Loosening the GRIP (Gender Roles Inhibiting Prosociality) to Promote Gender Equality

Loosening the GRIP (Gender Roles Inhibiting Prosociality) to Promote Gender Equality. Alyssa Croft. Personality and Social Psychology Review, December 1, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868320964615

Abstract: Prosociality is an ideal context to begin shifting traditional gender role stereotypes and promoting equality. Men and women both help others frequently, but assistance often follows traditional gender role expectations, which further reinforces restrictive gender stereotypes in other domains. We propose an integrative process model of gender roles inhibiting prosociality (GRIP) to explain why and how this occurs. We argue that prosociality provides a unique entry point for change because it is (a) immediately rewarding (which cultivates positive attitude formation), (b) less likely to threaten the gender status hierarchy, and therefore less susceptible to social backlash (which translates into less restrictive social norms), and (c) a skill that can be learned (which leads to stronger beliefs in one’s own ability to help). Using the GRIP model, we derive a series of hypothesized interventions to interrupt the self-reinforcing cycle of gender role stereotyping and facilitate progress toward broader gender equality.

Keywords: gender roles, gender stereotypes, gender equality, prosocial behavior, helping

We show that family background matters significantly for children’s accumulation of wealth and investor behavior as adults, even when removing the genetic connection between children and the parents raising them

Why do wealthy parents have wealthy children? Andreas Fagereng, Magne Mogstad, and Marte Rønning. Journal of Political Economy, Jun 2020. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/712446

Abstract: We show that family background matters significantly for children’s accumulation of wealth and investor behavior as adults, even when removing the genetic connection between children and the parents raising them. The analysis is made possible by linking Korean-born children who were adopted at infancy by Norwegian parents to a population panel data set with detailed information on wealth and socio-economic characteristics. The mechanism by which these Korean-Norwegian adoptees were assigned to adoptive families is known and effectively random. This mechanism allows us to estimate the causal effects from an adoptee being raised in one type of family versus another.

Reward valuation in social contexts is made relatively in reference to others; socially relative reward valuation triggers various ‘other-regarding’ emotions

Socially relative reward valuation in the primate brain. Masaki Isoda. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, Volume 68, June 2021, Pages 15-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2020.11.008

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1336322948244762624

Highlights

• Reward valuation in social contexts is made relatively in reference to others.

• Socially relative reward valuation triggers various ‘other-regarding’ emotions.

• Socially relative reward valuation is mediated by social and reward neural networks.

• Medial prefrontal cortex and dopamine-related subcortical areas are mainly involved.

• Shared neural networks mediate this valuation in humans and nonhuman primates.

Abstract: Reward valuation in social contexts is by nature relative rather than absolute; it is made in reference to others. This socially relative reward valuation is based on our propensity to conduct comparisons and competitions between self and other. Exploring its neural substrate has been an active area of research in human neuroimaging. More recently, electrophysiological investigation of the macaque brain has enabled us to understand neural mechanisms underlying this valuation process at single-neuron and network levels. Here I show that shared neural networks centered at the medial prefrontal cortex and dopamine-related subcortical regions are involved in this process in humans and nonhuman primates. Thus, socially relative reward valuation is mediated by cortico-subcortically coordinated activity linking social and reward brain networks.

Conclusion

In social contexts, valuation of one's own reward is often made in reference to others’ rewards. This form of reward valuation readily invokes complex other-regarding emotions depending on the context at hand, ranging from those that can hinder interpersonal relations, such as envy and schadenfreude, to those that can promote productive social exchanges, such as empathy, reciprocity, and vicarious happiness. Although socially relative reward valuation is mediated by multiple brain regions, core components are centered in social and reward neural networks. These findings invite an interesting hypothesis that it is not a single brain region, but the combination of regions within the distributed neural networks and their coherent interaction that determine the type of other-regarding emotions and subsequent social decisions. Thus, a critical next step is to better understand fine-grained mechanisms underlying social rewards and emotions at the pathway level via electrophysiological decoding and pathway-selective intervention using well-controlled social task paradigms, the strategy of which has been developed in macaque monkeys [60]. Currently, the domain of comparisons between self and other is confined to rewards in monkey studies. However, other domains, such as the status and performance ability, would also be testable given that monkeys are sensitive to hierarchical relationships [61] and are equipped with metacognitive capability [62, 63, 64]. 

Considerate altruists were perceived to be more intelligent, easy going, creative, cooperative, sympathetic, wealthy and thought to be better parents

Norman, Ian (2020) Distinguishing between altruistic behaviours: the desirability of considerate and heroic altruism and their relationship to empathic concern. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia. Dec 2 2020. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/77870/

Abstract: Debate exists within the fields of evolutionary and social psychology around the concept of Altruism. From an evolutionary perspective, this relates to how a behaviour that is costly to the fitness of the altruist but beneficial to the recipient has evolved, particularly when the recipient is a stranger. From a psychological perspective the debate surrounds whether the motivations for altruism are instrumental to helping the altruist achieve a selfish goal (egoism) or whether motivations can be ultimate goals, with the purpose of improving the wellbeing of the recipient (altruism). Altruism within both of these perspectives has been operationalised in numerous ways but without consideration that different behaviours that fit the respective definitions of altruism could impact upon the ultimate evolutionary function of altruism or the psychological mechanisms that motivate altruism. Study 1, a qualitative content analysis of altruistic behaviour within newspaper articles examined the extent to which different altruistic behaviours are presented distinctly. The findings demonstrated that there are three broad categories of altruism; considerate, heroic and philanthropic. Study 2 examines whether participants display intra-individual variation in their altruistic intentions as determined by the operationalisation of altruism. A principal components analysis of participant responses to an altruistic intentions questionnaire demonstrated that there were two stable altruistic components that reflected considerate altruism and heroic altruism. The altruistic intentions questionnaire was validated in studies 3 and 4, to show that intentions do correlate with behaviours for each component. Within study 2, predictor models were also created through regression analyses, which demonstrated that whilst communal orientation and prior altruistic behaviour were predictive of both considerate and heroic altruistic intentions, disinhibition, social dominance and emotional reactivity were uniquely predictive of considerate altruistic intentions and agreeableness and openness were uniquely predictive of heroic altruistic intentions. The finding that emotional reactivity, a factor of the Empathy Quotient, was predictive of considerate but not heroic altruistic intentions was examined further in study 5, using a laboratory experiment. It was found that empathic concern was predictive of considerate altruistic behaviour but not heroic altruistic behaviour. Study 5 also found that agreeableness was not predictive of heroic altruistic behaviour, unlike study 2; this suggests that considerate helping behaviours may be more likely to be motivated by altruistic ultimate goals. Studies 6 through 10 explore the desirability of considerate and heroic altruists, as costly signalling theory suggests that altruism acts as a costly signal of a desirable underlying quality which increases opportunities to form cooperative and reproductive relationships, which offset the cost to the altruist. The findings were mixed, providing no clear evidence that considerate or heroic altruists are more desirable. However, study 10 demonstrated that whilst considerate and heroic altruists had similar desirability ratings, participants associated different underlying qualities to each type of altruist. Considerate altruists were perceived to be more intelligent, easy going, creative, cooperative, sympathetic, wealthy and thought to be better parents. Heroic altruists were perceived to be kinder, healthier, more understanding, more competitive, more physically attractive and have more exciting personalities. Overall, the evidence suggests that critical consideration of how altruism is operationalised is required to facilitate cross study comparisons so that researchers can construct a better understanding of what altruism signals and what the underlying motivations of altruism are.

The participants evaluated smiling faces as older in direct evaluations, regardless of the facial stimuli culture or their nationality, although they believed that smiling makes people look younger

Yoshimura, Naoto, Koichi Morimoto, Mariko Murai, Yusaku Kihara, Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos, Veit Kubik, and Yuki Yamada. 2020. “Age of Smile: A Cross-cultural Replication Report of Ganel and Goodale (2018).” PsyArXiv. December 4. doi:10.31234/osf.io/dtx6j

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1336236855386365952

Abstract: Smiling is believed to make people look younger. Ganel and Goodale (2018) proposed that this belief is a misconception rooted in popular media, based on their findings that people actually perceive smiling faces as older. However, they did not clarify whether this misconception can be generalized across cultures. We tested the cross-cultural validity of Ganel and Goodale’s findings by collecting data from Japanese and Swedish participants. Specifically, we aimed to replicate Ganel and Goodale’s study using segregated sets of Japanese and Swedish facial stimuli, and including Japanese and Swedish participants in groups asked to estimate the age of either Japanese or Swedish faces (two groups of participants × two groups of stimuli; four groups total). Our multiverse analytical approach consistently showed that the participants evaluated smiling faces as older in direct evaluations, regardless of the facial stimuli culture or their nationality, although they believed that smiling makes people look younger. Further, we hypothesized that the effect of wrinkles around the eyes on the estimation of age would vary with the stimulus culture, based on previous studies. However, we found no differences in age estimates by stimulus culture in the present study. Our results showed that we successfully replicated Ganel and Goodale (2018) in a cross-cultural context. Our study thus clarified that the belief that smiling makes people look younger is a common cultural misconception.

Compliance with gender roles in risky behavior may be exacerbated in Western countries, where the level of road safety is higher and the need for compliance with traditional social roles is less emphasized

Effect of Culture on Gender Differences in Risky Driver Behavior through Comparative Analysis of 32 Countries. Marie-Axelle Granié et al. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. December 1, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361198120970525

Abstract: This study examines the effect of culture on gender differences in road user risky behaviors. With the hypothesis that gender differences are not solely because of biological factors, and that the existence and magnitude of differences between gender groups vary according to cultural context, because of differentiated social expectations in relation to gender roles, a secondary analysis was made of the E-Survey of Road Users’ Attitudes (ESRA) 2018 database, comprising 25,459 car drivers (53% male) surveyed by an online questionnaire in 32 countries distributed in eight cultural clusters. The interactions between gender and culture in reported behavior, and personal and social acceptability of four violations were analyzed: drinking and driving, speeding, not wearing a seatbelt, and the use of a cellphone while driving. The results show significant gender differences on risky behaviors and attitudes and complex interactions between gender and culture, with men valuing crash-risk behaviors more than women do in all cultural clusters observed. Interactions between gender and culture are more frequent on declared behaviors and personal acceptability than on perceived social acceptability, and on drinking and driving, and not wearing a seatbelt, more than on speeding and the use of a cellphone while driving. In addition, gender differences are greater in Western countries than in the Global South. These gender differences in road user behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions as results of an interaction between biological and evolutionary factors and cultural and social factors are discussed. These results could be useful to better tailor road safety campaigns and education.

While men and women are both susceptible to motivated reasoning in general, men find it particularly attractive to believe that they outperformed others and distort information processing to favor their performance

Gender Differences in Motivated Reasoning. Michael Thaler. arXiv Dec 2 2020, https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.01538

Men and women systematically differ in their beliefs about their performance relative to others; in particular, men tend to be more overconfident. This paper provides support for one explanation for gender differences in overconfidence, performance-motivated reasoning, in which people distort how they process new information in ways that make them believe they outperformed others. Using a large online experiment, I find that male subjects distort information processing to favor their performance, while female subjects do not systematically distort information processing in either direction. These statistically-significant gender differences in performance-motivated reasoning mimic gender differences in overconfidence; beliefs of male subjects are systematically overconfident, while beliefs of female subjects are well-calibrated on average. The experiment also includes political questions, and finds that politically-motivated reasoning is similar for both men and women. These results suggest that, while men and women are both susceptible to motivated reasoning in general, men find it particularly attractive to believe that they outperformed others.

Those worried about getting ill in the epidemic made harsher moral judgments than those who were not worried, effect not restricted to transgressions involving purity, but also to those involving harm, fairness, authority, & loyalty

Henderson, Robert K., and Simone Schnall. 2020. “Disease and Disapproval: COVID-19 Concern Is Related to Greater Moral Condemnation.” PsyArXiv. December 7. doi:10.31234/osf.io/7szaw. Evolutionary Psychology, June 10, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/14747049211021524

Abstract: Prior research has indicated that disgust, a manifestation of the behavioral immune system, is associated with harsher moral condemnation. However, the link between physical disgust—an evolved signal of risks to one’s health—and morality has been contentious. We investigated the role of a specific health concern, namely the spread of the coronavirus, and associated COVID-19 disease, on moral condemnation. We hypothesized that individuals who report greater subjective worry about COVID-19 would be more sensitive to moral transgressions. Across 3 studies (N = 913), conducted March-May 2020 as the pandemic started to unfold in the United States, we found that individuals who were worried about contracting the infectious disease made harsher moral judgments than those who were not worried. This effect was not restricted to transgressions involving purity, but extended to transgressions involving harm, fairness, authority, and loyalty, and remained when controlling for political orientation. We furthermore observed suggestive evidence that even relatively unconcerned individuals became more judgmental as the epidemic wore on. These findings add to the growing literature that concrete threats to health can play a role in abstract moral considerations, supporting the notion that judgments of wrongdoing are not based on rational thought alone.

General Discussion

This research tested the role of situational concerns about an infectious disease on judgments of wrongdoing. Across three studies we consistently found that people who were worried about COVID-19 condemned moral wrongdoers more harshly than those who were less worried. This finding adds to emerging work on the role of disease threat on moral judgment. In Studies 1 and 2 controlling for individual differences in contamination disgust left the effect of coronavirus worry and moral judgment intact. In contrast, in Study 3, we found that this relationship was no longer significant after accounting for contamination disgust, indicating that fear of contamination was responsible for the effect. We interpret this finding to be the result of a generally heightened concern about the virus at the time. Indeed, contamination disgust has been described as bearing a “striking similarity” to disease avoidance (Olatunji et al., 2009). An intriguing possibility is, therefore, that variables that are typically considered to reflect stable individual differences, such as disgust sensitivity, may change as a function of coronavirus concerns that became relatively universal across the world. Indeed, recent theorizing has suggested that topics within the field of of psychology, and the scientific approaches to study them, may change in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic (Rosenfeld et al., in press). Given the current findings, apart from contamination and disease concerns, other relevant traits such as neuroticism or conscientiousness may also have changed over the course of the pandemic as a function of constantly having been engaged in disease-prevention behavior to alleviate related worries. Future research would be needed to explore this possibility.

Our findings align with a growing body of research demonstrating that individual differences in the propensity to experience disgust are linked to moral considerations (Chapman & Anderson, 2014; Karinen & Chapman, 2019; Liuzza et al., 2019; Murray et al., 2019; Robinson et al., 2019; Wagemans et al., 2018). Furthermore, the results are consistent with recent work showing a positive association between germ aversion and moral condemnation across the moral foundations (Murray et al., 2019). Our findings contribute to this line of research by demonstrating that subjective worry about a real-world contagious disease is associated with harsher moral judgments, and, moreover, that this relationship held even after accounting for differences in political orientation. Thus, converging evidence supports Haidt’s (2001) suggestion that morality is shaped by various emotions and intuitions, of which concerns about health and safety are prominent.

There are limitations within these findings. Though we obtained large samples with consistent results across all three studies, we used a single item to measure “worry,” which may have reduced sensitivity in capturing participants’ level of concern about COVID-19. Another qualification to these results is the difference in the relationships between the trait-like measures of COVID-19 worry and moral judgments, and the effects of the experimental manipulation in Study 1. That is, although dispositional worry about contracting the illness was consistently related to moral condemnation, experimentally manipulating the salience of COVID-19 had no effect on moral judgment, relative to a neutral condition. One possibility for why is by the time of Study 1 on March 17, news about COVID-19 was already highly salient, and thus the experimental manipulation did not have the intended effect. The dispositional association, however, might be explained by a generalized overreaction to potential harm. It is possible that those who are prone to chronic worry about contracting an infectious illness are also more sensitive to moral violations in disease-relevant domains as well as other moral infractions. That is, fear of disease may overlap with an overgeneralized reaction of increased sensitivity to potential harm, including moral wrongdoers who commit not only purity violations, but other unfavorable acts as well. Indeed, worried participants produced harsher judgments than less worried participants, and there was no moderating effect of moral foundation. This is consistent with previous research, indicating that disease threat concerns are associated with conformity to moral proscriptions that are not specific to disease (e.g., Murray et al., 2011; Tybur et al., 2016; Wu & Chang, 2012). Lack of moderation by foundation type is likewise consistent with error management, such that the more costly error is to be under-vigilant about moral violations that are not disease relevant than to be over-vigilant solely for disease-relevant violations (Haselton et al., 2015; Murray et al., 2019). Further research is needed to more carefully explore these dispositional versus experimental differences.

Additionally, we did not test whether other variables, such as personality, might have played a role in our results. Disease avoidance has been associated with both neuroticism and conscientiousness (Oosterhoff et al., 2018), while openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness have been associated with sensitivity to moral violations (Hirsh et al., 2010; Smillie et al., 2020). Thus, considering the overlap between disease avoidance, moral judgments, and conscientiousness, this personality trait may account for some of the variance between worry about a highly salient communicable disease and assessments of moral wrongdoing.

Our research raises the possibility that during a period of widespread concern about infectious disease, people may become more judgmental overall. In other words, people’s actions and intentions might be under more scrutiny, and when ambiguous, may be interpreted uncharitably, potentially resulting in misunderstandings, or interpersonal conflicts. Indeed, in the early days of the unfolding COVID-19 crisis, there were media accounts of mistrust in public officials, the press, and health organizations. The current findings suggest that we may see further instances of uncharitable evaluations as people are especially concerned for their physical health. Thus, the ongoing pandemic presented an ecologically relevant way of examining the role of disease prevalence on an issue of critical applied importance.

Teachers with some factual knowledge of the brain were more easily believers of neuromyths; those who endorsed neuromyths were generally more confident in their answers than those who identified the myths

Why do teachers believe educational neuromyths? Brenda Hughes, Karen A. Sullivan, Linda Gilmore. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, Volume 21, December 2020, 100145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tine.2020.100145

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1335927859332984833

Abstract

Background: It is not well understood whether qualified teachers believe neuromyths, and whether this affects their practice and learner outcomes.

Method: A standardised survey was administered to practising teachers (N = 228) to determine whether or not they believe fictional (neuromyth) or factual statements about the brain, the confidence in those beliefs, and their application.

Results: Although factual knowledge was high, seven neuromyths were believed by >50% of the sample. Participants who endorsed neuromyths were generally more confident in their answers than those who identified the myths. Key neuromyths appear to be incorporated into classrooms.

Conclusion: Australian teachers, like their overseas counterparts, have some neuroscience awareness but are susceptible to neuromyths. A stronger partnership with neuroscientists would addresss the complex problem of disentangling brain facts from fictions, and provide better support for teachers. This study uncovered psychometric weaknesses in the commonly used neuromyth measure that future research should address.

Keywords: NeuroscienceEducationTeachingLearningStudentsBrainNeuromyths

Higher income is more consistently linked to how frequently individuals experience happiness than how intensely happy each episode is; in part because lower-income individuals spend more time engaged in passive leisure activities, reducing the frequency of positive affect

Income More Reliably Predicts Frequent Than Intense Happiness. Jon M. Jachimowicz et al. Social Psychological and Personality Science, December 7, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620972548

Abstract: There is widespread consensus that income and subjective well-being are linked, but when and why they are connected is subject to ongoing debate. We draw on prior research that distinguishes between the frequency and intensity of happiness to suggest that higher income is more consistently linked to how frequently individuals experience happiness than how intensely happy each episode is. This occurs in part because lower-income individuals spend more time engaged in passive leisure activities, reducing the frequency but not the intensity of positive affect. Notably, we demonstrate that only happiness frequency underlies the relationship between income and life satisfaction. Data from an experience sampling study (N = 394 participants, 34,958 daily responses), a preregistered cross-sectional study (N = 1,553), and a day reconstruction study (N = 13,437) provide empirical evidence for these ideas. Together, this research provides conceptual and empirical clarity into how income is related to happiness.

Keywords: money, income, happiness, life satisfaction, time use

Recent research involving birds, ‘enculturated’ chimpanzees, and humans suggests that the cognitive mechanisms that make imitation possible are constructed during development through social interaction

Heyes, Cecilia. 2020. “Imitation Primer.” PsyArXiv. December 7. doi:10.31234/osf.io/tn34f

Abstract: In this Primer, Cecilia Heyes explains why imitation is thought to be a mark of cognitive complexity and an inheritance mechanism for cumulative culture. Recent research involving birds, ‘enculturated’ chimpanzees, and humans suggests that the cognitive mechanisms that make imitation possible are constructed during development through social interaction.

Many conservatives reject both gender equality & evolution of sex differences, embracing instead “naturally occurring” gender differences; many liberals reject evolved gender differences & naturally occurring gender differences, while nonetheless strongly endorsing evolution

Lewandowsky, S., Woike, J. K., & Oberauer, K. (2020). Genesis or Evolution of Gender Differences? Worldview-Based Dilemmas in The Processing of Scientific Information. Journal of Cognition, 3(1), 9, Apr 30 2020. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/joc.99

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1335878463190790145

Abstract: Some issues that have been settled by the scientific community, such as evolution, the effectiveness of vaccinations, and the role of CO2 emissions in climate change, continue to be rejected by segments of the public. This rejection is typically driven by people’s worldviews, and to date most research has found that conservatives are uniformly more likely to reject scientific findings than liberals across a number of domains. We report a large (N > 1,000) preregistered study that addresses two questions: First, can we find science denial on the left? Endorsement of pseudoscientific complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) has been anecdotally cited as being more consonant with liberals than conservatives. Against this claim, we found more support for CAM among conservatives than liberals. Second, we asked how liberals and conservatives resolve dilemmas in which an issue triggers two opposing facets of their worldviews. We probed attitudes on gender equality and the evolution of sex differences—two constructs that may create conflicts for liberals (who endorse evolution but also equality) and conservatives (who endorse gender differences but are sceptical of evolution). We find that many conservatives reject both gender equality and evolution of sex differences, and instead embrace “naturally occurring” gender differences. Many liberals, by contrast, reject evolved gender differences, as well as naturally occurring gender differences, while nonetheless strongly endorsing evolution.

Keywords: Emotion and cognition, Social cognition, Reasoning

Discussion

Relationship to previous results

Our results coordinate well with multiple precedents in the literature, which we take up for each of the constructs examined. Considering first religiosity, we replicated the substantial association between stronger religious beliefs and conservatism in the American population (Malka et al., 2012; Schlenker, Chambers, & Le, 2012). In our study this association generalized across a broadly-defined socio-political conservatism construct as well as a specific construct targeting endorsement of laissez-faire free-market economics. We also replicated the long-standing strong negative association between religiosity and acceptance of evolution (e.g., Ecklund, Scheitle, Peifer, & Bolger, 2017; Tom, 2018) and the modest negative association between religiosity and analytic thinking (i.e., CRT performance) reported previously (Jack, Friedman, Boyatzis, & Taylor, 2016; Shenhav, Rand, & Greene, 2012; Stagnaro, Ross, Pennycook, & Rand, 2019). Likewise, the correlations between religiosity and the gender constructs (e.g., Table 5) are consistent with previous reports that religiosity predicts sexism (Van Assche et al., 2019). Our results go beyond previous findings because our scales did not probe discriminatory sexism but the origin of presumed gender differences. We find that religiosity makes it less likely that people believe that gender differences have evolved.

The negative association between religiosity and CAM rejection is also unsurprising in light of previous research that has shown acceptance of CAM to be driven by intuitive thinking, paranormal beliefs, and ontological confusions (Lindeman, 2011). At least one of those variables (intuitive thinking) is also known to be a predictor of religiosity (e.g., Shenhav et al., 2012). The positive correlation between CAM rejection and acceptance of vaccinations replicates much previous research (e.g., Attwell, Ward, Meyer, Rokkas, & Leask, 2018; Browne, Thomson, Rockloff, & Pennycook, 2015; Bryden, Browne, Rockloff, & Unsworth, 2018; Ernst, 2002).

However, our findings concerning religiosity also deviate from aspects of other recent research (Rutjens, Sutton, & van der Lee, 2018). Unlike Rutjens et al., we found no evidence of a link between religiosity and rejection of vaccinations. Given that Rutjens et at. observed this link only in some of their studies and only for some measures of religiosity (mainly measures of religious orthodoxy), we are not concerned about this apparent departure from previous results. Indeed, in another recent as-yet unpublished study involving identical constructs, we did observe a negative association between vaccination and religiosity, suggesting that this relationship may well be real but is only observable in certain circumstances.

Turning to the associations involving CRT performance, the observed modest but significant negative correlation with religiosity replicates previous results (Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012; Shenhav et al., 2012; Stagnaro et al., 2019). Jost (2017) reported a meta analysis of 13 studies that related CRT performance to political views. The vast majority of those studies showed that liberals exhibited more cognitive reflection than conservatives. In the present data, this is echoed by the modest negative correlation with free market, although it was not reflected in the socio-political conservatism measure. The positive associations of the CRT with endorsement of all three scientific constructs, vaccination, CAM rejection, and evolution replicate similar previous findings (Shtulman & McCallum, 2014; Wagner-Egger et al., 2018). The association also coordinates well with recent findings that analytical thinking is associated with better differentiation between “fake news” and valid information (Pennycook & Rand, 2018).

Rejection of science on the political left?

Our findings provide little or no evidence that people on the political left reject vaccinations. On the contrary, to the extent that worldviews determined vaccination attitudes, it was free-market endorsement that predicted rejection. This result parallels a similar association observed by Hornsey, Harris, and Fielding (2018), albeit using a different instrument to measure Libertarian attidudes (hierarchical-individualism as opposed to free-market endorsement). The result is also consonant with the notion that libertarians object to the government intrusion arising from mandatory vaccination programs (Kahan et al., 2010). It also meshes well with the pattern observed by Lewandowsky, Gignac, and Oberauer (2013), who showed that when socio-political conservatism was removed from a model, free-market endorsement on its own predicted rejection of vaccinations (whereas the converse was not true). Overall, our results thus converge with other recent findings that have found an association between right-wing politics and rejection of vaccinations (Baumgaertner, Carlisle, & Justwan, 2018; Kahan et al., 2010; Rabinowitz et al., 2016). In a recent cross-sectional analysis of voting behavior and vaccination rates across European countries, Kennedy (2019) found a strong relationship between the vote share for populist parties and vaccine hesitancy.

Similarly, contrary to reports that CAM use and left-wing ideas have a natural affinity for each other (see, e.g., Keshet, 2009), we found that CAM rejection was negatively, but modestly, associated with the All conservatism factor that subsumed all three of our worldview constructs; namely, religiosity, free market endorsement, and socio-political conservatism. Moreover, in our data, none of the gender constructs were associated with CAM attitudes. This runs counter to the idea that CAM use is “feminist” (Scott, 1998). To our knowledge, our results constitute the first empirical examination of the links between political views and CAM attitudes. Our results that conservatives are more likely to embrace CAM is consonant with historical analyses that have found strong links between right-wing organizations, such as the John Birch Society in the U.S., and endorsement of “alternative” cancer treatments (Markle, Petersen, & Wagenfeld, 1978). The present result adds to the list of failed attempts to discover science denial on the political left (e.g., Hamilton, 2011, 2015; Hamilton, Hartter, & Saito, 2015; Hamilton, Hartter, Lemcke-Stampone, et al., 2015; Kahan et al., 2010; Lewandowsky, Gignac, & Oberauer, 2013; Tom, 2018).

Attitudes towards gender differences

We observed an intriguing interplay of the attitudes towards general Darwinian evolution, gender differences, and how those gender differences might have arisen. At a coarse level of analysis, we observed three unsurprising associations: The idea that men and women differ naturally was highly correlated with the idea that they evolved differently, but was negatively correlated with the construct that proclaimed gender equality. The equality construct was also negatively correlated with the idea that men and women evolved differently, although that correlation was smaller than for natural differences.

At a more detailed level of analysis, several intriguing associations emerged. First, acceptance of general Darwinian evolution was positively associated with two seemingly conflicting constructs; namely, that men and women evolved differently and that they are the same. Moreover, evolution was negatively correlated with the idea that men and women are naturally different, even though evolution is one way in which such “natural” differences might have emerged. A similarly nuanced pattern obtained when the worldview constructs were used to predict gender attitudes. Although the over-arching All conservatism factor functioned as expected, with negative weights for gender equality and positive weights for the two constructs insisting on gender differences, there was an additional selective effect of religiosity on the rejection of evolved gender differences.

Further analysis revealed that the involvement of evolution, either on its own or in explaining gender differences, served as a “wedge issue” that disrupted otherwise straightforward associations between right-wing politics and opposition to gender equality (and, vice versa, rejection of gender differences and left-wing politics) and—as foreshadowed in Figure 1—created dilemmas for participants of all political persuasions. As noted in connection with Figure 6, conservatives who strongly rejected Darwinian evolution resolved their dilemma by endorsing “natural” gender differences while rejecting evolved gender differences. Those participants were thus willing to forego endorsement of gender differences to maintain consistency with their opposition to evolution. Conversely, liberals who are strongly committed to gender equality tended to reject the idea of evolved gender differences, even though those participants were demonstrably committed to accepting evolution. Those participants were thus willing to forego endorsement of a specific manifestation of evolution to maintain consistency with their commitment to equality. Thus, partisans of either stripe can agree in their rejection of the idea that men and women evolved differently, but they do so for entirely different reasons. Conservatives do so when they are committed to reject evolution, and liberals do so when they are committed to gender equality. Both groups therefore resolve the dilemmas posed by our gender constructs by “sacrificing” endorsement of evolved gender differences.

Conclusion

Our results contribute to two seemingly conflicting streams of outcomes in the literature on how worldviews moderate people’s responses to scientific issues. On the one hand, there is much evidence for pervasive attitudinal asymmetry, at least in the United States, with conservatives being more likely to reject well-established scientific propositions than liberals. To date, little or no evidence for left-wing science denial has been reported. We add to this stream by showing that, contrary to previous largely anecdotal reports, liberals are more likely to reject complementary and alternative medicines, in line with the scientific evidence, than conservatives.

On the other hand, there is considerable evidence that liberals and conservatives process scientific data in a symmetrical fashion. That is, liberals and conservatives alike resort to the same cognitive shortcuts when data conform to their biases, giving rise to a symmetric set of errors (Kahan, Peters, Dawson, & Slovic, 2017; Washburn & Skitka, 2018). We also add to this stream of research by showing that, when confronted by worldview-triggered dilemmas, both liberals and conservatives resolve those dilemmas in an equally “rational” fashion, by selectively “sacrificing” endorsement of a specific construct about gender differences. Liberals, who generally endorse evolution, believe that for some reason it did not affect differences between the sexes; this could be rationalized perhaps by assuming that evolution causes differences only between but not within species. Conservatives, who frequently reject evolution, believe that men and women differ naturally without having evolved differently; this could be rationalized by assuming, for instance, that those natural differences were the result of divine intervention.

A final contribution of our study is that it points to the advantages of a more nuanced analysis of political worldviews, beyond a convenient but simplistic classification of people into left and right, or liberals and conservatives. While this classification is sufficient to explain some scientific attitudes—for example, it matters little how one measures political worldviews to explain rejection of climate science (e.g., Hornsey, Harris, Bain, & Fielding, 2016; Kahan, 2015)—there are other circumstances in which a more nuanced differentiation between different aspects of worldviews provides considerably greater explanatory power.

No negative Flynn effect in France: Why variations of intelligence should not be assessed using tests based on cultural knowledge

No negative Flynn effect in France: Why variations of intelligence should not be assessed using tests based on cultural knowledge. Corentin Gonthier, Jacques Grégoire, Maud Besançon. Intelligence, Volume 84, January–February 2021, 101512. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2020.101512

Highlights

• We tested the claim that intelligence decreases in France (negative Flynn effect).

• We re-analyzed princeps data (Dutton & Lynn, 2015) and collected a new sample.

• Performance only decreases on tests involving declarative knowledge, not reasoning.

• This is attributable to measurement bias for older items, due to cultural changes.

• There is fluctuation of knowledge, but no overall negative Flynn effect in France.

Abstract: In 2015, Dutton and Lynn published an account of a decrease of intelligence in France (negative Flynn effect) which had considerable societal impact. This decline was argued to be biological. However, there is good reason to be skeptical of these conclusions. The claim of intelligence decline was based on the finding of lower scores on the WAIS-III (normed in 1999) for a recent sample, but careful examination of the data suggests that this decline was in fact limited to subtests with a strong influence of culture-dependent declarative knowledge. In Study 1, we re-analyzed the data used by Dutton and Lynn (2015) and showed that only subtests of the WAIS primarily assessing cultural knowledge (Gc) demonstrated a significant decline. Study 2 replicated this finding and confirmed that performance was constant on other subtests. An analysis of differential item functioning in the five subtests with a decline showed that about one fourth of all items were significantly more difficult for subjects in a recent sample than in the original normative sample, for an equal level of ability. Decline on a subtest correlated 0.95 with its cultural load. These results confirm that there is currently no evidence for a decrease of intelligence in France, with prior findings being attributable to a drift of item difficulty for older versions of the WAIS, due to cultural changes. This highlights the role of culture in Wechsler's intelligence tests and indicates that when interpreting (negative) Flynn effects, the past should really be treated as a different country.

Keywords: Flynn effectNegative Flynn effectFluid intelligenceCrystallized intelligenceDifferential item functioning (DIF)

5. General discussion

The results of both Study 1 and Study 2 unambiguously indicated that there was no negative Flynn effect in France, in the sense of a general decrease of intelligence or a decrease in the ability to perform logical reasoning: there were no reliable differences between WAIS-III and WAIS-IV for any of the subtests reflecting visuo-spatial reasoning (Gf and Gv), or working memory and processing speed (Gsm and Gs), and which were based on abstract materials. We did find lower total performance on the WAIS-III for a recent sample, but contrary to the classic Flynn effect, this difference between cohorts was exclusively driven by the five subtests involving Gc - acquired declarative knowledge tied to a specific cultural setting.

When considered under the angle of item content, it appeared that this decrease on subtests involving declarative knowledge largely reflected, not an actual decrease of ability, but measurement bias due to differences of item difficulty for samples collected at different dates. All in all, in the five subtests demonstrating a decline, about one fourth of items were comparatively more difficult for the 2019 sample than for the 1999 sample for an equal level of ability. These differences could be traced down to a few specific skills. All but one of the Information items that were biased against a recent sample related to the names of famous people, and biased Comprehension items were all related to civic education; interestingly, the test publisher decided to practically eliminate both topics from the WAIS-IV. All but one of the biased Arithmetic items required computing mental division or proportions. For Vocabulary, the negative net effect of bias was partly compensated by the fact that some words were easier in the recent sample, more consistent with a change in language frequency patterns than with an absolute decrease in vocabulary skills. In all cases, these increases in item difficulty for a recent sample could be attributed to environmental changes in school programs, topics covered by the media, and other societal evolutions.

The fact that the performance decrease on a subtest correlated at 0.95 with its cultural load confirms this conclusion and runs counter to the interpretation that the observed decline is caused by biological factors (Woodley of Menie & Dunkel, 2015). This does not completely rule out biological factors, as cultural loads are not pure indicators of cultural influences: a possible alternative interpretation, as suggested by Edward Dutton and Woodley of Menie, is that a genetic decrease in fluid reasoning could negatively affect the culture of a country, in turn reverberating on Gc subtests (see Dutton et al., 2017; this is a variant of investment theory and of explanations assuming genotype-environment covariance; e.g. Kan et al., 2013). However, this idea would be almost impossible to falsify, and it would be difficult to reconcile with the facts that the correlation with heritability was non-significant and that there was no decline at all for the Gf and Gv subtests, which tend to have high heritability (e.g. Kan et al., 2013; Rijsdijk, Vernon, & Boomsma, 2002; van Leeuwen, van den Berg, & Boomsma, 2008), and which would be expected to decrease before effects on Gc could be observable. There is also a lack of plausible biological mechanisms that could create such a large decline in the dataset in such a short timeframe. All this converges to clearly suggest a role of cultural changes as the most parsimonious interpretation of the data.

In short, the conclusion that can be drawn from a comparison of WAIS-III and WAIS-IV is that over the last two decades, there has been no decline of reasoning abilities in the French population, but there has been an average decrease in a limited range of cultural knowledge (essentially related to using infrequent vocabulary words, knowing the names of famous people, discussing civic education and performing mental division), which biases performance on older items. In other words, the data do indicate a lower average performance on the WAIS-III in the more recent sample, in line with Dutton and Lynn (2015) results, but a more fine-grained analysis contradicts their interpretation of a general decrease of intelligence in France. In the terms of a hierarchical model of intelligence (Wicherts, 2007), there appears to be no decrease in latent ability at the first level of g; there is a decrease at the second level of broad abilities, but only for Gc; and this decrease seems essentially due to cultural changes creating measurement bias at the fourth level composed of performance for specific items.

This pattern is entirely distinct from the Flynn effect, which represents an increase in general intelligence, and especially in Gf performance, accompanied by much smaller changes on Gc (Pietschnig & Voracek, 2015). Hence it is our conviction that this pattern reflects substantially different mechanisms and cannot reasonably be labeled a “negative Flynn effect”, without extending the definition of the Flynn effect to the point where any difference between cohorts could be called a “Flynn effect” and where it would no longer be useful as a heuristic concept. This point is compounded by the fact that the difference reflected item-related measurement bias, rather than an actual change of ability. To quote Flynn (2009a): “Are IQ gains ‘cultural bias’? We must distinguish between cultural trends that render neutral content more familiar and cultural trends that really raise the level of cognitive skills. If the spread of the scientific ethos has made people capable of using logic to attack a wider range of problems, that is a real gain in cognitive skills. If no one has taken the trouble to update the words on a vocabulary test to eliminate those that have gone out of everyday usage, then an apparent score loss is ersatz.” The current pattern is clearly ersatz: “ersatz effect” may be a better name than “negative Flynn effect”.

There are two possible interpretations to the ersatz difference observed here. On one hand, this decline could be restricted to areas covered by the WAIS-III, and could be compensated by increases in other areas: in other words, the 2019 sample may possess different knowledge, but not less knowledge than the 1999 sample. On the other hand, this might represent a real decline and a cause for concern: results of the large-scale PISA surveys (performed on about 7.000 pupils) routinely point to significant inequalities in the academic skills of French pupils, and their average level of mathematics performance has declined since the early 2000s (e.g. OECD, 2019). It is impossible to adjudicate between these two possibilities (which would require having the 1999 sample perform the WAIS-IV), but even if there were an actual decrease in average knowledge, this conclusion would be significantly less bleak than the picture of a biologically-driven intelligence decrease painted by Dutton and Lynn (2015), and would highlight possible shortfalls of the French educational system (see also Blair, Gamson, Thorne, & Baker, 2005) rather than the downward trajectory of a population becoming less and less intelligent.

This conclusion is in line with a tradition of studies attributing fluctuations of intelligence scores to methodological biases, especially as they relate to [cultural] item content (e.g. Beaujean & Osterlind, 2008; Beaujean & Sheng, 2010; Kaufman, 2010; Nugent, 2006; Pietschnig et al., 2013; Rodgers, 1998; Weiss et al., 2016). As an example, Flieller (1988) reached the same conclusion in a French dataset over three decades ago; Brand et al. (1989) also found a similar result of decreasing scores due to changes of items difficulty, which they illustrated with an understandable decline of the proportion of correct answers for the item “What is a belfry?” between 1961 and 1984. This conclusion is also in line with studies arguing for the role of cultural environment and culture-based knowledge in Flynn-like fluctuations of intelligence over time (e.g. Bratsberg & Rogeberg, 2018). Note that drifts of item difficulty are only one aspect of such cultural changes; changes of test-taking pattern behavior, such as increased guessing, are another example (e.g. Must & Must, 2013; Pietschnig & Voracek, 2013).

Beyond the specific case of average intelligence in France, the current results constitute a reminder that intelligence scores are not pure reflections of intelligence and have multiple determinants, some of which can be affected by cultural factors that do not reflect intelligence itself. Put otherwise, this is an illustration of the principle that performance can differ between groups of subjects without representing a true difference of ability (Beaujean & Osterlind, 2008; Beaujean & Sheng, 2010). This is a well-known bias of cross-country comparisons, where test performance can be markedly lower in a culture for which the test was not designed (e.g. Cockcroft, Alloway, Copello, & Milligan, 2015; Greenfield, 1997; Van de Vijver, 2016). In other words, this principle generalizes to all comparisons between samples, not just intelligence fluctuations over time: investigators should be skeptical of the origin of between-group differences whenever cultural content is involved. This also applies to clinical psychologists using intelligence tests to compare patients from specific cultural groups to a (culturally different) normative sample.

Seven major recommendations for cross-sample comparisons can be derived from the current results:

1) comparisons based on validity samples collected by the publishers of Wechsler scales have to be avoided due to uncertainties about sample composition (as already stressed by Zhu & Tulsky, 1999; the distribution of ages in Study 1 as represented in Fig. 1 constitutes a stark reminder of this fact);

2) comparisons involving multiple subtests should carefully consider which subtests exactly demonstrate differences, and especially which dimension of intelligence they measure (Gf or Gc?);

3) comparisons between different samples should never be performed using different tests with substantial differences of item content, if there is a possibility that the items will be differentially affected by cultural variables extraneous to ability itself (Kaufman, 2010; Weiss et al., 2016);

4) even when the same version of a test involving cultural content is used, differences between samples collected at different dates in the same country should be treated as if the past sample were from a different country, due to the possibility of differential item functioning emerging over time;

5) as a consequence, comparisons between samples should primarily rely on tests that involve as little contribution of culture-based declarative knowledge as possible, such as Raven's matrices (e.g. Flynn, 2009b);

6) when only tests requiring culture-based declarative knowledge are available, differences should necessarily be interpreted taking into account possible measurement bias. The issue of measurement bias can be considered under the prism of IRT as a way to separate item parameters from ability estimates and test for DIF, and/or using multigroup confirmatory factor analyses as a way to more accurately specify at which level of a hierarchical model of intelligence samples actually differ (Wicherts et al., 2004);

7) lastly, and as exemplified by the pattern of correlations between performance decline, heritability and g-loadings, and cultural load, no conclusions about the biological origin of between-group differences in test scores can be drawn without also testing the role of cultural factors.