Effectiveness of public apologies for sexual misconduct: More comprehensive & less defensive apologies received more favorable reactions; denials were viewed more favorably by men than women

Is moral redemption possible? The effectiveness of public apologies for sexual misconduct. Karina Schumann, Anna Dragotta. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 90, September 2020, 104002. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104002

Highlights
• Examined reactions to apologies by public figures accused of sexual misconduct.
• More comprehensive and less defensive apologies received more favorable reactions.
• Denials were viewed more favorably by men than women.
• General attitudes toward apologies during #MeToo movement were slightly negative.
• Advances knowledge of public apologies, with comparisons to interpersonal apologies.

Abstract: Amidst an international movement against sexual violence in 2017, hundreds of high-profile men were accused of sexual misconduct, and people's news feeds were flooded with apologies issued by many of these men. In five studies (N = 1931), we examined people's reactions to these apologies, with a focus on how their perceived content (participants' evaluations of how comprehensive and non-defensive they were), the gender of the audience, and the severity of the allegations against the accused influenced their effectiveness relative to denials and “no comment” statements. Using both real statements issued during the #MeToo movement (Study 1) and experimentally controlled statements issued by fictitious (Studies 2–4) and real (Study 5) public figures, we found that what the accused men said in their statements indeed mattered. Apologies were more effective when they were more comprehensive and less defensive, and when they were offered in response to lower (versus higher) severity allegations. Consistent effects of gender also emerged, with women reacting less favorably to denials and “no comment” statements than men. On the whole, the findings provide intriguing evidence for parallels between public and interpersonal apologies, revealing that high-quality apologies hold some value in a context where doubts about the remorsefulness and morality of the apologizer abound. However, the benefits of even the highest quality apologies were modest, resembling those found in the literature on intergroup apologies. These findings thus suggest that the public may view apologies for sexual misconduct as an appropriate starting point—but certainly not endgame—for the accused men.

Keywords: ApologiesDenialsDefensivenessForgivenessSexual misconduct#MeToo

Expansive and Contractive Postures and Movement: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Motor Displays on Affective and Behavioral Responses

Expansive and Contractive Postures and Movement: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Motor Displays on Affective and Behavioral Responses. Emma Elkjær et al. Perspectives on Psychological Science, June 22, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620919358

Abstract: This review and meta-analysis explores the experimental effects of expansive and contractive motor displays on affective, hormonal, and behavioral responses. Experimental studies were located through systematic literature searches. Studies had to manipulate motor displays to either expansive or contractive displays and investigate the effect of the displays on affect, hormones, or overt behavior. Meta-analyses were conducted to determine the pooled, standardized mean differences between the effects of motor displays on affective, hormonal, and behavioral responses. From 5,819 unique records, 73 relevant studies were identified. Robust differences between expansive and contractive displays emerged for affective responses and overt behavioral responses across contexts, type of manipulation, and methods of measurement. The results suggest that the effects are driven by the absence of contractive motor displays (contractive vs. neutral displays: Hedges’s g = 0.45) rather than the presence of expansive displays (expansive vs. neutral displays: g = 0.06). The findings stand as a corrective to previous research, as they indicate that it is the absence of contractive displays rather than the presence of expansive displays that alters affective and behavioral responding. Future research should include neutral control groups, use different methods to assess hormonal change, and investigate these effects in the context of ideographic goals.

Keywords: methodology, quantitative, emotion, affect, expansive displays, contractive displays

Does the Punishment Fit the Crime (and Immune System)? A Potential Role for the Immune System in Regulating Punishment Sensitivity

Does the Punishment Fit the Crime (and Immune System)? A Potential Role for the Immune System in Regulating Punishment Sensitivity. Jeffrey Gassen, Summer Mengelkoch, Hannah K. Bradshaw and Sarah E. Hill. Front. Psychol., June 22 2020. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01263

Abstract: Although the criminal justice system is designed around the idea that individuals are invariant in their responses to punishment, research indicates that individuals exhibit a tremendous amount of variability in their punishment sensitivity. This raises the question of why; what are the individual- and situation-level variables that impact a person’s sensitivity to punishment? In the current research, we synthesize theory and research on inflammation, learning, and evolutionary biology to examine the relationship between inflammatory activity and sensitivity to punishment. These theories combine to predict that inflammatory activity – which is metabolically costly and reflects a context in which the net payoff associated with future oriented behaviors is diminished – will decrease sensitivity to punishment, but not rewards. Consistent with this hypothesis, Study 1 found that in U.S. states with a higher infectious disease burden (a proxy for average levels of inflammatory activity) exhibit harsher sentencing in their criminal justice systems. Studies 2 and 3 experimentally manipulated variables known to impact bodily inflammatory activity and measured subsequent punishment and reward sensitivity using a probabilistic selection task. Results revealed that (a) increasing inflammation (i.e., completing the study in a dirty vs. clean room) diminished punishment sensitivity (Study 2), whereby (b) administering a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, suppressing inflammatory activity, enhanced it. No such changes were found for reward sensitivity. Together, these results provide evidence of a link between the activities of the immune system and punishment sensitivity, which may have implications for criminal justice outcomes.

General Discussion

In the current research, we investigated the role that the activities of the immune system play in regulating punishment sensitivity. Based on insights from research in psychoneuroimmunology (Maier and Watkins, 1998; Banks, 2005; Dantzer and Kelley, 2007; Lasselin et al., 2017; Draper et al., 2018), and RSFT (Real and Caraco, 1986; Lima and Dill, 1990; Houston, 1991; McNamara and Houston, 1992), we predicted that punishment sensitivity would decrease in contexts where inflammation is elevated and increase when inflammatory activity is diminished. This pattern was hypothesized to occur because in the context of heightened inflammation (a) an individual’s probability of survival is lower, lowering the payoffs one can expect from investing in future-oriented behaviors (e.g., Gassen et al., 2019a, b; Gassen and Hill, 2019), and (b) the immunometabolic constraints that occur in this context decrease one’s ability to inhibit dominant responses (see e.g., Lacourt et al., 2018; Treadway et al., 2019).

Preliminary support for this hypothesis was found across three studies. Study 1 revealed that an environmental factor that promotes inflammatory activity (i.e., high infectious disease burden; e.g., Zhu et al., 1999; Gattone et al., 2001; Nazmi et al., 2010; Thompson et al., 2014; Ferrucci and Fabbri, 2018) was associated with the use of harsher punishments for criminal offenses. Although there may be numerous contributors that play a role in the association between these variables, it is consistent with the hypothesis that inflammation should predict reduced sensitivity to punishment, as harsher punishments are required to modify the behavior of individuals with lower punishment sensitivity (compared to those with higher punishment sensitivity; Jean-Richard-Dit-Bressel et al., 2018; Marchant et al., 2018). In addition to providing initial support for the hypothesis that the activities of the immune system will predict meaningful differences in punishment sensitivity, these results suggest that this relationship could have implications for criminal justice outcomes.

Studies 2 and 3 found continued support for the hypothesized relationship between inflammatory activity and punishment sensitivity. Study 2 revealed that exposure to an environment that elicited increased inflammatory activity (measured via salivary IL-1β) led to diminished punishment sensitivity. The results of Study 3 found further support for this hypothesis, demonstrating that administering a manipulation designed to experimentally reduce inflammatory activity (via aspirin administration) led to an increase in punishment sensitivity. No difference in reward sensitivity was observed across these two studies. Taken together, these results suggest that the activities of the immune system – and inflammation in particular – play a role in regulating punishment sensitivity. Further, these results provide preliminary evidence that the relationship between punitive measures and infectious disease burden found in Study 1 may be driven by elevated inflammation leading to (a) decreased punishment sensitivity and (b) harsher punishments to compensate for reduced sensitivity to punishment.

Together, the results of the current research add to a growing body of work demonstrating an important role for the immune system in regulating processes involved in learning (see e.g., Depino et al., 2004; Huang and Sheng, 2010; Sartori et al., 2012). Further, the current work contributes to the body of research examining inflammatory activity and processes related to punishment sensitivity (see e.g., Pugh et al., 1998; Patil et al., 2003; Sparkman et al., 2005; Kohman et al., 2007; Harrison et al., 2016). The latter is particularly important given the inconsistent results found across previous studies using different methods. For example, some studies have found no association between states known to be associated with increased inflammatory activity and punishment sensitivity (Kunisato et al., 2012; Berghorst et al., 2013). Others have found that heightened inflammatory activity increases punishment sensitivity (Harrison et al., 2016), with participants exhibiting more punishment sensitivity on a monetary task after an inflammatory response had been elicited via typhoid vaccination. One potential explanation for the inconsistencies between this previous work and the results of the current studies is that they reflect differences in the magnitude of the inflammatory response elicited by our manipulation (i.e., Study 2; dirty room) and theirs (i.e., typhoid vaccine). The typhoid vaccination used in Harrison et al. (2016) research resulted in an average 250% increase in plasma levels of interleukin-6, a proinflammatory cytokine. Our much subtler contextual manipulation of inflammation, on the other hand, only revealed an average 191% increase (with a rather large standard deviation) in IL-1β levels in saliva. As such, one possibility is that inflammation exerts a dose-dependent effect on punishment sensitivity, where small increases in inflammation may impair punishment sensitivity (as found in the current work), and larger increases in inflammation may enhance it (as found in Harrison et al., 2016). Moreover, differences in the timing of the punishment sensitivity task between our study and Harrison et al. (2016) may also help explain the disparate findings. Participants in the current research completed the PST shortly after entering the dirty room. In contrast, the behavioral task in Harrison et al. (2016) study was administered 2.5–3.5 h after vaccination. Thus, this could indicate that the effects of proinflammatory cytokines on reward and punishment sensitivity are time-dependent. Future research should examine these possibilities.

Much of the previous research studying the impact of inflammation on punishment sensitivity has been conducted using non-human animals. Consistent with the findings reported here, this animal research suggests that inflammatory challenges often reduce performance on tasks related to punishment sensitivity, such as avoiding aversive stimuli (e.g., foot shocks or predators) and contextual fear conditioning (Pugh et al., 1998; Patil et al., 2003; Sparkman et al., 2005; Kohman et al., 2007; Adelman et al., 2017). Moreover, during acute infection, which is associated with heightened inflammatory activity, house finches exhibit reduced behavioral avoidance of predators (Adelman et al., 2017).

Inherent in the current work are several limitations. For example, although Study 1 found that states with a greater infectious disease burden exhibited harsher punishments, it is possible that this association reflects processes other than reduced punishment sensitivity in the context of heightened inflammatory activity. For example, in addition to offenders, judges in high pathogen areas are also exposed to greater infectious disease risk than those in less pathogen dense areas. Thus, high infectious disease burden may influence psychological characteristics of judges (e.g., impulsivity) that render them more oriented toward harsher sentencing. Exploring these and other possibilities will be an important direction for future research.

The experimental studies also have important limitations. While Study 2 provided evidence that our manipulation of room cleanliness resulted in heightened inflammation and decreased punishment sensitivity, results did not provide evidence that levels of IL-1β mediated the relationship between room condition and punishment sensitivity. This could be due to a variety of factors. First, we only measured one proinflammatory cytokine, IL-1β. Given that a host of different proinflammatory proteins coordinates the inflammation response, it is possible that the relationship between room condition and punishment sensitivity is driven by a proinflammatory protein that we did not measure. Second, saliva samples were collected 30 min after exposure to room condition. It is possible that participants’ levels of inflammation were declining at this time and may not have been representative of their inflammatory levels during the task. As such, this detracts from our ability to make causal inferences about the role that inflammation plays in calibrating punishment sensitivity. However, it bears noting that past research examining the influence of experimental manipulations that elicit an inflammatory response on behavior often do not test or report whether inflammation serves as a mediator (e.g., Eisenberger et al., 2010; Inagaki et al., 2012; Harrison et al., 2016). It is important that future studies report these mediation analyses to provide evidence for or against claims of causal relationships between inflammation and behavioral outcomes.

Another potential limitation of Study 2 was our measurement of IL-1β in participants’ saliva samples, as opposed to peripheral blood samples (e.g., plasma or serum). Research into the strength of correlations between salivary and plasma/serum levels of cytokines across different contexts has yielded mixed results (e.g., Cruz-Almeida et al., 2017; La Fratta et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2018), and overall, there is a paucity of research on the topic. However, our primary objective for measuring levels of IL-1β was to provide a manipulation check on the prediction that exposure to the dirty room (compared to the clean room) would lead to a rise in inflammation. Recent research suggests that salivary measures of inflammation are well-suited for this purpose (e.g., Walsh et al., 2016; Newton et al., 2017; La Fratta et al., 2018; Gassen et al., 2019a). The results of Study 2 should also be interpreted with caution given that there were unequal numbers of men and women between the two conditions. While sex was controlled for in the analyses and did not significantly interact with experimental condition to predict any outcome, this is still an important limitation to consider.

One unexpected difference in punishment sensitivity emerged between the control conditions in Studies 2 and 3. Specifically, punishment sensitivity was higher in the clean room condition of Study 2 than in the control condition of Study 3. While we cannot say for certain what accounted for these differences, there was heterogeneity in the methods and sample characteristics between the two studies that may have contributed to them. First, the testing rooms used for the control conditions in each study were not equivalent. Specifically, to increase perceptions of cleanliness in the clean room condition of Study 2, a number of steps were taken to increase the room’s cleanliness, including removing trash receptacles, wiping down all of the computers and keyboards with disinfectant wipes, and placing a large bottle of hand sanitizer near the sign-in sheet. Given that these extra steps were not taken in the second experiment (for which room cleanliness was not part of the manipulation), the room used for the control condition in Study 2 was even cleaner than that used for the control condition in Study 3. Accordingly, it is possible that differences in punishment sensitivity between the two control conditions (with higher sensitivity found in Study 2) can be attributed to greater cleanliness in the control condition for Study 2 compared to Study 3.

Further, in Study 2, before entering the experimental room, participants provided their initial saliva sample in a separate room. They were then transferred to the experimental room before completing the remainder of the study. This differs from the methodology utilized in Study 3, where the entire study was completed in a single room. Although it is unclear how these procedural differences may influence punishment sensitivity, they are worthy of note in this context. A final explanation for the differences in punishment sensitivity that emerged between these conditions could lie in differences between demographic characteristics of the samples. As is displayed in Tables 2, 3, childhood and adult SES for the sample in the clean room condition for Study 2 were higher than for the control condition in Study 3 (d = 0.37–0.40). We are not aware of extant research finding SES-based differences in performance on the probabilistic selection task, specifically. However, more generally, research finds that those from a lower SES environment exhibit a higher risk for certain behavioral problems (e.g., impulsivity: Griskevicius et al., 2011), for which reduced punishment sensitivity has been identified as part of the underlying psychological architecture (e.g., Potts et al., 2006).

Humans navigate with stereo olfaction

Humans navigate with stereo olfaction. Yuli Wu et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 22, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2004642117

Significance: The human brain exploits subtle differences between the inputs to the paired eyes and ears to construct three-dimensional experiences and navigate the environment. Whether and how it does so for olfaction is unclear, although humans also have two separate nasal passages that simultaneously sample from nonoverlapping regions in space. Here, we demonstrate that a moderate internostril difference in odor intensity consistently biases recipients’ perceived direction of self-motion toward the higher-concentration side, despite that they cannot report which nostril smells a stronger odor. The findings indicate that humans have a stereo sense of smell that subconsciously guides navigation.

Abstract: Human navigation relies on inputs to our paired eyes and ears. Although we also have two nasal passages, there has been little empirical indication that internostril differences yield directionality in human olfaction without involving the trigeminal system. By using optic flow that captures the pattern of apparent motion of surface elements in a visual scene, we demonstrate through formal psychophysical testing that a moderate binaral concentration disparity of a nontrigeminal odorant consistently biases recipients’ perceived direction of self-motion toward the higher-concentration side, despite that they cannot verbalize which nostril smells a stronger odor. We further show that the effect depends on the internostril ratio of odor concentrations and not the numeric difference in concentration between the two nostrils. Taken together, our findings provide behavioral evidence that humans smell in stereo and subconsciously utilize stereo olfactory cues in spatial navigation.

Keywords: binaral disparityolfactory navigationheading perceptionoptic flow

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation as a Potential Tool to Reduce Sexual Arousal in cases of hypersexuality

Schecklmann M, Sakreida K, Oblinger B, et al. Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation as a Potential Tool to Reduce Sexual Arousal: A Proof of Concept Study. J Sex Med 2020;XX:XXX–XXX. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1743609520306093

Abstract
Background: Hypersexuality and hyposexuality occur frequently, often in a variety of psychiatric disorders, and are difficult to treat. While there is meta-analytic evidence for the significant effect of non-invasive brain stimulation on drug and food craving, no study has investigated the potential of this technique to modulate sexual behavior.

Aim: Here, we tested the hypothesis that a single session of high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) would reduce sexual arousal.

Methods: We employed a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled crossover study design. 19 healthy male participants received high-frequency rTMS over the left DLPFC, high-frequency rTMS over the right DLPFC, and sham rTMS (each 10 Hz; 110% resting motor threshold; 60 trains with 50 pulses) in randomized and counterbalanced order with a 1-week interval between stimulation sessions to avoid carryover effects. Participants were exposed to neutral and sexual cues before and after each intervention and rated their sexual arousal after each block of cue presentation.

Main Outcome Measure: Efficacy of the respective intervention was operationalized by the change of subjective sexual arousal according to a rating scale.

Results: rTMS of the right DLPFC significantly reduced subjective sexual arousal (t18 = 2.282, P = .035). In contrast, neither sham rTMS nor rTMS of the left DLPFC affected sexual arousal (P > .389). Greater rTMS-induced reduction of subjective sexual arousal was observed in participants with higher trait-based dyadic sexual desire within the last 12 months (r = −0.417, P = .038).

Clinical Implication: Non-invasive brain stimulation might hold potential for influencing hypersexual behavior.

Strength & Limitation: This was a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled crossover study with subjective but no physiological measures of sexual arousal.

Conclusion: The results indicate that 1 session of high-frequency rTMS (10 Hz) of the right DLPFC could significantly reduce subjective sexual arousal induced by visual stimuli in healthy subjects. On this basis, future studies with larger sample sizes and more stimulation sessions are needed to explore the therapeutic potential of rTMS in hypersexual behavior.

Key Words: Dorsolateral Prefrontal CortexHypersexualNeuromodulationSexual ArousalRepetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Pathological lying exists in a small percentage of people, for whom it causes significant distress, impaired functioning, and danger; it has a prevalence of 8%–13%

Pathological Lying: Theoretical and Empirical Support for a Diagnostic Entity. Drew A. Curtis and Christian L. Hart. Psychiatric Research & Clinical Practice, Jun 22 2020. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.prcp.20190046

HIGHLIGHTS
.  Pathological lying exists in a small percentage of people, for whom it causes significant distress, impaired functioning, and danger.
.  Pathological lying, distinct from normative lying and prolific lying, has a prevalence of 8%–13%.
.  Evidence supports establishing pathological as a diagnostic entity.

Abstract
Objective: Pathological lying, originally called “pseudologia phantastica,” has an established history within clinical practice and literature, although it has not been recognized as a psychological disorder within major nosological systems. With the movement in psychological sciences toward theory-driven, empirically supported diagnoses, the current study sought to empirically test whether pathological lying aligned with nosological definitions and could be defined as a diagnostic entity.

Methods: A total of 807 people were recruited (January to October of 2019) from various mental health forums, social media, and a university. Of those recruited, 623 completed the study. Participants responded to a lie frequency prompt, questionnaires about lying behavior, the Lying in Everyday Situations Scale, the Distress Questionnaire-5, and demographic questions.

Results: Of the participants, 13% indicated that they self-identified or that others had identified them as pathological liars (telling numerous lies each day for longer than 6 months). People who identified as pathological liars reported greater distress, impaired functioning, and more danger than people not considered pathological liars. Pathological lying seemed to be compulsive, with lies growing from an initial lie, and done for no apparent reason.

Conclusions: The evidence supports establishment of pathological lying as a distinct diagnostic entity. A definition of pathological lying, etiological considerations, and recommendations for future research and practice are presented.

Negativity bias, positivity bias, and valence asymmetries: Explaining the differential processing of positive and negative information

Negativity bias, positivity bias, and valence asymmetries: Explaining the differential processing of positive and negative information. Christian Unkelbach, Hans Alves, Alex Koch. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, June 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aesp.2020.04.005

Abstract: Distinguishing between “good” and “bad” is a fundamental task for all organisms. However, people seem to process positive and negative information differentially, described in the literature as instances of negativity bias, positivity bias, or valence asymmetries. We provide an overview of these processing differences and their explanations. First, we review negativity advantages: People attend more to negative information, recall it more, and weigh it more heavily, relative to positive information. Second, we review positivity advantages: People process positive information faster, have broader associations from it, and show stronger congruency effects, relative to negative information. We then discuss existing explanations for these differential effects in terms of phylogenetic pressures, correlates of valence, diagnosticity, mobilization-minimization, and top-down vs. bottom-up processing. Finally, we suggest the differential similarity of positive and negative information as a unifying explanation. We delineate why positive information should be more alike relative to negative information, and how differential similarity translates to the observed processing differences. Then we show how the similarity explanation leads to novel predictions and how it solves old puzzles. Similarity thereby provides an explanatory construct for both positivity and negativity advantages, allowing precise quantitative predictions for valence asymmetries beyond the mere classification of “good” and “bad.”

Keywords: Negativity biasPositivity biasValence asymmetriesInformation ecologySocial cognition

In the XIX century most laws enacted in the USA were special bills that granted favors to specific individuals/groups/localities; their ban gave rise to the modern regulatory state & interest-group politics

Economic Crisis, General Laws, and the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Transformation of American Political Economy. Naomi R. Lamoreaux, John Joseph Wallis. NBER Working Paper No. 27400, June 2020. https://www.nber.org/papers/w27400

Abstract: Before the middle of the nineteenth century most laws enacted in the United States were special bills that granted favors to specific individuals, groups, or localities. This fundamentally inegalitarian system provided political elites with important tools that they could use to reward supporters, and as a result, they were only willing to modify it under very special circumstances. In the early 1840s, however, a major fiscal crisis forced a number of states to default on their bonded debt, unleashing a political earthquake that swept this system away. Starting with Indiana in 1851, states revised their constitutions to ban the most common types of special legislation and, at the same time, mandate that all laws be general in their application. These provisions dramatically changed the way government and the economy worked and interacted, giving rise to the modern regulatory state, interest-group politics, and a more dynamic form of capitalism.

Gender Discrepancies in Perceptions of the Bodies of Female Fashion Models: Men do not find the ultra-thin body ideal for women as attractive as women believe men do

Gender Discrepancies in Perceptions of the Bodies of Female Fashion Models. Sarah N. Johnson & Renee Engeln. Sex Roles, Jun 22 2020. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-020-01167-5

Abstract: For over 30 years, researchers and journalists have made the claim that men do not prefer the level of thinness typically embodied by female fashion models, along with the secondary claim that women overestimate the extent to which men find these ultra-thin bodies attractive. The current studies examined men’s and women’s perceptions of the bodies of fashion models shown in media images, as well as how each gender believed the other would perceive the models’ bodies. In Study 1, 548 U.S. college students rated the body size and attractiveness of 13 images of models from women’s fashion magazines. Respondents also indicated how they thought the other gender would rate the models on these dimensions. In Study 2, 707 men and women recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk completed the same rating task. Overall, both men and women overestimated how ideal the other gender would find the models’ bodies (both in terms of thinness and attractiveness). This misperception was strongest when women estimated how men would react to the models’ bodies. Results were consistent with previous studies suggesting that men do not find the ultra-thin body ideal for women as attractive as women believe men do. These gender-based misconceptions may contribute to the negative effects of viewing ultra-thin media images on women’s body image.

Growing collectivism: irrigation, group conformity and technological divergence

Growing collectivism: irrigation, group conformity and technological divergence. Johannes C. Buggle. Journal of Economic Growth volume 25, pages147–193, Jun 4 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10887-020-09178-3

Abstract: This paper examines whether collaboration within groups in pre-industrial agriculture favored the emergence of collectivist rather than individualist cultures. I document that societies whose ancestors jointly practiced irrigation agriculture historically have stronger collectivist norms today. This finding holds across countries, sub-national districts within countries, and migrants, and is robust to instrumenting the historical adoption of irrigation by its geographic suitability. In addition, I find evidence for a culturally-embodied effect of irrigation agriculture on economic behavior. Descendants of irrigation societies innovate less today, and are more likely to work in routine-intensive occupations, even when they live outside their ancestral homelands. Together, my results suggest that historical differences in the need to act collectively have contributed to the global divergence of culture and technology.

Meal-time photographers were more likely to eat in response to external cues (e.g. the sight of palatable food) than to internal cues of hunger; no influence in the amount or enjoyment of food eaten

When the camera eats first: Exploring how meal-time cell phone photography affects eating behaviours. Joceline Y.Y. Yong, Eddie M.W. Tong, Jean C.J. Liu. Appetite, June 21 2020, 104787. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2020.104787

Abstract: Advances in cell phone technology have the potential to disrupt eating patterns. In this research, we focused on the camera function of a cell phone, characterizing: (i) the extent to which this function is used during meals; (ii) whether meal-time photographers show signs of pathological eating; and (iii) whether the act of taking food photographs alters the amount and enjoyment of food eaten. In the first study, we used the experience sampling method to track one week of meals from 137 young adults. Although we observed a low base rate of meal-time photography (5.44% of the 1140 meals captured), phone users who engaged in this practice had higher external eating scores than those who did not. That is, these meal-time photographers were more likely to eat in response to external cues (e.g. the sight of palatable food) than to internal cues of hunger. However, when participants were randomly assigned to take either food or non-food photographs within a lab setting (Study 2), we found no evidence that the type of photography influenced either the amount or enjoyment of food eaten. Taken together, our findings suggest a limited role for cell phone photography in an obesogenic environment.

Keywords: Screen timeCell phoneFood ritualsExternal eatingFood intakeExperience sampling

Factors Influencing Premarital Sexual Attitude among Adolescents in East Coast Malaysia

Factors Influencing Premarital Sexual Attitude among Adolescents in East Coast Malaysia. Misron, Siti Nor Fadhlina; Husain, Maruzairi. International Medical Journal . Jun2020, Vol. 27 Issue 3, p259-262. https://web.b.ebscohost.com/abstract?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jrnl=13412051&AN=143624433&h=Koj%2fMNf7RI%2brLSUtpZsE0fZURfHB7NKVaeKrMQApOs3gxWZVXH9ycuOd2vqQUBaykLBst3DZQwmwk7pZNvee7w%3d%3d&crl=c&resultNs=AdminWebAuth&resultLocal=ErrCrlNotAuth&crlhashurl=login.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26profile%3dehost%26scope%3dsite%26authtype%3dcrawler%26jrnl%3d13412051%26AN%3d143624433

Abstract
Background: Adolescence is a transitional period whereby a person attempts to try something new and risky including premarital sexual behaviour. Their attitudes are influenced by multiple factors that change over time.
Objective: This study highlights current factors influencing premarital sexual attitude among adolescents in East Coast Malaysia.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 150 adolescents in the East Coast of Malaysia. Self-rated questionnaire on Premarital Sexual Attitude Among Secondary School Students was used to determine the prevalence of sexual attitude.
Results: All participants were 18 years old and have completed secondary school. The majority were Malay and Muslim. The prevalence of poor sexual knowledge and permissive premarital sexual attitude stood at 40.7% and 42.7% respectively. All the variables concerned with high-risk sexual behaviour namely reading pornography, watching pornography, sexual fantasy, and masturbation have higher prevalence compared to others with the percentages being 40.0%, 46.7%, 32.0%, and 34.7% respectively. Protective factors against permissive attitude identified were being male, non-Malay, perceived as being loved by parents, and having parents who know their child's friends.
Conclusion: Permissive attitude among adolescents towards premarital sex is associated with risky sexual behaviours. Thus, it is very important to explore the changing factors to identify the recent target groups so that future intervention can be done by emphasizing more on these identified factors.

Anger expressions when shown by men tend to be more consistently attributed to the event that caused the expression; for women tend to be more strongly attributed to her (angry) character

Anger is a Positive Emotion – At Least for Those who Show it. Ursula Hess. ISRE Logo Emotion Researcher, May 2020. http://emotionresearcher.com/anger-is-a-positive-emotion-at-least-for-those-who-show-it/

Abstract: In this article, I am discussing the notion that anger can be considered a positive emotion for those who feel it and for society at large. Anger has the ability to motivate people to act against injustice and norm violations in general and it provides the actor with (physical) strength, but also with an optimistic tendency to take risks. However, as a caveat it should be noted that even though anger does this for both men and women, women who show anger are liked less.

One in five (22%) US Americans reported recently having “experienced anger a lot yesterday” (Gallup World Poll, 2019). That surely is a bad thing? Webster’s Thesaurus’ list of synonyms for anger includes animosity, antagonism, embitterment, enmity, hostility, malevolence, and virulence, all of which refer to strife and destruction (Merriam Webster, 2019).Berkowitz and Harmon-Jones (2004)define anger as: “a syndrome of relatively specific feelings, cognitions, and physiological reactions linked associatively with an urge to injure some target” (p. 108). It is in this sense that Gallup adds anger to its Negative Experience Index, together with such states as worry and stress. Interestingly, the question is related to feeling angry – that is, Gallup considers feeling angry a negative experience. But is it? In Gallup’s view feeling anger is negative because it signals that there are things out there that cause this feeling – negative things in fact. But is reacting with anger to a negative event necessarily a bad thing? And for whom?

Anger did not have a significant effect on depth of information processing for any of the emotional comparison groups; these complex results indicate that anger is an exceedingly nuanced emotion

A discrete emotion with discrete effects: effects of anger on depth of information processing. Meaghan McKasy. Cognitive Processing, Jun 20 2020. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10339-020-00982-8

Abstract: There is relative paucity in the comprehensive study of anger and information processing. Emotions can impact the depth of information processing and anger is a powerful high-certainty emotion. Yet, the magnitude of the effects of anger on the depth of information processing has not been summarized. This scholarship performs a meta-analytic synthesis to report the effect of anger on the depth of information processing as compared to one of the four contrast groups: neutral control, sadness, happiness, and fear. A systematic search identified 26 articles with a total of 39 unique studies and 113 effect sizes. The evaluation revealed that anger did not have a significant effect on depth of information processing for any of the emotional comparison groups. Furthermore, the presence of publication bias was only found for one analysis. These complex results indicate that anger is an exceedingly nuanced emotion. The implications of the study and future scholarship are discussed.

Why are consistently-handed individuals more authoritarian? The role of need for cognitive closure

Why are consistently-handed individuals more authoritarian? The role of need for cognitive closure. Keith B. Lyle  & Michael C. Grillo. Laterality: Asymmetries of Brain, Behaviour, and Cognition. Volume 25, 2020 - Issue 4, Jun 4 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/1357650X.2020.1765791

ABSTRACT: Recent studies indicate that individuals with consistent hand preference are more authoritarian than individuals whose preference is relatively inconsistent. We explored the role of epistemic needs in the handedness-authoritarianism relationship. Based on findings that consistent individuals are less cognitively flexible than inconsistent individuals, we hypothesized that consistent-handers would report greater need for definite knowledge. To measure this, we administered the revised Need for Cognitive Closure scale to a sample of undergraduates (N = 235), along with measures of handedness consistency and authoritarian submission. Consistent individuals scored significantly higher on authoritarian submission and need for closure. Need for closure fully mediated the relationship between consistency and submission. Consistent individuals also expressed greater prejudice against authoritarian out-groups such as immigrants and liberals. This effect was partially mediated by authoritarian submission. We theorize that consistent-handers’ cognitive inflexibility leads them to covet definite knowledge. These individuals turn to authoritarianism because it promises to stifle dissent and protect existing (conventional) knowledge.

KEYWORDS: Handedness consistency, need for closure, authoritarianism, prejudice

The current west-east asymmetry of Antarctic surface climate change is undoubtedly of natural origin because no external factors (e.g., orbital or anthropogenic factors) contribute to the asymmetric mode

The internal origin of the west-east asymmetry of Antarctic climate change. Sang-Yoon Jun et al. Science Advances Jun 12 2020, Vol. 6, no. 24, eaaz1490. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz1490

Abstract: Recent Antarctic surface climate change has been characterized by greater warming trends in West Antarctica than in East Antarctica. Although this asymmetric feature is well recognized, its origin remains poorly understood. Here, by analyzing observation data and multimodel results, we show that a west-east asymmetric internal mode amplified in austral winter originates from the harmony of the atmosphere-ocean coupled feedback off West Antarctica and the Antarctic terrain. The warmer ocean temperature over the West Antarctic sector has positive feedback, with an anomalous upper-tropospheric anticyclonic circulation response centered over West Antarctica, in which the strength of the feedback is controlled by the Antarctic topographic layout and the annual cycle. The current west-east asymmetry of Antarctic surface climate change is undoubtedly of natural origin because no external factors (e.g., orbital or anthropogenic factors) contribute to the asymmetric mode.

DISCUSSION

The model experiments conducted by CESM1 were not enough to fully confirm the roles of different regional SST forcings. Thus, we try to reinforce our logic weighted to the local atmosphere-ocean coupled feedback off West Antarctica through inference by comparing the regressed SST patterns among HadISST1, 38 CMIP5 models (CMIP5 MMM), and CESM1 onto their respective normalized EOF2 PC time series (fig. S9). In the tropics, there are large discrepancies between the observation and models, i.e., tropical central Pacific cooling in HadISST1, overall tropical and midlatitude cooling in CMIP5 MMM, and El Niño in CESM1. The large discrepancy in the tropical pattern associated with the Antarctic asymmetric mode implies that the dominant contribution of the tropical SST forcing to the upper-tropospheric anticyclonic circulation over West Antarctica cannot be generalized. By contrast, the consistent pattern of the warmer ABS SST is seen over the Southern Hemisphere high-latitude ocean. On the basis of this fact, it is natural to determine that the regional SST anomalies around Antarctica are the essential component for the asymmetry. The consistency between the observation and models over the high-latitude ocean enables us to think it reasonable to argue the harmony of the atmosphere-ocean coupled feedback off West Antarctica and the Antarctic terrain to generate the Antarctic west-east asymmetric natural variability.

In the asymmetric mode of Antarctic SATs, multidecadal variability is found in the long paleoclimate datasets of PAGES Antarctica2k, LOVECLIM, and TraCE-21K. This suggests that the enhanced asymmetric trend between West and East Antarctica during recent decades could be a manifestation of multidecadal variability. The linkage between the climatic conditions over the ABS and the Antarctic surface asymmetry at different time scales seems to determine time scales with either interannual or multidecadal variabilities. First, because the atmospheric Rossby wave bridge makes the connection between the tropics and west Antarctic surface climate (7, 11, 16), strong interannual variability in the tropics, such as ENSO, might contribute to variability in the Antarctic asymmetric mode. On the other hand, different seasonalities in the interaction between the atmosphere and ocean could alter the interannual variability because the interaction between sea level pressure and surface temperature over the Bellingshausen Sea has strong seasonality. Their correlation coefficients shift from negative during austral summer (r = −0.17 for February) to positive during austral winter (r = 0.53 for August). This seasonality contributes to the wintertime development of the asymmetric mode, including the increase in surface temperature and the high-pressure system over this region, but disturbs the persistence of asymmetry in the following warm season. Second, the long-term variability in the ocean over the West Antarctic coastal region seems to play a role in producing multidecadal periodicity. There have been some reports on long-term variability of the ocean in this region via ocean circulation changes (20, 21, 26). Possible roles of the ocean through the ASL have been suggested (20), but the relationship between the ocean and ASL is not immediately clear.

The climatic modes in this study suggest an important implication for future climate change in East Antarctica under global warming. The two future climate change experiments suggest that the explained variance in the first mode is much higher in the 21st century, while the second mode diminishes. The characteristics of the two modes strongly suggest that if global warming continues, a substantial temperature increase over East Antarctica may occur in addition to ongoing West Antarctic warming. The asymmetric mode will persist at its own pace in the future, even under global warming, but its role may not be as great as it is now. The intensified global warming over all of Antarctica in the future can induce massive melting of the ice shelves, even in East Antarctica. This explains why we have to keep an eye on Antarctica as global warming continues, despite the recent mitigation of warming in the eastern part of the region, due to the asymmetric nature of climate change.

Countries with more embedded and hierarchical cultural systems were more narcissistic; & women were less likely to be narcissistic in developed (vs. less developed) countries

Country‐Level Correlates of the Dark Triad Traits in 49 Countries. Peter K. Jonason et al.
Journal of Personality, June 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12569

Abstract
Objectives: The Dark Triad traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism) capture individual differences in aversive personality to complement work on other taxonomies, such as the Big Five traits. However, the literature on the Dark Triad traits relies mostly on samples from English‐speaking (i.e., Westernized) countries. We broadened the scope of this literature by sampling from a wider array of countries.

Method: We drew on data from 49 countries (N = 11,723; 65.8% female; AgeMean = 21.53) to examine how an extensive net of country‐level variables in economic status (e.g., Human Development Index), social relations (e.g., gender equality), political orientations (e.g., democracy), and cultural values (e.g., embeddedness) relate to country‐level rates of the Dark Triad traits, as well as variance in the magnitude of sex differences in them.

Results: Narcissism was especially sensitive to country‐level variables. Countries with more embedded and hierarchical cultural systems were more narcissistic. Also, sex differences in narcissism were larger in more developed societies: Women were less likely to be narcissistic in developed (vs. less developed) countries.

Conclusions: We discuss the results based on evolutionary and social role models of personality and sex differences. That higher country‐level narcissism was more common in less developed countries, whereas sex differences in narcissism were larger in more developed countries, is more consistent with evolutionary than social role models.

An adult joke sneaks a payload of ordinary-seeming, actually combustible ingredients into the mind; the "Aha" moment produces an unmentionable thought that pops up unexpectedly into your head

Raizada, Rajeev. 2020. “A Payload-ignition Theory of Adult-oriented Humour: TUUTU (a Thought That Is Unmentionable and Unmentioned, Triggered Unexpectedly).” PsyArXiv. June 19. doi:10.31234/osf.io/fyqx8

Abstract: A funny joke achieves a sort of sleight-of-hand: in its set up, it sneaks a payload of ordinary-seeming but actually combustible ingredients into your mind. The punchline then induces a mindshift, which jostles those ingredients around. This mindshift leads to the "Aha" moment of you getting the joke: the payload ignites, producing an unmentionable thought that pops up unexpectedly into your head. That sudden appearance in your mind of an unmentionable thought is, the present theory claims, the crucial ingredient that makes adult-directed humour funny. That claim and the payload-ignition model together form the two novel ingredients of the theory of humour that is proposed here. "Unmentionable" here means something that one would not say out loud in polite company, due to it being outrageous in some way, e.g. taboo, rude, or titillating. This unmentionable-thought payload is proposed to be a crucial and previously overlooked characteristic of adult-oriented humour. However, it is noticeably absent from child-friendly humour and from most puns, thereby explaining why such jokes are rarely very funny, and why studying puns may have obscured the role of unmentionable thoughts from previous theories. Existing theories of humour have individually devoted their attention only to one aspect of the payload-ignition combination: the classical theories of release and of superiority focused only on the payload, and contemporary theories such as incongruity resolution, bisociation, semantic scripts and error detection have focused only on the mindshift that triggers ignition. The present proposal is consistent with those previous theories, but extends them by adding the new elements of the unmentionable thought and the payload-ignition framework. Examples are presented and analysed of jokes and the unmentionable thoughts that they elicit. It is also shown how removing the unmentionable thought from a joke, while leaving all other elements the same, drains the joke of its humour. The present theory does not claim single-handedly to capture all aspects of humour, and some examples are discussed that remain beyond its grasp. However, it does newly highlight two crucial aspects, missed by previous theories, of what makes a joke funny. Finally, several testable predictions generated by the theory are presented.

Alcohol, Placebo & The Role of Expectations and Social Influence: It seems that it is enough for people to believe they have consumed alcohol to feel inebriated

Alcohol and Placebo: The Role of Expectations and Social Influence. Vivien Bodnár, Krisztina Nagy, Ádám Cziboly & György Bárdos. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, June 15 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11469-020-00321-0

Abstract: The placebo effect is frequently present in our lives when an expectation, associated with any psychoactive material, leads to subjective and physiological changes. The present work studies the role of expectancies associated with ethanol/alcohol in changes to the subjective state. In experimental situations, we examine how these expectations—with or without social influences—affect participants when consuming alcoholic, pseudo-alcoholic, or non-alcoholic cocktails. Psychological and physical changes can, to a significant extent, arise from an expectation-driven placebo effect. We suggest that expectations of inebriation formed by socialization and experiences can explain most of the behavioural changes following alcohol consumption. These effects seem to be stronger if the alcohol consumption happens in a social context and weaker if it is individually. Regarding the information effect, we suppose that the expectations will positively affect the drunkenness, i.e. toward the placebo “direction”: those who believe they are consuming a non-alcoholic cocktail will be less inebriated than those who know their drink contains alcohol. In this study, we successfully demonstrate the expectation-induced classical placebo effect in the misinformed participants who were, in fact, consuming non-alcoholic drinks. The “social” alcohol consumption further enhances the true or believed effects of the alcohol, and thus the participants reported their subjective feelings in lines with their manipulated expectations. As regards the effect of the alcohol, therefore, many other factors contribute in addition to the alcohol itself, the most important of which seem to be group effect, suggestions and expectations.

Discussion

The present study examined the mechanisms of the placebo effect in relation to alcohol consumption, specifically the effect of aroma or alcohol consumption on self-evaluation of the subjective physical, emotional and social state, in both group and individual settings.

A classical placebo effect was demonstrated in the present study: there was no significant difference regarding social behaviour or subjective feelings between alcohol- and aroma-consuming subjects when they did not know that placebo had also been served, in either the individual or group setting. It seems that it is enough for people to believe they have consumed alcohol to feel inebriated.

The aim of the study was also to clarify the role of group conditions in the placebo effect. Comparing the results of the individual and group settings, regardless of the alcohol content of the consumed cocktail, a social atmosphere intensified the effects of alcohol consumption.

A significant compensation effect was observed with the manipulation of the instructions (believed to drink alcohol/aroma), which was further enhanced by group effects. Because of the consumed amount of ethanol or aroma, theoretically subjects should not have reported feelings of inebriation, but due to strong stereotypes associated with alcohol consumption, regardless of the alcohol content, they “created” physical symptoms when they believed they were drinking alcohol. On the other hand, those who believed they were drinking only aroma, despite the fact that a real rum cocktail was given to them, showed signs of compensation as well, and they claimed to be “more sober” in order to harmonize their beliefs and feelings. We conclude that up to a certain amount of ethanol, subjective feelings of drunkenness are mainly defined by expectations, and expectation-related stereotypes are more powerful in a social than in an individual context.

To summarize, the effect of alcohol can only be partly explained by ethanol, as several other factors—mainly social processes, suggestions and expectations—play an important role in how individuals become inebriated.

Limitations

This study presents the various effects of aroma and alcohol consumption on the basis of self-evaluation of the subjective physical, emotional and social state in group and individual settings in a healthy and young population with no alcohol-related disease or intolerance. Stereotypes, expectations, attitudes and experiences related to alcohol consumption of the tested sample may also differ from those of other populations, precluding wide generalizability of the results.

The relevant tests indicated the suitability of the variables for factor analysis and repeated-measures ANOVA, although the sample size was relatively small, which can also limit broad interpretation.

Finally, due to the small amount of alcohol consumed and the relatively short time intervals, participants only experienced a mild effect, whereas in real-life situations, people usually consume larger amounts and spend more time under those conditions. Although this fact seems to limit the validity of our study, it could still be a good design choice, since in a stronger inebriated state the placebo probably would not work.

Helzer and Pizarro’s (2011) showed that standing near a hand-sanitizer dispenser (signal of cleanliness and purity), individuals rated their political attitudes more conservative; replication fails

Burnham, B. R. (2020). Are liberals really dirty? Two failures to replicate Helzer and Pizarro’s (2011) study 1, with meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Jun 2020 . https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000238

Abstract: Helzer and Pizarro (2011) reported 2 studies that showed an influence of cleanliness cues on political attitudes. Specifically, when standing near a hand-sanitizer dispenser (signal of cleanliness and purity), individuals rated their political attitudes more conservative, compared with individuals who were standing near an empty wall. The present study reports 2 failed attempts to replicate the results of Study 1 in Helzer and Pizarro (2011). Additionally, a meta-analysis was conducted by combining the results of Helzer and Pizarro (2011), the failed replications reported here, and a third failed replication reported by Allison-Godfrey, Bronson, Luby, Salazar, and Holmes (2015). The meta-analysis revealed a very small effect of the presence of cleanliness cues on political attitudes.

The Dunning–Kruger Effect (a common failure of metacognitive insight in which people who are incompetent in a given domain are unaware of their incompetence) seems applicable to face perception

Dunning–Kruger effects in face perception. Xingchen Zhou, Rob Jenkins. Cognition, Volume 203, October 2020, 104345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104345

Abstract: The Dunning–Kruger Effect refers to a common failure of metacognitive insight in which people who are incompetent in a given domain are unaware of their incompetence. This effect has been found in a wide range of tasks, raising the question of whether there is any ‘special’ domain in which it is not found. One plausible candidate is face perception, which has sometimes been thought to be ‘special’. To test this possibility, we assessed participants' insight into their own face perception abilities (self-estimates) and those of other people (peer estimates). We found classic Dunning–Kruger Effects in matching tasks for unfamiliar identity, familiar identity, gaze direction, and emotional expression. Low performers overestimated themselves, and high performers underestimated themselves. Interestingly, participants' self-estimates were more stable across tasks than their actual performance. In addition, peer estimates revealed a consistent egocentric bias. High performers attributed higher accuracy to other people than did low performers. We conclude that metacognitive insight into face perception abilities is limited and subject to systematic biases. Our findings urge caution when interpreting self-report measures of face perception ability. They also reveal a fundamental source of uncertainty in social interactions.

Keywords: MetacognitionFace perceptionDunning–Kruger effectEgocentric bias

U.S. college women talked about sex an average of 13 times per week; most conversations were with friends, face-to-face, and mostly about previous sexual encounters, dating, and potential sexual activity

“We talked about our hookups”: A diary study of sexual communication among U.S. college women. Katrina L. Pariera, Brianna Abraham. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, June 19, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407520933002

Abstract: For many young women, college is a time of major changes in sexual behavior and attitudes, driven in part by their social environment. Yet little is known about how young women actually talk about sex day-to-day. To understand daily sexual communication, 96 U.S. college students who identify as women kept a sexual communication diary for 7 days, generating 1,211 records. A content analysis revealed that women talked about sex an average of 13 times per week. Most conversations were with friends, face-to-face, and mostly about previous sexual encounters, dating, and potential sexual activity. The underlying function of most conversations was exchanging opinions, recapping, and gossiping. Sex appears to be a somewhat regularly discussed topic for college women and a way of socializing and exploring attitudes. The results have important implications for health promotion efforts targeted at college women.

Keywords: College students, diary study, emerging adulthood, interpersonal communication, peers, sex research, sexual communication, women’s sexuality

Despite parturition pain, regardless of pain modality (electrical, ischaemic, cold, heat, pressure or muscle) or dependen masure, women are more sensitive to pain and less tolerant of pain than men

Qualitative sex differences in pain processing: emerging evidence of a biased literature. Jeffrey S. Mogil. Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 21, pages353–365, May 21 2020. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-020-0310-6

Abstract: Although most patients with chronic pain are women, the preclinical literature regarding pain processing and the pathophysiology of chronic pain has historically been derived overwhelmingly from the study of male rodents. This Review describes how the recent adoption by a number of funding agencies of policies mandating the incorporation of sex as a biological variable into preclinical research has correlated with an increase in the number of studies investigating sex differences in pain and analgesia. Trends in the field are analysed, with a focus on newly published findings of qualitative sex differences: that is, those findings that are suggestive of differential processing mechanisms in each sex. It is becoming increasingly clear that robust differences exist in the genetic, molecular, cellular and systems-level mechanisms of acute and chronic pain processing in male and female rodents and humans.

Students tended to think the influence of hate speech on others was greater than on themselves

Third-Person Effect and Hate Speech Censorship on Facebook. Lei Guo, Brett G. Johnson. Social Media + Society, June 18, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120923003

Abstract: By recruiting 368 US university students, this study adopted an online posttest-only between-subjects experiment to analyze the impact of several types of hate speech on their attitudes toward hate speech censorship. Results showed that students tended to think the influence of hate speech on others was greater than on themselves. Their perception of such messages’ effect on themselves was a significant indicator of supportive attitudes toward hate speech censorship and of their willingness to flag hateful messages.

Keywords: third-person effect, paternalism, speech freedom support, hate speech, Facebook, censorship

Discussion

TPE is commonly used in examining people’s supportive attitude of censorship and related behaviors or behavioral intentions (Davison, 1983; Lo et al., 2016). The debates surrounding the censorship of hate speech on Facebook have surfaced more and more in recent years due to the increasing essentiality of social media in political discourse and the concomitant rise of political extremism. The present research extended the TPE research to the context of managing and censoring hate speech on Facebook.

The results produced strong support for the TPE hypothesis. As expected, participants perceived the Facebook racist, sexist, and anti-LGBT hate speech conditions to have a greater influence on others than on themselves. Given people’s intention that protect others from undesirable messages, the results of the study further revealed that participants’ paternalistic attitude was a significant predictor of perceived greater effects of Facebook hate speech on the general public instead of themselves. However, such predictive power of paternalism failed to indicate the perceived effect on self and others in the racist hate speech context. In other words, even participants who reported high levels of paternalism would not perceive any effects of racist hate speech on self and on the general public. It might indicate that participants might not take such hate speech on Facebook as seriously as sexist or anti-LGBT messages. In addition, as racist hate speech is pervasive on Facebook (Siapera et al., 2018), the other potential reason might be because people have become accustomed to such messages and failed to identify such messages as racist hate speech. Future research could thus further explore the mediation effect between paternalism and effects perception or include more potential independent variables in predicting perceived effects on oneself and others, especially under the racist hate speech condition. Surprisingly, support for freedom of speech was not found to be significantly related to the perceived effects of Facebook hate speech on oneself and on the general public. This finding suggests that participants interpreted the effects of exceptional freedom of expression (which includes legal protections for hate speech) was related neither to themselves nor to others.

Another goal of the study was to explore how the perceived effects of Facebook hate speech affected participants’ consequent censorial behavior. The results showed that when females perceived sexist speech on Facebook having more effects on the general public, they would be more willing to support Facebook and government taking actions to moderate and censor sexist hate speech. On the other hand, the perceived effect of such speech on themselves was found to have an effect on female participants’ intention to flag it on Facebook. Gender-based hate speech is prevalent in cyberspace, and women and girls are usually targeted and by such hate speech (Chetty & Alathur, 2018). These features of sexist hate speech validate our finding that US university students, especially female students, are more willing to regulate this type of hate speech on Facebook.

Surprisingly, contrary to our expectation, in racist and anti-LGBT hate speech contexts, the perceived effect on the general public failed to predict participants’ consequent censorial activities. However, the perceived effect on self could lead to support for Facebook’s content moderation of racist hate speech and the government’s regulation of anti-LGBT hate speech, respectively. Informed by previous research, the findings indicate that instead of supporting regulation, people might think that educating others is a more reasonable solution when they perceived racist and anti-LGBT hate speech to have effects on others (Jang & Kim, 2018). In other words, the current study revealed that the perceived effect of Facebook hate speech on oneself was a better predictor of US students’ supportive attitude toward censorial behaviors. This is a theoretically significant finding of this study since it helps advance TPE research by showing that perceived effects on self and others play different roles in triggering censorial behavior. It further confirms that the TPE phenomenon in politically significant cases might be different from it in other contexts (Wei et al., 2019). A possible explanation may be that these types of hate speech are usually highly related to political topics in the United States, making these results consistent with previous research (e.g., Golan & Day, 2008) that has found that the perceived effect of political messages on self prompted people to participate in political action.

However, interestingly, the results also revealed that although Facebook provides users autonomy to express their willingness to censor speech, participants were less likely to flag racist and anti-LGBT hate speech on Facebook even when they reported high level of paternalism, support for freedom of expression, and perceive high impact of such speech on themselves and the public. This pattern of students’ censorial behavior is consistent with previous research which found that US university students’ attitudes toward political activities are largely gripped by apathy and cynicism (Harvard IOP Youth Poll, 2019; Kohnle, 2013). It is also worth noting that except in the racist hate speech context, those with a higher level of supportive attitudes toward free speech were less likely to support content moderating sexist and anti-LGBT hate speech on Facebook. The result could be explained by the root of First Amendment protection or free-speech rights in the US society.

Several limitations of this study should be recognized. First, the imbalance of participants’ demographic profile of the sample may serve as a limitation to the accuracy of the findings. To be specific, of the 368 valid respondents, over 72% were female, while may not represent general Facebook users in the United States. Because based on Facebook statistics, as of February 2020, users are 54% female and 46% male. The respondents were also more prone to be white compared with the entire Facebook users in the United States. Moreover, the latest report of free expression on US college students found that female White students were more likely to agree that hate speech should be protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they are somewhat less likely than other college students to express support for hate speech censorship (Knight Foundation, 2019). Future research could consider using a more representative sample in order to better understand social media users’ censorial attitudes toward online hate speech. Furthermore, we found that most of the TPE variables in this study failed to predict the behavioral component of TPE. In addition to the sampling bias, one plausible explanation of this limitation is that the participants could not distinguish between the comparison groups devised in the current study. According to Lo (2000), demographic characteristics like educational level and age could affect the self-other gap, which in turn could indirectly influence the behavioral outcomes of TPE. Future studies should examine other comparison groups (e.g., other Facebook users) to assess the predictive power of the self-other gap to TPE outcomes. Finally, although we were confident that our stimuli reflected common examples of hate speech found on Facebook, they by no means reflected the most extreme examples of hate speech out there, leading the results of this study to be relatively small. Previous hate speech studies suggested that targeted groups were more likely than the general public to be affected by hate speech. Therefore, instead of asking respondents perceived the effects of hate speech on the general public, the following studies could differentiate between attitudes of respondents toward themselves and the targeted groups. It is also certainly possible that scholars could find more robust results by using more extreme examples of different forms of hate speech as stimuli.