Relative to older women, older men report a greater likelihood of consenting to sex with a desirable
person after knowing that person for time periods ranging from one second to three months. Replicating sex
differences documented in younger adults, older men appear to be less interested in spending time getting to
know a prospective sexual partner than are older women (Buss, 1989). Given that older men desire more
sexual partners than do older women, it follows that they are more eager than older women to have sex with
a person they have known for a relatively short period of time.
Sexual Fantasies
Asking participants about their sexual fantasies provided further insight into the sexual desires of
older people, in addition to affording an opportunity to investigate whether these desires differ between older
men and older women in ways paralleling sex differences identified in younger adults. Older men, relative to
older women, report a greater frequency of sexual arousal and sexual fantasy, more imagined sexual partners
during their fantasies, and place greater importance on the facial and genital features of their imagined
partners. From these survey items, we documented not only that older men engage in certain sexual
behaviors more frequently than do older women, but also that the sexes differ markedly in reported sexual
arousal and desire. These results are notable because they indicate that, even if older adults are inaccurate in
their estimates of lifetime sexual partners, older men currently desire more sexual partners than do older
women. These sex differences in sexual fantasy replicate those documented in younger adults (Ellis &
Symons, 1990).
Microgravity and Cosmic Radiations During Space Exploration as a Window Into Neurodegeneration on Earth
Microgravity and Cosmic Radiations During Space Exploration as a Window Into Neurodegeneration on Earth. Giulia Sprugnoli, Yvonne D. Cagle, Emiliano Santarnecchi. JAMA Neurol. November 25, 2019. doi:https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaneurol.2019.4003
Astronauts involved in long-duration spaceflight missions are exposed to specific risk factors known to induce profound changes of brain structure and function whose potential long-lasting effects are still under investigation.1 These changes range from sleep alterations, modifications of brain morphometry, vision impairment, mood shifts, and loss of appetite as well as cognitive deficits, including decrements in attention and executive functions.2 Among the substantial list of stressors, the effects of microgravity and galactic cosmic radiations constitute the most relevant ones and are at the core of current and future NASA efforts to identify effective countermeasures. Interestingly, while reduced gravity force seems responsible for cephalad fluid shift that potentially affects protein clearance mechanisms, cosmic radiations seem to promote the accumulation of amyloid-β in mouse models, induce neuroinflammation, and further alter hippocampal-related cognition.2 Considering available evidence, a pattern of spaceflight-induced accelerated brain aging seems to emerge in addition to established aging-like effects on cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems (ie, carotid intima-media thickness increments, inflammatory response, bone loss, muscle atrophy, and DNA telomere modifications, as documented in the recent 1-year long NASA Twin Study1). While this raises important issues about astronauts’ health, it can also constitute a window into the neurophysiopathology of neurodegenerative processes in humans, which could potentially benefit life on Earth.
The Effect of Microgravity
Microgravity determines a conspicuous fluid shift from the lower to upper body (approximately 2 L, mostly on the venous compartment) because of the loss of hydrostatic gradient pressure, normally attracting fluid toward lower limbs.3 On the other hand, the effect of slightly elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the International Space Station is currently under investigation regarding the theoretical potential for arteriolar vasodilatation induction, similarly to what is typically observed after acute high-level carbon dioxide exposure on Earth.3 The loss of hydrostatic gradient seems to cause an imbalance of intracranial pressure (ICP) diurnal variation, now considered the most likely mechanism behind spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS3). In particular, nonpathological partial elevation in ICP during long-term missions (comparable with the nocturnal increase of ICP on Earth) could be transmitted to the subarachnoid space enveloping the optic nerve, consequently causing a pattern characterized by, for example, optic disc edema, hyperopic shifts, globe flattening, cotton-wool spots, and choroidal folds that is experienced by 40% of astronauts after long-term spaceflight.1 Data collected in the recently released NASA Twins study support this pathophysiological model, showing distension and increased pressure in the internal jugular veins as well as SANS signs,1 even though many potential additional factors should be considered, such as the role of reduced central venous pressure.3
Interestingly, venous congestion could also impair cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) outflow, which under normal conditions drains into the dural sinuses via the arachnoid granulations. If the CSF outflow is altered, it is reasonable to postulate that protein clearance might be negatively affected, leading to an accumulation of waste products in the brain, such as amyloid-β and tau protein.4 Moreover, the modification of brain structures experienced after a long-term space mission could also compress venous as well as lymphatic vessels responsible for CSF drainage. In this regard, Roberts and colleagues5 have showed how the subarachnoid space at the vertex of the head and in posterior brain regions is reduced in healthy nonastronaut participants undergoing a spaceflight analog-based experiment (ie, head-down tilt), a phenomenon also partially observed in astronauts after long-duration missions. Such “brain shift” could reduce CSF drainage at the level of arachnoid granulation (ie, vertex) into the meningeal lymphatic vessels. This also aligns with a proposed theory stating that the alteration of the CSF circulatory system may represent a potential substrate of Alzheimer disease (AD) and normal-pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) depending on the prevalent impaired mechanism being CSF production or reabsorption, respectively.4 Accordingly, the coexistence of AD and NPH has been repeatedly demonstrated, suggesting an association between the 2 disorders, even though the evidence is still limited. Interestingly, brain morphology alterations reported in astronauts closely resemble those of NPH (eg, ventriculomegaly, a narrowing of the vertex sulci, and a dilatation of the Sylvian fissures); however, they lack the classic clinical presentation (eg, gait apraxia and urinary incontinence). As recently suggested by Roberts and Petersen,6 hydrocephalus associated with long-term spaceflight (HALS) is likely to represent a peculiar syndrome caused by microgravity in which brain maladaptive mechanisms are to some extent similar to those observed on Earth. Presumably there is no single agent factor responsible for HALS, but rather a multifactorial pathogenesis with structural and functional changes leading up to a synergistic effect. Investigating HALS and SANS syndromes can help elucidate the complex association between exposure to space-related stressors, CSF dynamics, fluid shift, AD, and NPH, with possible insights for space exploration and clinical research on neurodegeneration.
Role of Cosmic Radiation
Within the same framework, cosmic radiation might also play a substantial role. Mice studies involving exposition to space-equivalent radiation (56Fe) doses demonstrate an increase of amyloid-β and fibrillary proteins that is paralleled by impaired cognition and behavior.2 Interestingly, the brain regions most sensitive to cosmic radiation in mice studies are the (1) hippocampus (associated with impairments in episodic and short-term memory as well as recognition and spatial learning) and (2) the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with the alteration of executive functions.2 Microscopically, these regions exhibit immature spine and a reduction of dendritic complexity/density, which are positively associated with the grade of memory impairments and persist for up to 1 year after irradiation. These cellular modifications are similar to those presented by neurodegenerative diseases within the dementia spectrum, with epigenetic studies showing how modifying DNA methylation status can lead to the impairment of memory and learning. Evidence of DNA methylations was also reported in the aforementioned Nasa Twin study1; however, its association with cognitive deficits has not been tested yet. Moreover, alterations of sleep patterns and sleep quality, typically experienced by astronauts during long-duration missions, can increase the accumulation of waste proteins in the brain, considering that perivascular and nonperivascular protein clearance is prominent during sleep. Additionally, anxiety and depression symptoms have been found in irradiated rodents along with a cognitive flexibility deficit, closely resembling symptoms reported by astronauts during sustained exposure to isolated confined environments. However, microgravity seems to indirectly affect the hippocampus as well, inducing oxidative stress mediated by glucocorticoid receptors and decreasing the quantity of β-synuclein responsible for the prevention of α-synuclein aggregation (increased in microgravity studies2). Importantly, although microgravity and cosmic radiation are discussed separately in this article, their association with brain physiology is likely due to a complex synergistic effect. For instance, microgravity-induced fluid shift could affect the dynamics of CSF production (eg, at the level of the choroid plexus) as well as reabsorption (eg, from arachnoid granulations), therefore affecting protein clearance in the context of an already increased level of circulating proteins in the parenchyma due to exposure to cosmic radiations. This, as well as many other potential interactions, should be mapped and addressed as part of a comprehensive multidisciplinary model including neuroimaging, electrophysiology, biological, and clinical data.
Conclusions
All this evidence suggests the opportunity to investigate brain adaptation to long-term spaceflight as a model of aging, possibly informing novel diagnostic markers and countermeasures with relevance for space exploration and patients on Earth. At the same time, recent pathophysiological models of AD and other dementias could be leveraged to adapt countermeasures currently being tested in patients. For instance, gamma aminobutyric acid—ergic dysfunction and inhibitory interneurons’ pathology are getting attention as a core element of Alzheimer pathophysiology, leading to cascade effects, including the deficit of high-frequency brain oscillatory activity, altered brain plasticity and excitation/inhibition balance, the accumulation of amyloid-β/tau proteins, and cognitive deficits. Novel noninvasive promising therapies are currently under investigation (eg, multisensory and transcranial electrical stimulation7) and could constitute a countermeasure to “accelerated aging” during spaceflight as well as on return to Earth.
As scientists and astronauts navigating the field of space-related aging research, we recognize the need for increasing integration between NASA efforts and academic research. Dedicated conferences and other opportunities for a guided exchange of knowledge could be promoted across federal and academic institutions (eg, the National Institute on Aging), possibly leading to access to facilities for high-complexity experiments (eg, irradiation chambers), novel analogs to mimic the association of microgravity with fluid shift and ICP in-vivo, and an overall simplification of data-sharing procedures. A synergistic effort between clinicians, scientists, and aerospace institutions is needed to ensure this unique opportunity for advancing science and benefitting patients and astronauts will not be missed.
References, etc., at the DOI above.
Astronauts involved in long-duration spaceflight missions are exposed to specific risk factors known to induce profound changes of brain structure and function whose potential long-lasting effects are still under investigation.1 These changes range from sleep alterations, modifications of brain morphometry, vision impairment, mood shifts, and loss of appetite as well as cognitive deficits, including decrements in attention and executive functions.2 Among the substantial list of stressors, the effects of microgravity and galactic cosmic radiations constitute the most relevant ones and are at the core of current and future NASA efforts to identify effective countermeasures. Interestingly, while reduced gravity force seems responsible for cephalad fluid shift that potentially affects protein clearance mechanisms, cosmic radiations seem to promote the accumulation of amyloid-β in mouse models, induce neuroinflammation, and further alter hippocampal-related cognition.2 Considering available evidence, a pattern of spaceflight-induced accelerated brain aging seems to emerge in addition to established aging-like effects on cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems (ie, carotid intima-media thickness increments, inflammatory response, bone loss, muscle atrophy, and DNA telomere modifications, as documented in the recent 1-year long NASA Twin Study1). While this raises important issues about astronauts’ health, it can also constitute a window into the neurophysiopathology of neurodegenerative processes in humans, which could potentially benefit life on Earth.
The Effect of Microgravity
Microgravity determines a conspicuous fluid shift from the lower to upper body (approximately 2 L, mostly on the venous compartment) because of the loss of hydrostatic gradient pressure, normally attracting fluid toward lower limbs.3 On the other hand, the effect of slightly elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the International Space Station is currently under investigation regarding the theoretical potential for arteriolar vasodilatation induction, similarly to what is typically observed after acute high-level carbon dioxide exposure on Earth.3 The loss of hydrostatic gradient seems to cause an imbalance of intracranial pressure (ICP) diurnal variation, now considered the most likely mechanism behind spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS3). In particular, nonpathological partial elevation in ICP during long-term missions (comparable with the nocturnal increase of ICP on Earth) could be transmitted to the subarachnoid space enveloping the optic nerve, consequently causing a pattern characterized by, for example, optic disc edema, hyperopic shifts, globe flattening, cotton-wool spots, and choroidal folds that is experienced by 40% of astronauts after long-term spaceflight.1 Data collected in the recently released NASA Twins study support this pathophysiological model, showing distension and increased pressure in the internal jugular veins as well as SANS signs,1 even though many potential additional factors should be considered, such as the role of reduced central venous pressure.3
Interestingly, venous congestion could also impair cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) outflow, which under normal conditions drains into the dural sinuses via the arachnoid granulations. If the CSF outflow is altered, it is reasonable to postulate that protein clearance might be negatively affected, leading to an accumulation of waste products in the brain, such as amyloid-β and tau protein.4 Moreover, the modification of brain structures experienced after a long-term space mission could also compress venous as well as lymphatic vessels responsible for CSF drainage. In this regard, Roberts and colleagues5 have showed how the subarachnoid space at the vertex of the head and in posterior brain regions is reduced in healthy nonastronaut participants undergoing a spaceflight analog-based experiment (ie, head-down tilt), a phenomenon also partially observed in astronauts after long-duration missions. Such “brain shift” could reduce CSF drainage at the level of arachnoid granulation (ie, vertex) into the meningeal lymphatic vessels. This also aligns with a proposed theory stating that the alteration of the CSF circulatory system may represent a potential substrate of Alzheimer disease (AD) and normal-pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) depending on the prevalent impaired mechanism being CSF production or reabsorption, respectively.4 Accordingly, the coexistence of AD and NPH has been repeatedly demonstrated, suggesting an association between the 2 disorders, even though the evidence is still limited. Interestingly, brain morphology alterations reported in astronauts closely resemble those of NPH (eg, ventriculomegaly, a narrowing of the vertex sulci, and a dilatation of the Sylvian fissures); however, they lack the classic clinical presentation (eg, gait apraxia and urinary incontinence). As recently suggested by Roberts and Petersen,6 hydrocephalus associated with long-term spaceflight (HALS) is likely to represent a peculiar syndrome caused by microgravity in which brain maladaptive mechanisms are to some extent similar to those observed on Earth. Presumably there is no single agent factor responsible for HALS, but rather a multifactorial pathogenesis with structural and functional changes leading up to a synergistic effect. Investigating HALS and SANS syndromes can help elucidate the complex association between exposure to space-related stressors, CSF dynamics, fluid shift, AD, and NPH, with possible insights for space exploration and clinical research on neurodegeneration.
Role of Cosmic Radiation
Within the same framework, cosmic radiation might also play a substantial role. Mice studies involving exposition to space-equivalent radiation (56Fe) doses demonstrate an increase of amyloid-β and fibrillary proteins that is paralleled by impaired cognition and behavior.2 Interestingly, the brain regions most sensitive to cosmic radiation in mice studies are the (1) hippocampus (associated with impairments in episodic and short-term memory as well as recognition and spatial learning) and (2) the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with the alteration of executive functions.2 Microscopically, these regions exhibit immature spine and a reduction of dendritic complexity/density, which are positively associated with the grade of memory impairments and persist for up to 1 year after irradiation. These cellular modifications are similar to those presented by neurodegenerative diseases within the dementia spectrum, with epigenetic studies showing how modifying DNA methylation status can lead to the impairment of memory and learning. Evidence of DNA methylations was also reported in the aforementioned Nasa Twin study1; however, its association with cognitive deficits has not been tested yet. Moreover, alterations of sleep patterns and sleep quality, typically experienced by astronauts during long-duration missions, can increase the accumulation of waste proteins in the brain, considering that perivascular and nonperivascular protein clearance is prominent during sleep. Additionally, anxiety and depression symptoms have been found in irradiated rodents along with a cognitive flexibility deficit, closely resembling symptoms reported by astronauts during sustained exposure to isolated confined environments. However, microgravity seems to indirectly affect the hippocampus as well, inducing oxidative stress mediated by glucocorticoid receptors and decreasing the quantity of β-synuclein responsible for the prevention of α-synuclein aggregation (increased in microgravity studies2). Importantly, although microgravity and cosmic radiation are discussed separately in this article, their association with brain physiology is likely due to a complex synergistic effect. For instance, microgravity-induced fluid shift could affect the dynamics of CSF production (eg, at the level of the choroid plexus) as well as reabsorption (eg, from arachnoid granulations), therefore affecting protein clearance in the context of an already increased level of circulating proteins in the parenchyma due to exposure to cosmic radiations. This, as well as many other potential interactions, should be mapped and addressed as part of a comprehensive multidisciplinary model including neuroimaging, electrophysiology, biological, and clinical data.
Conclusions
All this evidence suggests the opportunity to investigate brain adaptation to long-term spaceflight as a model of aging, possibly informing novel diagnostic markers and countermeasures with relevance for space exploration and patients on Earth. At the same time, recent pathophysiological models of AD and other dementias could be leveraged to adapt countermeasures currently being tested in patients. For instance, gamma aminobutyric acid—ergic dysfunction and inhibitory interneurons’ pathology are getting attention as a core element of Alzheimer pathophysiology, leading to cascade effects, including the deficit of high-frequency brain oscillatory activity, altered brain plasticity and excitation/inhibition balance, the accumulation of amyloid-β/tau proteins, and cognitive deficits. Novel noninvasive promising therapies are currently under investigation (eg, multisensory and transcranial electrical stimulation7) and could constitute a countermeasure to “accelerated aging” during spaceflight as well as on return to Earth.
As scientists and astronauts navigating the field of space-related aging research, we recognize the need for increasing integration between NASA efforts and academic research. Dedicated conferences and other opportunities for a guided exchange of knowledge could be promoted across federal and academic institutions (eg, the National Institute on Aging), possibly leading to access to facilities for high-complexity experiments (eg, irradiation chambers), novel analogs to mimic the association of microgravity with fluid shift and ICP in-vivo, and an overall simplification of data-sharing procedures. A synergistic effort between clinicians, scientists, and aerospace institutions is needed to ensure this unique opportunity for advancing science and benefitting patients and astronauts will not be missed.
References, etc., at the DOI above.
Merit Ptah, The Non-Existent “First Woman Physician”: Crafting of a Feminist History with an Ancient Egyptian Setting
Merit Ptah, “The First Woman Physician”: Crafting of a Feminist History with an Ancient Egyptian Setting. Jakub M Kwiecinski. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, jrz058, November 22 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/jrz058
Abstract: Merit Ptah is widely described as “the first woman physician and scientist” on the Internet and in popular history books. This essay explores the origins of this figure, showing that Merit Ptah came into being in the 1930s when Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead misinterpreted a report about an authentic ancient Egyptian healer. Merit Ptah gradually became a prominent figure in popular historical accounts during second-wave of feminism, and, in the twenty-first century she appeared in Wikipedia and subsequently spread throughout the Internet as a female (sometimes black African) founding figure. The history of Merit Ptah reveals powerful mechanisms of knowledge creation in the network of amateur historians, independently from the scholarly community. The case of Merit Ptah also pinpoints factors enabling the spread of erroneous historical accounts: the absence of professional audience, the development of echo chambers due to an obscured chain of knowledge transmission, the wide reach of the Internet, the coherence with existing preconceptions, the emotional charge of heritage, and even – in the case of ancient Egypt – the tendency to perceive certain pasts through a legendary lens. At the same time, the story of Merit Ptah reveals how important role models have been for women entering science and medicine.
CONCLUSION: IS SHE REAL?
The history of Merit Ptah provides no insight into ancient Egypt, but it could be a starting point for reflection on modern history-making practices. There is no single reason why an invented character, mentioned in a book nearly a century ago, has become a widespread piece of historic trivia. Instead, there is a tangle of explanations. Some of these are specific to the case of Merit Ptah, such as the peculiar popular perception of her ancient Egyptian setting. Others are generalizable for all kinds of amateur historymaking, popular memory, or even for mass-media news: the obscure chain of transmission, the spread outside the expert circles, the conformity to preexisting biases, and the association with emotionally-charged partisan issues. These facilitating factors – and some serendipity – turned the imaginary Merit Ptah into one of the few widely recognizable medical women of antiquity, obscuring her historically attested Egyptian colleagues.
Sometimes it is possible to separate different kinds of the past: the remembered (found in a popular memory), the recovered (a “history” reconstructed by scholars), or the invented (a past designed for a particular purpose).108 However, as the case of Merit Ptah illustrates, these kinds are intertwined more often than not. Invented and retold for a feminist purpose, her story was nevertheless created as a part of a recovery endeavor, and it eventually entered the collective memory. By collapsing the distinctions between different kinds of historical practice, and by straddling the divide between history and popular memory, the case of Merit Ptah demonstrates that “history is not the prerogative of the historian, nor even (...) a historian’s invention. It is, rather, a social form of knowledge.”109 Merit Ptah became famous not despite, but thanks to the amateur environment in which her story was curated. Developed by the interested parties in response to contemporary needs, her history fulfilled the demand for meaningful and usable past.
Merit Ptah’s story is a warning about over-reliance on secondary sources, and about misleading character of historical information in the Internet – including even seemingly well-sourced Wikipedia articles. At the same time, this story points to the way popular history authors can become influential creators of historical knowledge. It also showcases the power of Wikipedia and the Internet to spread this knowledge.
So is Merit Ptah “real”? From a strictly historical standpoint, she is not. No woman of this name was attested as a healer in ancient Egypt, and the entire story of Merit Ptah began in 1930s as a mistaken case of an authentic ancient Egyptian women healer, Peseshet. Yet throughout the nearly 100 years of her literary existence, Merit Ptah left a permanent mark on the world. Her namesake – the Venusian crater – is a lasting extraterrestrial geographical feature. At the same time, on planet Earth, Merit Ptah appears in the most diverse places, from computer games and superhero TV shows, through children’s adventure books, to names of medical social cooperatives and cancer-fighting societies.110 She inspired women to pursue careers in medicine and science. Her history, from the Hurd-Mead’s works to Internet blogs, tracks the evolution of the popular historiography of women’s achievements. She engaged with us in a way that most of past actors never did. Thus, while Merit Ptah is not an authentic ancient Egyptian character and not a good symbolic founding figure, she is a real symbol of the collective effort to write women back into history. She is a genuine hero of the modern feminist struggle.
Abstract: Merit Ptah is widely described as “the first woman physician and scientist” on the Internet and in popular history books. This essay explores the origins of this figure, showing that Merit Ptah came into being in the 1930s when Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead misinterpreted a report about an authentic ancient Egyptian healer. Merit Ptah gradually became a prominent figure in popular historical accounts during second-wave of feminism, and, in the twenty-first century she appeared in Wikipedia and subsequently spread throughout the Internet as a female (sometimes black African) founding figure. The history of Merit Ptah reveals powerful mechanisms of knowledge creation in the network of amateur historians, independently from the scholarly community. The case of Merit Ptah also pinpoints factors enabling the spread of erroneous historical accounts: the absence of professional audience, the development of echo chambers due to an obscured chain of knowledge transmission, the wide reach of the Internet, the coherence with existing preconceptions, the emotional charge of heritage, and even – in the case of ancient Egypt – the tendency to perceive certain pasts through a legendary lens. At the same time, the story of Merit Ptah reveals how important role models have been for women entering science and medicine.
CONCLUSION: IS SHE REAL?
The history of Merit Ptah provides no insight into ancient Egypt, but it could be a starting point for reflection on modern history-making practices. There is no single reason why an invented character, mentioned in a book nearly a century ago, has become a widespread piece of historic trivia. Instead, there is a tangle of explanations. Some of these are specific to the case of Merit Ptah, such as the peculiar popular perception of her ancient Egyptian setting. Others are generalizable for all kinds of amateur historymaking, popular memory, or even for mass-media news: the obscure chain of transmission, the spread outside the expert circles, the conformity to preexisting biases, and the association with emotionally-charged partisan issues. These facilitating factors – and some serendipity – turned the imaginary Merit Ptah into one of the few widely recognizable medical women of antiquity, obscuring her historically attested Egyptian colleagues.
Sometimes it is possible to separate different kinds of the past: the remembered (found in a popular memory), the recovered (a “history” reconstructed by scholars), or the invented (a past designed for a particular purpose).108 However, as the case of Merit Ptah illustrates, these kinds are intertwined more often than not. Invented and retold for a feminist purpose, her story was nevertheless created as a part of a recovery endeavor, and it eventually entered the collective memory. By collapsing the distinctions between different kinds of historical practice, and by straddling the divide between history and popular memory, the case of Merit Ptah demonstrates that “history is not the prerogative of the historian, nor even (...) a historian’s invention. It is, rather, a social form of knowledge.”109 Merit Ptah became famous not despite, but thanks to the amateur environment in which her story was curated. Developed by the interested parties in response to contemporary needs, her history fulfilled the demand for meaningful and usable past.
Merit Ptah’s story is a warning about over-reliance on secondary sources, and about misleading character of historical information in the Internet – including even seemingly well-sourced Wikipedia articles. At the same time, this story points to the way popular history authors can become influential creators of historical knowledge. It also showcases the power of Wikipedia and the Internet to spread this knowledge.
So is Merit Ptah “real”? From a strictly historical standpoint, she is not. No woman of this name was attested as a healer in ancient Egypt, and the entire story of Merit Ptah began in 1930s as a mistaken case of an authentic ancient Egyptian women healer, Peseshet. Yet throughout the nearly 100 years of her literary existence, Merit Ptah left a permanent mark on the world. Her namesake – the Venusian crater – is a lasting extraterrestrial geographical feature. At the same time, on planet Earth, Merit Ptah appears in the most diverse places, from computer games and superhero TV shows, through children’s adventure books, to names of medical social cooperatives and cancer-fighting societies.110 She inspired women to pursue careers in medicine and science. Her history, from the Hurd-Mead’s works to Internet blogs, tracks the evolution of the popular historiography of women’s achievements. She engaged with us in a way that most of past actors never did. Thus, while Merit Ptah is not an authentic ancient Egyptian character and not a good symbolic founding figure, she is a real symbol of the collective effort to write women back into history. She is a genuine hero of the modern feminist struggle.
Impeachment Non-Bombshells Endanger Democrats in 2020. Aaron Maté
Impeachment Non-Bombshells Endanger Democrats in 2020. Aaron Maté. The Nation, Nov 22 2019.
Unmerited hype about Gordon Sondland’s testimony has overshadowed the potential damage that the impeachment saga poses for the presidential election.
https://www.thenation.com/article/impeachment-sondland-democrats/
[full text, lots of references at the link above]
Two weeks of public hearings in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump closed with widespread talk of a new “bombshell” that had sealed the case, and with it the fate of Trump’s presidency. But rather than producing a Watergate-like moment, the Ukrainegate testimony was far more akin to its predecessor, Russiagate, and accordingly, far more likely to produce the same disappointing result.
The basis for the excitement was the testimony of Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union. Sondland is one of the few witnesses to have actually spoken to Trump, and the only known US official said to have relayed to Ukrainian counterparts that money to purchase US weapons—known as “military aid” or “security sector assistance”—was conditioned on Kiev’s commitment to open investigations.
The consensus interpretation of Sondland’s testimony is that he confirmed that such a scheme transpired. Indeed, in his opening statement, Sondland asserted that there was a “quid pro quo” and that “everyone was in the loop.” Widely overlooked is that Sondland was not referring to the military funding. Instead, Sondland said that Rudy Giuliani told US officials and Ukrainians that a Ukrainian commitment to open investigations were “prerequisites” for a White House meeting and phone call sought by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But leveraging a White House meeting or phone call is not the “quid” at the heart of the impeachment inquiry: leveraging military funding is. And on that front, Sondland’s testimony did not advance the Democrats’ case.
When questioning began, Sondland made clear that Trump never told him that the military funding was contingent on investigations. In fact, he said that Trump never mentioned that military funding at all. The idea that it was conditioned on the investigations did not come from Trump, but, as Sondland explained, from his own interpretation “in the absence of any credible explanation” for why the money had been frozen.
Asked by Representative Adam Schiff whether “the military assistance was also being withheld pending Zelensky announcing these investigations,” Sondland replied: “That was my presumption. My personal presumption based on the facts at the time. Nothing was moving.” He then told Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman the same thing: “President Trump never told me directly that the aid was conditioned on the meetings. The only thing we got directly from [Rudy] Guiliani was that the Burisma and 2016 elections were conditioned on the White House meeting. The aid was my own personal, you know, guess.” And yet again: “Nobody told me directly that the aid was tied to anything. I was presuming it was.”
Sondland repeated the same message again and again, including in this exchange with Republican Representative Mike Turner:
Rep Mike Turner No one on this planet told you that President Trump was tying aid to investigations. Yes or no?
Ambass Sondland Yes.
Rep Mike Turner So, you really have no testimony today that ties President Trump to a scheme to withhold aid from Ukraine in exchange for these investigations?
Ambass Sondland Other than my own presumption.
Because he was only operating off of his “own presumption,” Sondland also revealed that a critical conversation with a Ukrainian official, Andriy Yermak, was far less explosive than initially believed. Two US officials—Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, a National Security Council aide—had testified that Sondland had linked the military funding to the investigations in a conversation with Yermak in Warsaw on September 1. This was a critical claim, as it potentially showed the first—and to this date, the only—explicit communication of such a linkage to the Ukrainian side.
But Sondland disclosed that he told Yermak exactly what he told Congress: that in the absence of an explanation for why the military aid had been frozen, he shared with his Ukrainian counterpart—in “a very, very brief pull-aside conversation”—that he merely presumed the freeze was tied to Ukraine’s willingness to announce an investigation:
And I don’t know if I came over to Yermak or he came over to me, but he said, “What’s going on here?” And I said, “I don’t know. It might all be tied together now, I have no idea.” I was presuming that it was, but it was a very short conversation.…
[…]
That was my presumption, my personal presumption based on the facts at the time, nothing was moving.
Sondland reiterated the point under questioning from Goldman, saying that he even told Yermak that: “I didn’t know exactly why” the freeze had been made, but that the investigations “could be a reason.”
Sondland’s presumption may well have been correct. The freeze on the military funding coincided with efforts by Trump officials to pressure the Ukrainian government to open investigations into alleged Ukrainian meddling in 2016 and Burisma, the Ukrainian firm where Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, obtained a lucrative board seat. But as I’ve written previously, a plausible presumption is not the same as evidence for a provable, impeachment-worthy case. And Sondland showed Congress that he only has the former. If he has no actual evidence that the military funding was linked to investigations (as he admitted in his testimony), then what he “presumed” and “believed” is just as useful for the purposes of an impeachment case as what anyone else presumed or believed. Another key US official, Kurt Volker, testified that he saw no such linkage at the time, and that he never conveyed such a connection to Ukraine (Volker has, however, revised his testimony to reflect that he now understands that an investigation of Biden was sought). And given that Sondland is the only known Trump official thought to have communicated the military funding precondition to the Ukrainian side, then he is in fact providing evidence that when such linkage, the basis for the impeachment case, was communicated to the Ukrainians, it was not at Trump’s behest.
If the evidence presented by the Democrats’ star witness is in fact only his “personal presumption” on the core issue, then Democrats face a major evidentiary hole. To date, no one else has filled it.
The impeachment hearings leave us with a gap between the evidence presented and the maximalist, “bombshell” interpretations drawn from it. That’s nothing new. The same dynamic drove Russiagate for nearly three years until it collapsed. And just like Russiagate, a major driver of Ukrainegate is an underlying hawkish posture toward Russia. It is abundantly clear that witness after witness disagreed with Trump’s decision to briefly freeze the military funding, and firmly believes that the United States should arm Ukraine in its conflict with Russian-backed forces in the Donbass region.
What is not at all clear is why anyone beyond Beltway war hawks should be enrolled in their Cold War designs. Schiff, the impeachment leader, declared that Ukrainians fighting Russian-backed forces are “fighting our fight too, to defend our country against Russian aggression.” In reality, Ukrainians are fighting a war that the United States helped start by backing the overthrow of a democratically elected Ukrainian government in 2014. President Barack Obama, who bears some responsibility for that war, tried to scale it back by rejecting intense Beltway pressure to send the military funding now at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. Among those national security state voices whose pleas Obama rebuffed was Bill Taylor, the Democrats’ opening witness.
If Democrats weren’t so invested in championing military spending that President Obama once resisted, they might see other phone calls beyond the July 25 Trump-Zelensky conversation to take issue with. In closed-door testimony, Pentagon official Laura Cooper revealed that concern about the frozen military funding arose after the defense department heard complaints from the funding’s prime beneficiaries: weapons manufacturers. After mid-August, Cooper said, “various folks in the Department started to get phone calls from industry”—the military industry that wanted its weapons purchased. “All of these US firms that were implementing [the weapons sales to Ukraine]—they were getting concerned,” Cooper added. So was the US Chamber of Commerce, which called her as well.
In a different time, a liberal opposition movement might be raising concerns of its own about war-profiteering phone calls; or the merits of fueling a war on the borders of the world’s other top nuclear power; or doing so in a way that arms and empowers far-right forces incorporated within the Ukrainian military. Instead, Democrats have been enlisted to champion that proxy war and the coffers of the military firms that profit from it.
The domestic consequences are no less important. As Democrats and media outlets devote endless hours to venerating a procession of hawkish bureaucrats and parsing their every word, issues that materially affect the lives of average voters are going—just as they were in the Russiagate era—largely ignored.
And for all of the speculation about a Trump presidency in peril and Republicans jumping ship, some signs point in a different direction. “As a political matter, the longer this goes, it is a real opportunity for Republicans to paint Democrats as unconcerned about the issues voters care more about,” a Republican strategist told The New York Times. Eyeing that chance, Republicans are discussing a strategy that would prolong a Senate impeachment trial as long as possible so as to overshadow the Democratic primary—“potentially keeping six contenders in Washington until the eve of the Iowa caucuses or longer,” The Washington Post notes.
Two of those contenders include the leading progressive candidates, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Couple the prospect of slowing their momentum with an impeachment process that to date has failed to substantiate its core allegation, and it is hard not to wonder if Democrats are staging a Russiagate sequel in more ways than one: “bombshells” that fizzle out, dangerous Cold War chauvinism emboldened, and Trump handed another gift for the fast-approaching 2020 campaign.
Aaron Maté is a frequent contributor to The Nation and the host of the new show Pushback, airing on The Grayzone.
Unmerited hype about Gordon Sondland’s testimony has overshadowed the potential damage that the impeachment saga poses for the presidential election.
https://www.thenation.com/article/impeachment-sondland-democrats/
[full text, lots of references at the link above]
Two weeks of public hearings in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump closed with widespread talk of a new “bombshell” that had sealed the case, and with it the fate of Trump’s presidency. But rather than producing a Watergate-like moment, the Ukrainegate testimony was far more akin to its predecessor, Russiagate, and accordingly, far more likely to produce the same disappointing result.
The basis for the excitement was the testimony of Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union. Sondland is one of the few witnesses to have actually spoken to Trump, and the only known US official said to have relayed to Ukrainian counterparts that money to purchase US weapons—known as “military aid” or “security sector assistance”—was conditioned on Kiev’s commitment to open investigations.
The consensus interpretation of Sondland’s testimony is that he confirmed that such a scheme transpired. Indeed, in his opening statement, Sondland asserted that there was a “quid pro quo” and that “everyone was in the loop.” Widely overlooked is that Sondland was not referring to the military funding. Instead, Sondland said that Rudy Giuliani told US officials and Ukrainians that a Ukrainian commitment to open investigations were “prerequisites” for a White House meeting and phone call sought by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But leveraging a White House meeting or phone call is not the “quid” at the heart of the impeachment inquiry: leveraging military funding is. And on that front, Sondland’s testimony did not advance the Democrats’ case.
When questioning began, Sondland made clear that Trump never told him that the military funding was contingent on investigations. In fact, he said that Trump never mentioned that military funding at all. The idea that it was conditioned on the investigations did not come from Trump, but, as Sondland explained, from his own interpretation “in the absence of any credible explanation” for why the money had been frozen.
Asked by Representative Adam Schiff whether “the military assistance was also being withheld pending Zelensky announcing these investigations,” Sondland replied: “That was my presumption. My personal presumption based on the facts at the time. Nothing was moving.” He then told Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman the same thing: “President Trump never told me directly that the aid was conditioned on the meetings. The only thing we got directly from [Rudy] Guiliani was that the Burisma and 2016 elections were conditioned on the White House meeting. The aid was my own personal, you know, guess.” And yet again: “Nobody told me directly that the aid was tied to anything. I was presuming it was.”
Sondland repeated the same message again and again, including in this exchange with Republican Representative Mike Turner:
Rep Mike Turner No one on this planet told you that President Trump was tying aid to investigations. Yes or no?
Ambass Sondland Yes.
Rep Mike Turner So, you really have no testimony today that ties President Trump to a scheme to withhold aid from Ukraine in exchange for these investigations?
Ambass Sondland Other than my own presumption.
Because he was only operating off of his “own presumption,” Sondland also revealed that a critical conversation with a Ukrainian official, Andriy Yermak, was far less explosive than initially believed. Two US officials—Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, a National Security Council aide—had testified that Sondland had linked the military funding to the investigations in a conversation with Yermak in Warsaw on September 1. This was a critical claim, as it potentially showed the first—and to this date, the only—explicit communication of such a linkage to the Ukrainian side.
But Sondland disclosed that he told Yermak exactly what he told Congress: that in the absence of an explanation for why the military aid had been frozen, he shared with his Ukrainian counterpart—in “a very, very brief pull-aside conversation”—that he merely presumed the freeze was tied to Ukraine’s willingness to announce an investigation:
And I don’t know if I came over to Yermak or he came over to me, but he said, “What’s going on here?” And I said, “I don’t know. It might all be tied together now, I have no idea.” I was presuming that it was, but it was a very short conversation.…
[…]
That was my presumption, my personal presumption based on the facts at the time, nothing was moving.
Sondland reiterated the point under questioning from Goldman, saying that he even told Yermak that: “I didn’t know exactly why” the freeze had been made, but that the investigations “could be a reason.”
Sondland’s presumption may well have been correct. The freeze on the military funding coincided with efforts by Trump officials to pressure the Ukrainian government to open investigations into alleged Ukrainian meddling in 2016 and Burisma, the Ukrainian firm where Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, obtained a lucrative board seat. But as I’ve written previously, a plausible presumption is not the same as evidence for a provable, impeachment-worthy case. And Sondland showed Congress that he only has the former. If he has no actual evidence that the military funding was linked to investigations (as he admitted in his testimony), then what he “presumed” and “believed” is just as useful for the purposes of an impeachment case as what anyone else presumed or believed. Another key US official, Kurt Volker, testified that he saw no such linkage at the time, and that he never conveyed such a connection to Ukraine (Volker has, however, revised his testimony to reflect that he now understands that an investigation of Biden was sought). And given that Sondland is the only known Trump official thought to have communicated the military funding precondition to the Ukrainian side, then he is in fact providing evidence that when such linkage, the basis for the impeachment case, was communicated to the Ukrainians, it was not at Trump’s behest.
If the evidence presented by the Democrats’ star witness is in fact only his “personal presumption” on the core issue, then Democrats face a major evidentiary hole. To date, no one else has filled it.
The impeachment hearings leave us with a gap between the evidence presented and the maximalist, “bombshell” interpretations drawn from it. That’s nothing new. The same dynamic drove Russiagate for nearly three years until it collapsed. And just like Russiagate, a major driver of Ukrainegate is an underlying hawkish posture toward Russia. It is abundantly clear that witness after witness disagreed with Trump’s decision to briefly freeze the military funding, and firmly believes that the United States should arm Ukraine in its conflict with Russian-backed forces in the Donbass region.
What is not at all clear is why anyone beyond Beltway war hawks should be enrolled in their Cold War designs. Schiff, the impeachment leader, declared that Ukrainians fighting Russian-backed forces are “fighting our fight too, to defend our country against Russian aggression.” In reality, Ukrainians are fighting a war that the United States helped start by backing the overthrow of a democratically elected Ukrainian government in 2014. President Barack Obama, who bears some responsibility for that war, tried to scale it back by rejecting intense Beltway pressure to send the military funding now at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. Among those national security state voices whose pleas Obama rebuffed was Bill Taylor, the Democrats’ opening witness.
If Democrats weren’t so invested in championing military spending that President Obama once resisted, they might see other phone calls beyond the July 25 Trump-Zelensky conversation to take issue with. In closed-door testimony, Pentagon official Laura Cooper revealed that concern about the frozen military funding arose after the defense department heard complaints from the funding’s prime beneficiaries: weapons manufacturers. After mid-August, Cooper said, “various folks in the Department started to get phone calls from industry”—the military industry that wanted its weapons purchased. “All of these US firms that were implementing [the weapons sales to Ukraine]—they were getting concerned,” Cooper added. So was the US Chamber of Commerce, which called her as well.
In a different time, a liberal opposition movement might be raising concerns of its own about war-profiteering phone calls; or the merits of fueling a war on the borders of the world’s other top nuclear power; or doing so in a way that arms and empowers far-right forces incorporated within the Ukrainian military. Instead, Democrats have been enlisted to champion that proxy war and the coffers of the military firms that profit from it.
The domestic consequences are no less important. As Democrats and media outlets devote endless hours to venerating a procession of hawkish bureaucrats and parsing their every word, issues that materially affect the lives of average voters are going—just as they were in the Russiagate era—largely ignored.
And for all of the speculation about a Trump presidency in peril and Republicans jumping ship, some signs point in a different direction. “As a political matter, the longer this goes, it is a real opportunity for Republicans to paint Democrats as unconcerned about the issues voters care more about,” a Republican strategist told The New York Times. Eyeing that chance, Republicans are discussing a strategy that would prolong a Senate impeachment trial as long as possible so as to overshadow the Democratic primary—“potentially keeping six contenders in Washington until the eve of the Iowa caucuses or longer,” The Washington Post notes.
Two of those contenders include the leading progressive candidates, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Couple the prospect of slowing their momentum with an impeachment process that to date has failed to substantiate its core allegation, and it is hard not to wonder if Democrats are staging a Russiagate sequel in more ways than one: “bombshells” that fizzle out, dangerous Cold War chauvinism emboldened, and Trump handed another gift for the fast-approaching 2020 campaign.
Aaron Maté is a frequent contributor to The Nation and the host of the new show Pushback, airing on The Grayzone.
We argue against a “post-truth” interpretation, whereby people deliberately share false content because it furthers their political agenda
Pennycook, Gordon, Ziv Epstein, Mohsen Mosleh, Antonio A. Arechar, Dean Eckles, and David G. Rand. 2019. “Understanding and Reducing the Spread of Misinformation Online.” PsyArXiv. November 13. doi:10.31234/osf.io/3n9u8
Abstract: The spread of false and misleading news on social media is of great societal concern. Why do people share such content, and what can be done about it? In a first survey experiment (N=1,015), we demonstrate a dissociation between accuracy judgments and sharing intentions: even though true headlines are rated as much more accurate than false headlines, headline veracity has little impact on sharing. We argue against a “post-truth” interpretation, whereby people deliberately share false content because it furthers their political agenda. Instead, we propose that the problem is simply distraction: most people do not want to spread misinformation, but are distracted from accuracy by other salient motives when choosing what to share. Indeed, when directly asked, most participants say it is important to only share accurate news. Accordingly, across three survey experiments (total N=2775) and an experiment on Twitter in which we messaged N=5,482 users who had previously shared news from misleading websites, we find that subtly inducing people to think about the concept of accuracy decreases their sharing of false and misleading news relative to accurate news. Together, these results challenge the popular post-truth narrative. Instead, they suggest that many people are capable of detecting low-quality news content, but nonetheless share such content online because social media is not conducive to thinking analytically about truth and accuracy. Furthermore, our results translate directly into a scalable anti-misinformation intervention that is easily implementable by social media platforms.
---
Given the greater complexity of the experimental design and tweet data, there are numerous reasonable ways to analyze the data. For simplicity, we focus on an analysis in which both primary tweets and retweets are analyzed, data is excluded from one day on which a technical issue led to randomization failure, and the simplest admissible model structure is used (wave fixed effects, p-values calculated in the standard fashion using linear regression with robust standard errors clustered on user); and then assess robustness to varying the specification.
Consistent with our survey experiments, we find clear evidence that the accuracy message made users more discerning in their subsequent sharing decisions. Relative to baseline, the accuracy message increased the average quality of the news sources shared, t(5481)=2.61, p=0.009, and the total quality of shared sources summed over all posts, t(5481)=2.68, p=0.007, by 1.9% and 3.5% respectively. Furthermore, the treatment roughly doubled the level of sharing discernment (0.05 more mainstream than misinformation links shared per user-day pre-treatment; 0.10 more mainstream than misinformation links shared per user-day post-treatment; interaction between post-treatment dummy and link type, t(5481)=2.75, p=0.006). Conversely, we found no significant treatment effect on the number of posts without links to any of the 60 rated news sites, t(5481)=.31, p=0.76, which is consistent with the specificity of the treatment.
This pattern of results is not unique to one particular set of analytic choices. Figure 3C shows the distribution of p-values observed in 96 different analyses assessing the treatment effect on average quality, summed quality, or discernment under a variety of analytic choices. Of these analyses, 80.2% indicate a significant positive treatment effect (and none of 32 analyses of posts without links to a rated site find a significant treatment effect). For statistical details, see SI.
Finally, we examine the data at the level of the domain (Figure 3D). We see that the treatment effect is driven by increasing the fraction of rated-site posts with links to mainstream new sites with strong editorial standards such as the New York Times, and decreasing the fraction of rated-site posts that linked to relatively untrustworthy hyperpartisan sites such as the Daily Caller. Indeed, a domain-level pairwise correlation between fact-checker rating and change in sharing due to the intervention shows a very strong positive relationship (domains weighted by number of pre-treatment posts; r=0.70). In sum, our accuracy message successfully induced Twitter users who regularly shared misinformation to increase the quality of the news they shared.
Together, these studies shed new light on why people share misinformation, and introduce a new class of interventions aimed at reducing its spread. Our results suggest that, at least for many people, the misinformation problem is not driven by a basic inability to tell which content is inaccurate, or a desire to purposefully share inaccurate content. Instead, our findings implicate inattention on the part of people who are able to determine the accuracy of content (if they put their mind to it) and who are motivated to avoid sharing inaccurate content (if they realize it is inaccurate). It seems as though people are often distracted from considering the content’s accuracy by other motives when deciding what to share on social media – and therefore, drawing attention to the concept of accuracy can nudge people toward reducing their sharing of misinformation.
These findings have important implications for theories of partisan bias, political psychology, and motivated reasoning. First, at a general level, the dissociation we observed between accuracy judgments and sharing intentions suggests that just because someone shares a piece of news on social media does not necessarily mean that they believe it – and thus, that the widespread sharing of false or misleading partisan content should not necessarily be taken as an indication of the widespread adoption of false beliefs or explicit agreement with hyperpartisan narratives. Furthermore, our results sound a rather optimistic note in an arena which is typically much more pessimistic: rather than partisan bias blinding our participants to the veracity of claims (Kahan, 2017; Kahan et al., 2017), or making them knowing disseminators of ideologically-confirming misinformation (Hochschild & Einstein, 2016; McIntyre, 2018; Petersen et al., 2018), our results suggest that many people mistakenly choose to share misinformation because they were merely distracted from considering the content’s accuracy.
Identifying which particular motives are most active when on social media – and thus are most important for distracting people from accuracy – is an important direction for future work. Another issue for future work is more precisely identifying people’s state of belief when not reflecting on accuracy: Is it that people hold no particular belief one way or the other, or that they tend to assume content is true by default (31)? Although our results do not differentiate between these possibilities, prior work suggesting that intuitive processes support belief in false headlines (10, 32) lends some credence to the latter possibility. Similarly, future work should investigate why most people think it is important to only share accuracy content (33) – differentiating, for example, between an internalized desire for accuracy versus reputation-based concerns. Finally, future work should examine how these results generalize across different subsets of the American population, and – even more importantly – cross-culturally, given that misinformation is a major problem in areas of the world that have very different cultures and histories from the United States.
From an applied perspective, our results highlight an often overlooked avenue by which social media fosters the spread of misinformation. Rather than (or in addition to) the phenomenon of echo chambers and filter-bubbles (34, 35), social media platforms may actually discourage people from reflecting on accuracy (36). These platforms are designed to encourage users to rapidly scroll and spontaneously engage with feeds of content, and mix serious news content with emotionally engaging content where accuracy is not a relevant feature (e.g., photos of babies, videos of cats knocking objects off tables for no good reason). Social media platforms also provide immediate quantified social feedback (e.g., number of likes, shares, etc.) on users’ posts and are a space which users come to relax rather than engage in critical thinking. These factors imply that social media platforms may, by design, tilt users away from considering accuracy when making sharing decisions.
But this need not be the case. Our treatment translates easily into interventions that social media platforms could employ to increase users' focus on accuracy. For example, platforms could periodically ask users to rate the accuracy of randomly selected headlines (e.g. “to help inform algorithms”) – thus reminding them about accuracy in a subtle way that should avoid reactance. The platforms also have the resources to optimize the presentation and details of the messaging, likely leading to effect sizes much larger than what we observed here in the proof-of-concept offered by Study 5. This optimization should include investigations of which messaging and sample headlines lead to the largest effects for which subgroups, how the effect decays over time (our stepped-wedge design did not provide sufficient statistical power to look beyond a 24 hour window), how to minimize adaptation to repeated exposure to the intervention (e.g. by regularly changing the form and content of the messages), and whether adding a normative component to our primarily cognitive intervention can increase its effectiveness. Approaches such as the one we propose could potentially increase the quality of news circulating online without relying on a centralized institution to certify truth and censor falsehood.
Abstract: The spread of false and misleading news on social media is of great societal concern. Why do people share such content, and what can be done about it? In a first survey experiment (N=1,015), we demonstrate a dissociation between accuracy judgments and sharing intentions: even though true headlines are rated as much more accurate than false headlines, headline veracity has little impact on sharing. We argue against a “post-truth” interpretation, whereby people deliberately share false content because it furthers their political agenda. Instead, we propose that the problem is simply distraction: most people do not want to spread misinformation, but are distracted from accuracy by other salient motives when choosing what to share. Indeed, when directly asked, most participants say it is important to only share accurate news. Accordingly, across three survey experiments (total N=2775) and an experiment on Twitter in which we messaged N=5,482 users who had previously shared news from misleading websites, we find that subtly inducing people to think about the concept of accuracy decreases their sharing of false and misleading news relative to accurate news. Together, these results challenge the popular post-truth narrative. Instead, they suggest that many people are capable of detecting low-quality news content, but nonetheless share such content online because social media is not conducive to thinking analytically about truth and accuracy. Furthermore, our results translate directly into a scalable anti-misinformation intervention that is easily implementable by social media platforms.
---
Given the greater complexity of the experimental design and tweet data, there are numerous reasonable ways to analyze the data. For simplicity, we focus on an analysis in which both primary tweets and retweets are analyzed, data is excluded from one day on which a technical issue led to randomization failure, and the simplest admissible model structure is used (wave fixed effects, p-values calculated in the standard fashion using linear regression with robust standard errors clustered on user); and then assess robustness to varying the specification.
Consistent with our survey experiments, we find clear evidence that the accuracy message made users more discerning in their subsequent sharing decisions. Relative to baseline, the accuracy message increased the average quality of the news sources shared, t(5481)=2.61, p=0.009, and the total quality of shared sources summed over all posts, t(5481)=2.68, p=0.007, by 1.9% and 3.5% respectively. Furthermore, the treatment roughly doubled the level of sharing discernment (0.05 more mainstream than misinformation links shared per user-day pre-treatment; 0.10 more mainstream than misinformation links shared per user-day post-treatment; interaction between post-treatment dummy and link type, t(5481)=2.75, p=0.006). Conversely, we found no significant treatment effect on the number of posts without links to any of the 60 rated news sites, t(5481)=.31, p=0.76, which is consistent with the specificity of the treatment.
This pattern of results is not unique to one particular set of analytic choices. Figure 3C shows the distribution of p-values observed in 96 different analyses assessing the treatment effect on average quality, summed quality, or discernment under a variety of analytic choices. Of these analyses, 80.2% indicate a significant positive treatment effect (and none of 32 analyses of posts without links to a rated site find a significant treatment effect). For statistical details, see SI.
Finally, we examine the data at the level of the domain (Figure 3D). We see that the treatment effect is driven by increasing the fraction of rated-site posts with links to mainstream new sites with strong editorial standards such as the New York Times, and decreasing the fraction of rated-site posts that linked to relatively untrustworthy hyperpartisan sites such as the Daily Caller. Indeed, a domain-level pairwise correlation between fact-checker rating and change in sharing due to the intervention shows a very strong positive relationship (domains weighted by number of pre-treatment posts; r=0.70). In sum, our accuracy message successfully induced Twitter users who regularly shared misinformation to increase the quality of the news they shared.
Together, these studies shed new light on why people share misinformation, and introduce a new class of interventions aimed at reducing its spread. Our results suggest that, at least for many people, the misinformation problem is not driven by a basic inability to tell which content is inaccurate, or a desire to purposefully share inaccurate content. Instead, our findings implicate inattention on the part of people who are able to determine the accuracy of content (if they put their mind to it) and who are motivated to avoid sharing inaccurate content (if they realize it is inaccurate). It seems as though people are often distracted from considering the content’s accuracy by other motives when deciding what to share on social media – and therefore, drawing attention to the concept of accuracy can nudge people toward reducing their sharing of misinformation.
These findings have important implications for theories of partisan bias, political psychology, and motivated reasoning. First, at a general level, the dissociation we observed between accuracy judgments and sharing intentions suggests that just because someone shares a piece of news on social media does not necessarily mean that they believe it – and thus, that the widespread sharing of false or misleading partisan content should not necessarily be taken as an indication of the widespread adoption of false beliefs or explicit agreement with hyperpartisan narratives. Furthermore, our results sound a rather optimistic note in an arena which is typically much more pessimistic: rather than partisan bias blinding our participants to the veracity of claims (Kahan, 2017; Kahan et al., 2017), or making them knowing disseminators of ideologically-confirming misinformation (Hochschild & Einstein, 2016; McIntyre, 2018; Petersen et al., 2018), our results suggest that many people mistakenly choose to share misinformation because they were merely distracted from considering the content’s accuracy.
Identifying which particular motives are most active when on social media – and thus are most important for distracting people from accuracy – is an important direction for future work. Another issue for future work is more precisely identifying people’s state of belief when not reflecting on accuracy: Is it that people hold no particular belief one way or the other, or that they tend to assume content is true by default (31)? Although our results do not differentiate between these possibilities, prior work suggesting that intuitive processes support belief in false headlines (10, 32) lends some credence to the latter possibility. Similarly, future work should investigate why most people think it is important to only share accuracy content (33) – differentiating, for example, between an internalized desire for accuracy versus reputation-based concerns. Finally, future work should examine how these results generalize across different subsets of the American population, and – even more importantly – cross-culturally, given that misinformation is a major problem in areas of the world that have very different cultures and histories from the United States.
From an applied perspective, our results highlight an often overlooked avenue by which social media fosters the spread of misinformation. Rather than (or in addition to) the phenomenon of echo chambers and filter-bubbles (34, 35), social media platforms may actually discourage people from reflecting on accuracy (36). These platforms are designed to encourage users to rapidly scroll and spontaneously engage with feeds of content, and mix serious news content with emotionally engaging content where accuracy is not a relevant feature (e.g., photos of babies, videos of cats knocking objects off tables for no good reason). Social media platforms also provide immediate quantified social feedback (e.g., number of likes, shares, etc.) on users’ posts and are a space which users come to relax rather than engage in critical thinking. These factors imply that social media platforms may, by design, tilt users away from considering accuracy when making sharing decisions.
But this need not be the case. Our treatment translates easily into interventions that social media platforms could employ to increase users' focus on accuracy. For example, platforms could periodically ask users to rate the accuracy of randomly selected headlines (e.g. “to help inform algorithms”) – thus reminding them about accuracy in a subtle way that should avoid reactance. The platforms also have the resources to optimize the presentation and details of the messaging, likely leading to effect sizes much larger than what we observed here in the proof-of-concept offered by Study 5. This optimization should include investigations of which messaging and sample headlines lead to the largest effects for which subgroups, how the effect decays over time (our stepped-wedge design did not provide sufficient statistical power to look beyond a 24 hour window), how to minimize adaptation to repeated exposure to the intervention (e.g. by regularly changing the form and content of the messages), and whether adding a normative component to our primarily cognitive intervention can increase its effectiveness. Approaches such as the one we propose could potentially increase the quality of news circulating online without relying on a centralized institution to certify truth and censor falsehood.
Stress-tested banks have sharply reduced home equity loans to small businesses; & counties with a higher exposure to those banks have seen a decline in patent applications by young firms, as well as a fall in labour productivity
Unintended side effects: stress tests, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Sebastian Doerr. BIS Working Papers, No 823, November 22 2019. https://www.bis.org/publ/work823.htm
Regulators have introduced stress tests for the largest banks with the aim of ensuring that they hold enough capital to withstand another crisis. Stress tests have effectively reduced systemic risk and improved risk management and capital planning at individual institutions. However, policymakers and academics worry about the potential negative effects on credit and the real economy. This paper investigates how regulatory stress tests may have affected entrepreneurship in the United States.
Contribution
Contributing to the literature that highlights some negative consequences of stress tests on credit supply to small businesses, this paper presents new evidence on the real effects of financial regulation. Regulatory stress tests for the largest banks might have an unintended side effect by curtailing credit to young businesses, which are especially dependent on external financing. The contraction in lending has the potential to stymie entrepreneurship and innovation. This novel channel, through which stress tests dampen economic dynamism, could help to explain the persistent decline in entrepreneurship since the crisis.
Findings
Stress-tested banks have sharply reduced home equity loans to small businesses, an important source of financing for entrepreneurs. The resulting contraction in loan supply has affected the real economy. By exploiting geographical variation in county exposure to stress-tested banks, the paper shows that counties with a higher exposure have experienced a relative decline in employment at young firms during the recovery, especially in industries that rely more on home equity financing.
Additional findings also suggest that counties with a higher exposure to stress-tested banks have seen a decline in patent applications by young firms, as well as a fall in labour productivity. The latter finding reflects the disproportionate contribution of young firms to innovation and growth. While the results do not imply that stress tests have reduced overall welfare, they highlight a possible trade-off between financial stability and economic dynamism.
Abstract: Post-crisis stress tests have helped to enhance financial stability and to reduce banks' risk-taking. In order to quantify their overall impact, regulators have turned to evaluating the effects of stress tests on financing and the real economy. Using the U.S. as a laboratory, this paper shows that stress tests have had potentially unintended side effects on entrepreneurship and innovation at young firms. Banks subject to stress tests have strongly cut small business loans secured by home equity, an important source of financing for entrepreneurs. Lower credit supply has led to a relative decline in entrepreneurship during the recovery in counties with higher exposure to stress tested banks. The decline has been steeper in sectors with a higher share of young firms using home equity financing, i.e. where the reduction in credit hit hardest. Counties with higher exposure have also seen a decline in patent applications by young firms. I provide suggestive evidence that the decline in credit has negatively affected labor productivity, reflecting young firms' disproportionate contribution to growth. My results do not imply that stress tests reduce welfare, but highlight a possible trade-off between financial stability and economic dynamism. The effects of stress tests on entrepreneurship should be taken into account when evaluating their effectiveness.
JEL codes: G20, G21, L26
Keywords: stress tests, small business lending, entrepreneurship, innovation, productivity slowdown
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