The modesty and sympathy facets of the Agreeableness domain were significantly correlated with successful lying

Personality characteristics of the successful liar. Alvin Malesky  Alicia Nicole Isenberg  David McCord. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, April 15 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/jip.1572

Abstract: The relationship between personality, behavioral cues, and the ability to tell a convincing lie was examined. Participants were administered the M5‐120 personality inventory and videotaped while retelling a partially scripted story. A group of raters reviewed the video clips and decided whether the participants were lying or being honest. Findings revealed a significant relationship between successful lying and the Agreeableness domain of personality. Specifically, the modesty and sympathy facets of the Agreeableness domain were significantly correlated with successful lying. These results suggest that personality may play a role in the ability to successfully lie. In addition, significant correlations were demonstrated between body language and successful lying and between facial expressions and successful lying.

Brain Mechanisms Underlying the Subjective Experience of Remembering

Simons, Jon, Maureen Ritchey, and Charles Fernyhough. 2021. “Brain Mechanisms Underlying the Subjective Experience of Remembering.” PsyArXiv. April 19. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-030221-025439

Pre-print https://psyarxiv.com/3642t/

Abstract: The ability to remember events in vivid, multisensory detail is a significant part of human experience, allowing us to relive previous encounters and providing us with the store of memories that shape our identity. Recent research has sought to understand the subjective experience of remembering: what it feels like to have a memory. Such remembering involves reactivating sensory-perceptual features of an event, and the thoughts and feelings we had when the event occurred, integrating them into a conscious first-person experience. It allows us to reflect on the content of our memories, and to understand and make judgments about them, such as distinguishing events that actually occurred from those we might have imagined or been told about. In this review, we consider recent evidence from functional neuroimaging in healthy participants and studies of neurological and psychiatric conditions, which is shedding new light on how we subjectively experience remembering.

I Enjoy Hurting My Classmates: On the Relation of Boredom and Sadism in Schools

Pfattheicher, Stefan, Ljiljana B. Lazarević, Yngwie A. Nielsen, Erin C. Westgate, Ksenija Krstić, and Simon Schindler. 2021. “I Enjoy Hurting My Classmates: On the Relation of Boredom and Sadism in Schools.”

Abstract: Schools can be a place of both love and of cruelty. We examine one particular type of cruelty that occurs in the school context: sadism, that is, harming others for pleasure. Primarily, we propose and test whether boredom plays a crucial role in the emergence of sadistic actions at school. In two well-powered studies (total N = 1,038) using both self- and peer-reports, we first document that sadistic behavior occurs at school, although at a low level. We further show that those students who are more often bored at school are more likely to engage in sadistic actions. Overall, the present work contributes to a better understanding of sadism in schools and points to boredom as one potential motivator. We discuss implications for research on sadism and boredom, in the school context and beyond.

Check also When there is no alternative, boredom increases sadistic behavior across the board, even among individuals low in dispositional sadism

Pfattheicher, Stefan, Ljiljana B. Lazarevic, Erin C. Westgate, and Simon Schindler. 2020. “On the Relation of Boredom and Sadistic Aggression.” PsyArXiv. September 9.  https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/09/when-there-is-no-alternative-boredom.html

And Psychopathy subfactors distinctively predispose to dispositional and state-level of sadistic pleasure. Jill Lobbestael, Martijn van Teffelen, Roy F. Baumeister. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, Feb 2019. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/02/38-of-subjects-derived-pleasure-from.html

A look at Próspera, the charter city taking shape in Honduras

A look at Próspera, the charter city taking shape in Honduras. Astral Codex Ten, Apr 14 2021. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera

                                      Extracts

6. Will Próspera be a libertarian / anarcho-capitalist utopia?

Sort of but not really.

The people behind Próspera are mostly libertarians, but they’re trying to avoid using the word “libertarian” too much when talking about their project. Partly because the libertarian brand scares people. But partly because their vision is more complicated than just small government.

Charter cities fall into an awkward crack in libertarian ideology. Almost every libertarian agrees that you can make rules (even arbitrary rules) about what people can do on your own property, and anyone who wants to stay on your property has to follow your rules. But what’s the difference between that, versus a government “owning” its territory and making rules for its citizens? In practice the difference is that going in someone’s house - or even their golf course - is a choice you made, and they have clear title of ownership. But being in a country happens involuntarily, and the President doesn’t “own” America in the same way an ordinary person might own a house.

But if someone did own an entire city, and you chose to be in that city, theoretically they should be able to make whatever laws they wanted, and not even the most zealous libertarian could protest. The issue hadn’t really come up before. But here we are.

Próspera is erring on the side of small government, because that’s what they expect will work best. But their overriding motive is making their city a nice place to live and work, and when small government conflicts with that, the city usually wins.

So for example, when you buy land in Próspera, you’ll have to sign a Covenant Restricting Vice Industry Uses - ie you can’t turn your house into a joint brothel+casino and do unethical medical experiments in the basement. Even the strictest libertarian has to admit this is fair; if you sign a contract, you’ve got to follow it. But you can tell HPI plans to have the town be ship-shape, well-organized, and family-friendly, instead of the sort of Wild West vibe some people associate libertarianism with.

Also, Próspera remains bound by several Honduran laws that Honduras refuses to exempt them from, including laws against abortion, euthanasia, and most gun ownership.

6.1. But they’ll at least have really low taxes, right?

The lowest in the world.

The Próspera Charter declares that income taxes cannot exceed 10%; anyone who wants to raise taxes above that will have to pass a full constitutional amendment in a system deliberately designed to be hard to change. There are also some other minor taxes, but the Charter says that (after certain conditions are met) total taxes may never exceed 7.5% of GDP, and total debt may not exceed 20% of GDP (with various specifications and caveats). From HPI documentation:

This is a key improvement upon the American system, as unlimited debt can potentially lead to untenable fiscal situations which threaten the economic health, stability, and shared prosperity of the jurisdiction

Where do the taxes go?

- 12% go to Honduras, as their incentive for allowing ZEDEs at all
- 44% go to the General Service Provider, a private company that handles things like sanitation and power. This will probably be an HPI subsidiary which subcontracts out to Jacobs Engineering, the same company that did a lot of the work in Sandy Springs.
- 44% go to the Próspera municipal government, to handle whatever services they can’t subcontract out.

How does HPI make money? They get a cut of the membership fees and the General Service Provider money, but their real cash cow is probably land development. They buy empty land, develop it into a thriving city, then sell it to people who want to live in thriving cities at a huge markup. The more thriving the city, the higher the land value, and the more money HPI makes - which they think puts the incentives in the right place.

Rolf Degen summarizing... Beta-blockers impaired the ability to learn when to take advantageous risks that lead to desired outcomes

Neurophysiological Contributors to Advantageous Risk-Taking: An Experimental Psychopharmacological Investigation. Jennifer K MacCormack, Emma Armstrong-Carter, Kathryn L Humphreys, Keely A Muscatell. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, nsab047, April 16 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsab047

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1384073395453579266

Abstract: The ability to learn from experience is critical for determining when to take risks and when to play it safe. However, we know little about how within-person state changes, such as an individual’s degree of neurophysiological arousal, may impact the ability to learn which risks are most likely to fail vs. succeed. To test this, we used a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design to pharmacologically manipulate neurophysiological arousal and assess its causal impact on risk-related learning and performance. Eighty-seven adults (45% female, Mage= 20.1 ± 1.46 years) took either propranolol (n= 42), a beta-adrenergic receptor blocker that attenuates sympathetic nervous system-related signaling, or a placebo (n= 45). Participants then completed the Balloon Emotional Learning Task, a risk-taking task wherein experiential learning is necessary for task success. We found that individuals on propranolol, relative to placebo, earned fewer points on the task, suggesting that they were less effective risk-takers. This effect was mediated by the fact that those on propranolol made less optimal decisions in the final phase of the task on trials with the greatest opportunity for advantageous risk-taking. These findings highlight how neurophysiological arousal supports risk-related learning and, in turn, more advantageous decision-making and optimal behavior under conditions of risk.

Nonverbal Mechanisms Predict Zoom Fatigue and Explain Why Women Experience Higher Levels than Men

Fauville, Geraldine and Luo, Mufan and Queiroz, Anna C. M. and Bailenson, Jeremy N. and Hancock, Jeff, Nonverbal Mechanisms Predict Zoom Fatigue and Explain Why Women Experience Higher Levels than Men (April 5, 2021). SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3820035

Abstract: There is little data on Zoom Fatigue, the exhaustion that follows video conference meetings. This paper administers the Zoom Exhaustion & Fatigue scale to 10,591 participants from a convenience sample and tests the associations between five theoretical nonverbal mechanisms and Zoom Fatigue – mirror anxiety, being physically trapped, hyper gaze from a grid of staring faces, and the cognitive load from producing and interpreting nonverbal cues. First, we show that daily usage predicts the amount of fatigue, and that women have longer meetings and shorter breaks between meetings than men. Second, we show that women have greater Zoom fatigue than men. Third, we show that the five nonverbal mechanisms for fatigue predict Zoom fatigue. Fourth, we confirm that mirror anxiety mediates the difference in fatigue across gender. Exploratory research shows that race, age, and personality relate to fatigue. We discuss avenues for future research and strategies to decrease Zoom fatigue.

Keywords: Zoom Fatigue, Video Conference, Gender, Nonverbal Communication

JEL Classification: communication

Popular version: 'Zoom Fatigue' May Finally Have an Explanation, And It's Affecting Women More (sciencealert.com)

A large interdisciplinary literature on the relationship between age & subjective well-being (happiness) has produced very mixed evidence; these authors argue that this is due to potential sources of bias

Kratz, Fabian, and Josef Brüderl. 2021. “The Age Trajectory of Happiness.” PsyArXiv. April 18. doi:10.31234/osf.io/d8f2z

Abstract: A large interdisciplinary literature on the relationship between age and subjective well-being (happiness) has produced very mixed evidence. In this paper we argue that this is due to potential sources of bias that may distort the assessment of the age-happiness relationship. Most biases tend to produce a spuriously U-shaped age trajectory. In contrast, applying our suggested specification to German panel data we find a (nearly monotonic) declining age happiness trajectory.

Fig 4b Predicted age-happiness trajectories 

Summary and Conclusions

How aging affects happiness is an important research question for the social and behavioral sciences. Our literature review demonstrates that many conflicting age trajectories have been reported in the literature. As this state of research is quite unsettling for the science of happiness, we discuss—informed by recent advances in the methodology of causal analysis—model specifications used by researchers in this field. Altogether, we identify four main biases that may distort the age trajectory of happiness. By using the German SOEP data, we show that distortions may be huge producing even qualitatively different conclusions. We demonstrate that by using different combinations of mis-specifications it is possible to generate (almost) every trajectory that has been reported in the literature. With a model specification that avoids these four biases, we find an age-happiness trajectory that declines slowly over adulthood (altogether about half a scale point). The decline comes to a halt and we observe even a small increase (about one tenth of a scale point) during the golden ages. Afterwards, in old age a very steep decline in happiness sets in.

From these results we derive several conclusions that pertain to future research on happiness.  The overarching conclusion is that SWB scholars should take causal reasoning seriously in their future research. They should precisely define their research question and explicitly justify their model specification chosen according to the research question (these conclusions do not pertain to SWB research alone, but to all kind of social research as Lundberg et al. (forthcoming) argue forcefully).

Qualifying the research question before estimating age-SWB profiles is essential. Is the main research aim to describe how happy the living population is, or how SWB develops with rising age? If the aim is to answer the second research question about aging and thus to estimate a causal effect of age on SWB, scholars should not use (repeated) cross-sectional data, because these may be affected by mortality selection bias. And there is no cure for this with only cross-sectional data available. Only with panel data following the same respondents over time mortality selection bias can be fixed.

Even when using panel data, scholars must carefully consider potential sources of under^Band overcontrol bias and select an estimation approach that strictly relies on within-person variation to minimize mortality selection bias. In our empirical illustration with the SOEP, the less familiar sources of bias, (i.e., overcontrol and mortality selection bias) cause more severe distortions than does undercontrol bias. We illustrated that selective mortality exhibits drastic consequences on the association between age and subjective well-being affecting even qualitative conclusions: Mortality selection systematically removes the unhappiest of the oldest 21 old and therefore every approach that relies somehow on between persons variation underestimated the deteriorating impact of aging on subjective well-being (especially among the oldest old).

Avoiding these misspecifications is not only important for future research on the age trajectory of happiness but also for any kind of happiness research. Age is usually (and well justified) used as a control variable when investigating other determinants of happiness. Using mis-specified age trajectories can severely bias estimates of such treatment effects: the bias in the control variable age transfers to the treatment effect of interest (a formal statement of this so-called “bias transfer” can be found in Ranjbar & Sperlich, 2019). Therefore, it is important to use flexible parametrizations of the age effect in happiness research more generally.  Including linear and quadratic age terms only might be problematic.

Sleep duration is not significantly correlated with overall academic performance for US adolescents, but sleep quality is.

Associations between Sleep and Academic Performance in US Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Leslie A. Musshafen et al. Sleep Medicine, April 17 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2021.04.015

Highlights

• There is a complex relationship between sleep and academic performance.

• There are limited objective measures of sleep utilized in the existing literature.

• Sleep duration is not significantly correlated with overall academic performance.

• Sleep quality is significantly correlated with overall academic performance.

• Aspects of sleep quality such as number of night awakenings demonstrate a negligible, but significant correlation with academic performance outcomes.

Abstract: This systematic review and meta-analysis aim to investigate the relationship between sleep and academic performance in students enrolled in secondary education programs in the United States. The study team conducted a literature search of 4 databases—PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, and ERIC—on September 19 and repeated December 17, 2020. Studies were included if they were observational, published in a peer-reviewed, non-predatory journal, available in full-text, written in English, included adolescents enrolled in an organized academic program, took place in the US, and evaluated the effect of sleep duration and/or sleep quality on academic performance. After excluding reviews, editorials, interventions, and those targeting diagnostic groups, 14 studies met inclusion criteria. Risk of bias was assessed using the NIH Quality Assessment Tool for Observational Cohort and Cross-Sectional Studies; 12 studies were found to be good or high quality, 2 were adequate/fair or poor quality. A meta-analysis of 11 of the included studies revealed that sleep duration (r= 0.03; 95%CI -0.027, 0.087; p= 0.087) and sleep quality (r= 0.089; 95%CI 0.027, 0.151; p= 0.005) had negligible correlations with academic performance (non-significant and significant, respectively). Inconsistencies in definitions, methods, and measures utilized to assess sleep duration, sleep quality, and academic performance constructs may offer insight into seemingly conflicting findings. Given the pivotal role sleep plays in development, future investigations utilizing validated and objective sleep and academic performance measures are needed in adolescents.

Keywords: adolescentstudentsleepacademic performancesystematic reviewmeta-analysis

Citizens in Western democracies often have negative attitudes toward political bodies, yet consistently re-elect their own representatives to these same political bodies

Why People Hate Congress but Love Their Own Congressperson: An Information Processing Explanation. Joris Lammers et al. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, April 17, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211002336

Abstract: Citizens in Western democracies often have negative attitudes toward political bodies, yet consistently re-elect their own representatives to these same political bodies. They hate Congress, but love their own congressperson. In contrast to resource-based explanations, we propose that this Paradox of Congressional Support is partly due to the wide availability of negative information about politicians in open societies combined with basic processes of information processing. Five studies found that unrelated negative political information decreases attitudes toward political categories such as U.S. governors but has no effect on attitudes of familiar, individual politicians (e.g., one’s own governor); additional studies further identify familiarity as the critical process. Importantly, we demonstrate that this effect generalizes to all U.S. regions and remains when controlling for and is not moderated by political ideology. These results place a presumed macrolevel political paradox within the domain of cognitive mechanisms of basic information processing.

Keywords: paradox of congressional support, political attitudes, categorization

Men & women: Magnitude of differences, small, fluctuated somewhat as a function of the psychological domain (cognitive variables, social & personality variables, well-being), but was largely constant across age, culture, & generations

Zell, E., Krizan, Z., & Teeter, S. R. (2015). Evaluating gender similarities and differences using metasynthesis. American Psychologist, 70(1), 10–20. Apr 2021. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038208

Abstract: Despite the common lay assumption that males and females are profoundly different, Hyde (2005) used data from 46 meta-analyses to demonstrate that males and females are highly similar. Nonetheless, the gender similarities hypothesis has remained controversial. Since Hyde’s provocative report, there has been an explosion of meta-analytic interest in psychological gender differences. We utilized this enormous collection of 106 meta-analyses and 386 individual meta-analytic effects to reevaluate the gender similarities hypothesis. Furthermore, we employed a novel data-analytic approach called metasynthesis (Zell & Krizan, 2014) to estimate the average difference between males and females and to explore moderators of gender differences. The average, absolute difference between males and females across domains was relatively small (d = 0.21, SD = 0.14), with the majority of effects being either small (46%) or very small (39%). Magnitude of differences fluctuated somewhat as a function of the psychological domain (e.g., cognitive variables, social and personality variables, well-being), but remained largely constant across age, culture, and generations. These findings provide compelling support for the gender similarities hypothesis, but also underscore conditions under which gender differences are most pronounced.

Relationship between intelligence and creative achievement: Albeit statistically significant, is of small-to-moderate size

Karwowski, Maciej, Marta Czerwonka, Ewa Wiśniewska, and Boris Forthmann. 2021. “How Is Intelligence Test Performance Associated with Creative Achievement? A Meta-analysis.” PsyArXiv. April 17. doi:10.31234/osf.io/fm7hr

Abstract: This paper presents a meta-analysis of the links between intelligence test scores and creative achievement. A three-level meta-analysis of 117 correlation coefficients from 30 studies has found a correlation of r = .16 (95% CI: .12, .19), closely mirroring previous meta-analytic findings. The estimated effects were stronger for overall creative achievement and achievement in scientific domains than for correlations between intelligence scores and creative achievement in the arts and everyday creativity. No signs of publication bias were found. We discuss theoretical implications and provide recommendations for future studies.

Check also Creativity and the Dark Triad: A Meta-Analysis. Izabela Lebud, Bernadetta Figur, Maciej Karwowski. Journal of Research in Personality, March 21 2021, 104088. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2021/03/narcissism-machiavellianism-and.html

Early alphabetic writing; Its proliferation in the Southern Levant should be considered a product of Levantine-Egyptian interaction during the mid 2nd millennium BC, rather than of later Egyptian domination

Early alphabetic writing in the ancient Near East: the ‘missing link’ from Tel Lachish. Felix Höflmayer, Haggai Misgav, Lyndelle Webster,  Katharina Streit. Antiquity, April 15 2021. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/early-alphabetic-writing-in-the-ancient-near-east-the-missing-link-from-tel-lachish/C73F769B7CF3A7E4E2607958A096B7D8

Abstract: The origin of alphabetic script lies in second-millennium BC Bronze Age Levantine societies. A chronological gap, however, divides the earliest evidence from the Sinai and Egypt—dated to the nineteenth century BC—and from the thirteenth-century BC corpus in Palestine. Here, the authors report a newly discovered Late Bronze Age alphabetic inscription from Tel Lachish, Israel. Dating to the fifteenth century BC, this inscription is currently the oldest securely dated alphabetic inscription from the Southern Levant, and may therefore be regarded as the ‘missing link’. The proliferation of early alphabetic writing in the Southern Levant should be considered a product of Levantine-Egyptian interaction during the mid second millennium BC, rather than of later Egyptian domination.

Historical context

The newly discovered inscription from Tel Lachish is currently the earliest securely dated example of early alphabetic writing in the Southern Levant. In order to assess the importance of this find, we briefly review the other potential early alphabetic examples from the area.

A disputed contender for the earliest example is a scarab from Tell Abu Zureiq, in the Jezreel Valley. Found in a Middle Bronze Age tomb excavated by Meyerhof (1989), the scarab was dated to the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Dynasties (Giveon 1988: 22; Keel 1997: 17). Its base depicts a man and four signs, which Giveon (1988: 22) originally interpreted as Egyptian hieroglyphs. Kitchen (1989) suggested that these signs could be read as early alphabetic characters, an interpretation rejected by Keel (1997: 16–17), but recently endorsed by Morenz (2011: 164–65).

Another potential early alphabetic inscription is the much-discussed Lachish Dagger, which was discovered in 1934 by the British Expedition in tomb 1502, and dated to the late Middle Bronze Age (Tufnell 1958: 254). The bronze dagger exhibits four potential early alphabetic signs (Tufnell 1958: 128; Sass 1988: 53–54; Hamilton 2006: 390–91), and most scholars accept this interpretation (e.g. Albright 1948, 1969: 10; Naveh 1987: 26; Hamilton 2006: 303–4; Goldwasser 2006: 132, 2016: 140–42; Morenz 2011: 170–71; Lemaire 2017: 106; Haring 2020: 59). In 1988, Sass agreed that the inscription was probably early alphabetic, pointing out that it would be the only one that could be securely dated to the Middle Bronze Age (Sass 1988: 54). He later grew more cautious, however, and suggested that the signs might not be early alphabetic after all (Sass 2004–2005: 150).

A third example that has been dated to the Middle Bronze Age is the so-called ‘Gezer Sherd’. Exhibiting three early alphabetic characters, this sherd was found in 1929 on the surface of Tel Gezer (Albright 1935). It was soon dated to the Middle Bronze Age (Albright 1935)—an attribution accepted by many scholars (e.g. Albright 1969: 10; Naveh 1987: 26; Hamilton 2006: 308–309; Morenz 2011: 166; Goldwasser 2016: 143). Sass was more cautious, however, arguing that the sherd could not be classified typologically, and that its date could range from Middle Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age (Sass 1988: 55). He later concluded that the Gezer Sherd is essentially undatable (Sass 2004–2005: 149).

Several inscriptions on an assemblage of storage jars from Tel Gezer have also been interpreted as early alphabetic writing (Seger 1983, 2013: 186–96; Goldwasser 2016: 142–43). These jars were found in storerooms next to the southern gate area (field IV) and were associated with stratum XVIII (early Late Bronze Age) and stratum XIX (late Middle Bronze Age) (Seger 2013). Most of the jars were inscribed with a single sign, with only two jars bearing two signs each. Sass (1988: 98) mentioned these Gezer jars briefly as examples of early alphabetic writing, but later re-interpreted them as bearing only potters’ marks (Sass 2004–2005: 166, footnote 97).

A fragmentary plaque from Shechem is frequently mentioned in the corpus of potential Middle Bronze Age early alphabetic inscriptions from the Southern Levant (Böhl 1938). According to the earliest publications, this object was found in a Middle Bronze Age building, just above the floor, together with typical, contemporaneous Tell el-Yahudiyah pottery (Böhl 1938: 2). Scholars have long accepted a Middle Bronze or early Late Bronze Age date for the plaque (Albright 1948, 1969: 10–11; Leibovitch 1963; Wimmer 2001; Hamilton 2006: 308), which represents the lower right portion of a stela depicting a person facing to the left and clad in a heavy garment (‘Wulstsaummantel’)—a common Middle Bronze Age garment type (Wimmer 2001). The plaque's archaeological context, however, has been questioned due to the early excavation techniques with limited stratigraphic control, and the lack of a final excavation report (Sass 1988: 57). The early alphabetic nature of the characters has also been called into question (Sass 2004–2005: 149–50).

Yet another disputed early alphabetic inscription was found at Tel Nagila in the 1960s. Here, a body sherd of a jug, with an inscription incised before firing, was discovered in area A, a residential area provisionally dated to the end of the Middle or the early Late Bronze Age (Amiran & Eitan 1965: 121). Sass (1988: 54), however, rightly emphasised the lack of a clear stratigraphic context for that sherd. Later, quoting David Ilan, who observed that a large Late Bronze Age building disturbed the Middle Bronze Age strata in the area where the inscription was found, Sass concluded that the Tel Nagila sherd “is to be regarded as unstratified, and a LBII origin [is] not implausible” (Sass 2004–2005: 159).

The dates and interpretations of the evidence for the earliest occurrences of early alphabetic writing in the Southern Levant are therefore ambiguous, as only the Lachish Dagger (if accepted as early alphabetic) was found in a clear archaeological context datable to the Middle Bronze Age (as rightly pointed out by Sass (1988: 54)). The discovery of the new early alphabetic inscription at Tel Lachish pushes back the earliest securely datable occurrence considerably, and we can now show that early alphabetic writing was employed in the Southern Levant by the mid fifteenth century BC (early Late Bronze Age). This evidence not only closes the gap between the development of early alphabetic inscriptions around Serabit el-Khadim and Wadi el-Hol in Upper Egypt, and its more widespread Southern Levantine use in the later Late Bronze Age, but also suggests that early alphabetic writing was already present in the Southern Levant by the (late) Middle Bronze Age.

The new early alphabetic inscription also underscores the importance of Tel Lachish as an early centre of writing (Goldwasser 2016: 151; Naʾaman 2020). Indeed, Lachish has yielded more examples of Late Bronze Age early alphabetic inscriptions than any other site. In addition to the Lachish Dagger and the new inscription discussed here, the site has yielded four other examples of alphabetic writing. In tomb 527, the British Expedition of 1935 found a bowl (Lachish bowl one) bearing a painted inscription (Tufnell 1958: 129). This tomb also contained a Cypriot Base Ring II juglet and a local imitation of a Mycenaean straight-sided alabastron (Tufnell 1958: 239). Tufnell (1958: 129) considered this tomb to be contemporaneous with the late Fosse temple II or early Fosse temple III, and thus coeval (or slightly earlier) with stratum VII on the mound. In absolute terms, this dates to the fourteenth or thirteenth century BC (Ussishkin 2004b: 57). In Fosse temple III, the British Expedition found the well-known Lachish Ewer, which bears a painted early alphabetic inscription (Tufnell et al. 1940: 47–54; Tuffnell 1958: 130). As Fosse temple III corresponds to stratum VII on the mound, the Ewer roughly dates to the thirteenth century BC (Ussishkin 2004b: 57).

A fragment of a bowl bearing a black-ink inscription comprising two straight lines of characters was found by the Tel Aviv Expedition in pit 3867, in area S (Lemaire 2004). This pit belongs to stratum VI and dates to the twelfth century BC (Ussishkin 2004b: 57). Finally, another inscription from stratum VI—a pottery sherd with several characters incised before firing—was found in the inner part of a Late Bronze Age temple in area BB during recent excavations by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Southern Adventist University (Sass et al. 2015). 

Girls exhibit greater empathy than boys following a minor accident

Girls exhibit greater empathy than boys following a minor accident. Joyce F. Benenson, Evelyne Gauthier & Henry Markovits. Scientific Reports volume 11, Article number: 7965. Apr 12 2021. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-87214-x

Abstract: Hundreds of studies find that girls and women report feeling greater empathy than boys and men in response to adverse events befalling others. Despite this, few non-self-report measures demonstrate similar sex differences. This produces the oft-cited conclusion that to conform to societal expectations of appropriate sex-typed behavior females report higher levels of empathy. Several studies of sex differences in areas of brain activation and on infants’ and young children’s behavior however provide suggestive findings that self-reports reflect actual underlying sex differences in experiencing concern about others. We demonstrate using behavioral indices that females experience more empathy than males after witnessing an adverse event befall a same-sex classmate. In our study, one member of a pair experienced a minor accident on the way to constructing a tower while a bystander observed. We measured whether bystanders ceased their ongoing activity, looked at the victim, waited for the victim to recover from the accident, and actively intervened to help the victim. Female more than male bystanders engaged in these activities. These behavioral results suggest that an adverse event produces different subjective experiences in females than males that motivate objectively different behaviors, consistent with findings from self-report measures of empathy.

Discussion

Following a minor accident, 5- to 7-year-old female bystanders exhibited more empathic behavior than male bystanders. These behavioral findings, along with results from studies of brain activation26,27 and from behavioral studies with infants and young children12,16, support the ubiquitous findings that human females report experiencing greater empathy than males at all ages9. This suggests that even though facial expressions and many physiological assessments rarely yield sex differences in empathic responsivity10,13,18, it is highly likely that females do experience greater feelings of empathy which motivate them to behave in ways that display more concern for victims. Behavioral studies with real life, proximate victims and brain activation measures may be best able to identify sex differences in empathy as others have proposed1,16.

Further, it appeared that the joint condition accentuated the sex difference, though the effect only attained significance in the overall empathy score with 3 measures. The empathy score with the 4 measures was only marginally significant. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable that a condition that increases the proximity and dependence between individuals would augment human females’ investment in one another.

This study builds on behavioral studies of bystanders who witnessed a distressing event that were conducted with newborns, infants, and young children all of which provided evidence that females do experience greater empathy than males10,13,16. This study extends that finding to middle childhood using the measures developed by Caplan and Hay to study concern in older children in a naturalistic setting35. Contrary to most prior studies however, the current study included victims who were always of the same sex and who were familiar because they were classmates. Furthermore, the accident was naturalistic yet standardized, unlike several prior behavioral studies in which the accident was staged. Additionally, no external observers, particularly adults, were present, thereby reducing demand characteristics pressuring females to behave in stereotyped ways or providing authority figures who could be perceived as better able to respond to a victim’s distress. Finally, empathic concern as measured through behavior that is costly to the bystander in terms of lost time and effort provides greater validity than measures such as self-report or facial expressions.

Theoretically, females’ greater concern regarding a stressor is consistent with predictions from parental investment theory that mammalian females exhibit greater responsiveness than males to threats to their offspring2,5. Findings also resemble sex differences found in self-reports about real life contexts in which others with whom participants have close relationships experience serious adverse events7,8,36. Results from the current study suggest that even a classmate who is not a close friend who experiences a minor accident elicits sex differences in empathy.

Our findings suggest when an adverse event occurs, more females than males will be affected. This is consistent with studies showing that more women than men are concerned about hardships that befall family members, individuals in their social networks, and those for whom they are professionally responsible7,8. More females than males also would be expected to offer supportive responses to victims, entailing greater disruptions to their own lives.

Limits of the study include the relatively small number of dyads and the utilization of only a single task. Further, because no sharing of resources occurred in the current study, the expected impact of working on a joint task found in prior studies of reward distributions may have been somewhat attenuated34. Inclusion of more participants from a wider age range, and replication with a new task would enhance the study’s validity. Finally, it is possible that boys experience empathy in a way that has not been measured. In this study, most boys did cease their ongoing activity following the accident, but they engaged in few other empathic activities that we could measure.

In summary, after observing their partner’s accident, female bystanders demonstrated greater empathy than males. In contrast to the relatively consistent conclusion that no sex differences occur in empathy other than in self-reports, results suggest that it is possible to behaviorally observe sex differences in empathy using established measures.

A more accepting attitude toward sugar relationships was found to be associated with more unrestricted sociosexuality, preference to engage in playful love relationships and more self-focused sexual motivation

It Takes Two to Tango: Development, Validation, and Personality Correlates of the Acceptance of Sugar Relationships in Older Men and Women Scale (ASR-OMWS). András Láng et al. Frontiers in Psychology 12. Apr 2021. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.592138

Abstract: Sugar relationships can be considered contemporary forms of transactional sex, that is, offering sexual services for material resources or other benefits. Considering the common age differences in these relationships, sugar relationships might be of relevance for older adults as well on the mating market. As a sequel to Birkás et al. (2020) , in the present study, an attitude scale was developed to assess older women’s and men’s acceptance of sugar relationships. We also explored whether the acceptance of sugar relationships was associated with love styles, sociosexual orientation, sexual motivation, and certain socially aversive personality traits. In two online studies with a total number of 836 participants ( N = 277 women and 559 men), the results showed that the Acceptance of Sugar Relationships in Older Men and Women Scale (ASR-OMWS) proved to be a reliable and conceptually valid measure of older individuals’ attitude toward sugar relationships. A more accepting attitude toward sugar relationships was found to be associated with more unrestricted sociosexuality, preference to engage in playful love relationships and more self-focused sexual motivation (study 1; N = 481, 167 women and 314 men), and with more pronounced Dark Triad and borderline traits (study 2; N = 355, 110 women and 245 men). Our findings are discussed in an evolutionary framework.

Discussion

The present study evaluated a self-report measure regarding the acceptance of sugar relationships in older adults. Compared with the mating strategies of young adults, there is much less known about the partner preferences of individuals in older ages. Accordingly, this is the first empirical test of the correlates of attitudes toward sugar relationships in a predominantly evolutionary approach in a sample beyond young adulthood.

Moreover, the ASR-OMWS was used to test the association between personality characteristics, relational attitudes, and attitudes toward sugar relationships in older adults. More accepting individuals can be characterized not only by a more instrumental motivation toward sex but also by respecting the relational aspect of the sugar relationship.

This might suggest that intimacy could also be a product or service that is desired and valued by older individuals (Alterovitz and Mendelsohn, 2011; Fales et al., 2016). Furthermore, older adults scoring high on ASR-OMWS preferred relationships offering fun and taking advantage of partners and were less interested in romantic and emotional love (see section “Results” for love styles). More unrestricted sociosexuality was also positively associated with the acceptance of sugar relationships showing, that despite of their older age and declining mate value, individuals willing to take part in a sugar relationship are sexually more active. These love and sexual motives might play a key role in shaping the mating strategies of older adults. Elevated sexual impulses increase the focus on the physical characteristics of the potential partner and put more value on these signs. Since older adults possess rather material resources than physical appeal, sugar relationships might represent an undertakable and accessible form of affair (e.g., Jonason and Kavanagh, 2010; Allen and Desille, 2017; Træen et al., 2019).

On the personality level, acceptance of sugar relationships was positively associated with socially aversive personality traits (i.e., Dark Triad) and BPO. This suggests that to some extent, partner preferences of older adults are affected by these personality traits. As pointed out earlier, personality affects both advertised and expected partner qualities. Thus, it forms the nature of the desirable relationship. Connecting our results with previous findings regarding the mating strategies of the Dark Triad and BPO, sugar relationship appears to be endorsed by individuals preferring short-term sexual relationships with less commitment and intimacy (e.g., Jonason et al., 2009, 2019; Lavner et al., 2015; Muñoz Centifanti et al., 2016; Birkás et al., 2018).

The question may arise as to why these psychologies are so similar (i.e., openness to offer sexual companionship in exchange for resources or openness to offer resources in exchange for sex). The provision of resources by males to the sexual partner (not specifically in exchange for sex) is an adaptive behavior that plays an important role in the functioning of long-term, emotionally committed relationships, especially in the care of offspring (Buss and Schmitt, 1993, 2019; Conroy Beam and Buss, 2019; Luberti et al., 2020). Therefore, the sensitivity of females to resources in the mating context is also an adaptive trait that may have contributed to their reproductive success in the past. However, direct sexual transaction, free from commitment and mutual reproductive goals, is part of a short-term-focused mating strategy (Anderson and Klofstad, 2012; Whyte et al., 2019; Buss et al., 2020). The psychological characteristics of this strategy, which exploits herself/himself and others, are very similar from both the supply and demand sides: to get as many benefits as possible in the shortest possible time, without considering the possible long-term consequences.

Our study has some limitations as well. Perhaps, the sample is biased due to the possibility that individuals with an increased interest in sex-related topics can be overrepresented in our sample, leading to an increased openness toward sugar relationships. Moreover, the majority of the participants had no direct experience with sugar relationships, and accordingly, their attitudes might be more biased by their personality or impulses. Still, our findings are in line with the prequel to this study (Birkás et al., 2020) showing that older adults who are accepting toward sugar relationships have similar motives and personality traits as young adults who are willing to engage in transactional sex. The most prominent difference between the results obtained from the two studies (i.e., Birkás et al., 2020 and the current study) was that acceptance of sugar relationships was weakly but significantly positively associated with relational motives for having sex in the current study with older sample. Thus, a more direct comparison of age-groups and/or inclusion of behavioral measures might be a fruitful direction of future research.