Positive Outcomes of Wellbeing

Positive Outcomes of Wellbeing. M. Joseph Sirgy. The Psychology of Quality of Life pp 59-78, June 10 2021. https://rd.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-71888-6_3

Abstract: This chapter discusses outcomes related to hedonic wellbeing, life satisfaction, and Eudaimonia. These outcomes include good health, high levels of achievement and work, good social relationships, prosocial engagement, trust, optimism, future happiness. The chapter also highlights research on how much happiness is optimal, how happiness is adaptive in life, and how it serves to buffer illbeing.

Keywords: Hedonic wellbeing Life satisfaction Eudaimonia Subjective wellbeing Happiness Positive mental health Health Achievement and work Social relationships Prosocial behavior Trust Optimism Future happiness Optimal happiness Adaptive Illbeing 

From the 2012 edition:

4 How Much Happiness Is Optimal?

Friedman, Schwartz, and Haaga (2002) investigated the effects of being too happy. They compared those who are very happy and those who are moderately happy in relation to dysfunction across a variety of measures of subjective, physiological, and behavioral adjustment. The results showed no significant differences between those who are too happy and the moderately happy in terms of hypomanic symptoms, defensive self-deception, or aggressive behavior when challenged. Suldo and Huebner (2006) posed the question: Is extremely high life satisfaction during adolescence advantageous? They conducted a study to capture the relationship between life satisfaction and adaptive/maladaptive functioning of adolescents. Life satisfaction was captured using several measures of subjective well-being. They then divided the sample in three groups: very high (top 10%), average (middle 25%), and very low (lowest 10%). The high satisfaction group scored higher on all indicators of adaptive psychological functioning and lowest scores on emotional and behavioral problems Oishi, Diener, and Lucas (2009) predicted that a moderate level of happiness is best for life outcomes that require self-improvement motivation and analytical skills (e.g., academic achievement, job performance, and wealth accumulation). Some degree of dissatisfaction of their current state of affairs would motivate people to do better, thereby achieve more positive life outcomes. A certain amount of dissatisfaction is needed to motivate people to do better on academic tasks and their jobs. Otherwise, the motivation may be absent if they are too happy. A high level of happiness may lead to complacency. Using the same logic, they also predicted that moderate levels of happiness should lead to higher levels of political participation than high levels of happiness. People have to be somewhat dissatis fi ed with the current political situation to be motivated to take corrective action. Similarly, mod-erate happiness leads to a high degree of volunteer work, more so than high levels of happiness. In contrast, they predicted that very happy people are more likely to stay married than the moderately happy. The moderately happy people may be motivated to try other partners (i.e., engage in extramarital affairs during marriage or divorce for the purpose of coupling with others). Similarly, they predicted that situations less than ideal may call for moderate happiness. In other words, the moderately happy is more likely to change circumstances than are less than ideal. The very happy are likely to be complacent. To test these predictions, the authors used data from the World Values Survey (administered in 1981, 1990, 1995, and 2000) involving a sample of 118,519 respondents from 96 countries and regions around the globe. The predictions concerning income, education, and political participation were supported. The highest levels of income, education, and political participa-tions were most evident in people reporting moderate-to-high than very high levels of life satisfaction. Similarly, the hypothesis concerning marriage and close relationships was also supported. The highest proportion of respondents in a stable intimate relationship was observed among respondents with very high life satisfaction scores. However, contrary to their prediction, the highest levels of volunteerism were observed among the very satisfied respondents. The same set of hypotheses was retested using a sample of college students in which happiness was captured through a positive/negative affect measure. The same pattern of results was evident. That is, the happiest students tended to score high on social domain measures (gregarious, close friends, self-confidence, energy, and time dating) but did not always score high on achievement/conscientiousness measures (grade point average, missed class, event balance, and conscientiousness). The moderately happy scored high on achievement/conscientiousness measures but less so on the social domain measures. The authors then turned their attention to testing their hypothesis regarding achievement and income using two longitudinal surveys (Diener et al., 2002 and the Australian Youth Data). With respect to the Diener et al.’s data, respondents’ cheer-fulness was measured in 1976 and their reported income in 1995. Those who expressed moderate-to-high levels of cheerfulness reported the highest levels of income. This pattern provides additional support that when it comes to achievement-related tasks, those who are moderately happy do better than those who are very happy. With respect to the Australian Youth Data, respondents that reported life satisfaction scores in 1979 were matched with their income, educational level, and length of marital relationship scores in 1994. Again, the same pattern was evident. Those who expressed moderate level of happiness in 1979 reported the highest income and educational level in 1994. In contrast, those who expressed high levels of happiness in 1979 reported the highest degree of marriage tenure. The income/happiness relationship was also replicated using two large-scale longitudinal survey studies: the German Socio-Economic Panel Study and the British Household Panel Study. The authors conclude:

Thus, the optimal mindset for an intimate relationship might be to see the most positive aspects of the partner and relationship, whereas the optimal mindset for income, education, and political participation might be to consider the empty part of the glass as well as the fullness of it (Oishi, et al., 2009 , p. 19).

5  Happiness Is Adaptive

[...]

Diener and Oishi ( 2011 ) also provided much evidence that indicates two key points: (1) the majority of people are moderately happy, and (2) happier people tend to have an evolutionary advantage in terms of longevity, fecundity, more resources, and better health and healthier children (which translates into an advantage to sur-vival and reproductive fitness). For supportive evidence, the reader should consult the following broad reviews and meta-analyses studies: Diener and Chan (2011) , Howell, Kern, and Lyubomirsky (2007), Lyubomirsky et al. (2005), and Pressman and Cohen (2005). If so, the same authors (Diener and Oishi) pose the question “why happiness is not more widespread?” One would expect that because of its evolutionary advan-tage that happiest people should be in the majority, but this is not the case. The authors answer this question by arguing that moderate levels of happiness seem to be more adaptive than either very high or low levels of happiness. Very high and very low levels of happiness are detrimental to health. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that it is harmful (healthwise and in relation to daily functioning) to feel intensely happy much of the time (e.g., Gruber, Mauss, & Tamir, 2011 ; McCarron, Gunnell, Harrison, Okasha, & Davey Smith, 2003; Ritz & Steptoe, 2000). Furthermore, negative emotions have an adaptive function. Schwarz ( 2002 ) reviews evidence that shows how negative affect can be adaptive. Negative affect motivates people to focus more narrowly and critically analyze information, which in turn leads to effective problem solution. Negative affect motivates people to make changes to better their lives. Grinde (2002) argues that people are genetically disposed to be in a positive mood. That is, the default evolutionary option is to be in a good mood. Evolution dictates that the individual who is happy is more likely to engage in more procreation acts and life-supporting functions, compared to those who are less happy (perhaps depressed). Happiness also plays a role in good health. Those who are happy live longer lives because they experience lower stress, and stress is associated with morbidity. Feelings of happiness are directly related to need satisfaction, and of course, gratification of personal needs is positively associated with survival, prosperity, and procreation. Happy people are optimistic, and optimism has a strong survival value.

We view sustainability as a requirement that welfare should not be expected to decline over time; it depends on the production technology available to society

Sustainability in a Risky World. John Y. Campbell & Ian Martin. NBER Working Paper 28899, June 2021. DOI 10.3386/w28899

Abstract: We view sustainability as a requirement that welfare should not be expected to decline over time. We impose this requirement as a prior constraint on the consumption-savings-investment problem, and study its implications for saving, risky investment, and the social discount rate. The constraint does not distort portfolio choice, but it imposes an upper bound on the sustainable time preference rate and on the sustainable consumption-wealth ratio, which we show must lie between the riskless rate and the expected return on optimally invested wealth.

6 Conclusion

In this paper we have argued, in the spirit of Koopmans (1960, 1967), that the implication of an

ethical criterion—sustainability—for social discounting and consumption decisions depends on the

production technology available to society. Specifically, in a risky world with a binding sustainability

20constraint, the sustainable social rate of time preference and consumption-wealth ratio, which equal

one another, are not equal to either the riskless interest rate or the risky return on invested wealth,

but lie in between these two. In the special case where invested wealth has only Brownian risk and

no jump risk, the sustainable social rate of time preference is the equal-weighted average of the

riskless interest rate and the risky return.

We have made this point in the context of an extremely simple model with iid returns in which the

parameters governing the distribution of returns are known. We have therefore ignored parameter

uncertainty, a phenomenon emphasized by Weitzman (2001). We have also ignored the possibility

that returns may not be iid, because expected returns or risks change over time. Models with non-iid

returns in general imply time-varying consumption growth and a term structure of discount rates.

When consumption growth is persistent, this term structure is generally downward-sloping for safe

investments and upward-sloping for risky ones as in the long-run risk model of Bansal and Yaron

(2004). Gollier (2002) emphasizes the potential importance of a downward-sloping term structure

of discount rates for social discounting. Our iid model has discount rates that are invariant to the

horizon of an investment.

Although we have emphasized the sustainable social rate of time preference in this paper, we

conclude by noting that this is not the same as the appropriate social discount rate that should

be applied to an investment project. That discount rate depends on the project’s risk. For a

riskless project, the appropriate discount rate is the riskless interest rate, which is lower than the

sustainable social rate of time preference in a risky world; and for a project that has the same

risk as society’s invested wealth, the appropriate discount rate is the expected risky return, which

is higher than the sustainable social rate of time preference. Some previous discussions of social

discounting have obscured these distinctions by ignoring the risk that society faces. Our analysis is

deliberately simple in order to achieve clarity about these issues.

A 10% increase in robots per 1000 workers is associated with an approximately 10% reduction in the share of low-skilled individuals reporting poor health due in part by a reallocation of physical tasks

Does the rise of robotic technology make people healthier? Christian Gunadi, Hanbyul Ryu. Health Economics, May 27 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4361

Abstract: Technological advancements bring changes to our life, altering our behaviors as well as our role in the economy. In this paper, we examine the potential effect of the rise of robotic technology on health. Using the variation in the initial distribution of industrial employment in US cities and the difference in robot adoption across industries over time to predict robot exposure at the local labor market, we find evidence that higher penetration of industrial robots in the local economy is positively related to the health of the low-skilled population. A 10% increase in robots per 1000 workers is associated with an approximately 10% reduction in the share of low-skilled individuals reporting poor health. Further analysis suggests that the reallocation of tasks partly explains this finding. A 10% increase in robots per 1000 workers is associated with an approximately 1.5% reduction in physical tasks supplied by low-skilled workers.

Maintaining Multi-partner Relationships: Evolution, Sexual Ethics, and Consensual Non-monogamy

Mogilski, Justin, David L. Rodrigues, Justin J. Lehmiller, and Rhonda N. Balzarini. 2021. “Maintaining Multi-partner Relationships: Evolution, Sexual Ethics, and Consensual Non-monogamy.” PsyArXiv. June 8. doi:10.31234/osf.io/k4r9e

Abstract: Humans maintain romantic relationships for sexual gratification, childcare assistance, intimate friendship, and a host of other interpersonal benefits. In monogamous relationships (i.e., exclusive courtship between two people) individuals agree that certain benefits of the relationship (i.e., sexual contact, material resources, emotional support) may only be shared within the pair-bond. That is, each partner is expected to maintain the relationship by provisioning sufficient benefits to satisfy the needs and desires of their partner. By comparison, consensual non-monogamy (CNM) is a collection of relationship practices and structures whereby partners agree that it is permissible to have sexual contact or form intimate attachments with other people to satisfy these interpersonal needs and desires. In this chapter, we review literature examining who pursues CNM, how people who practice CNM derive and maintain satisfaction within their relationship(s), and when and how these relationships persist. We consider the role of CNM relationship maintenance practices, personality features that predispose people to CNM, and psychological and social barriers (e.g., jealousy, interpersonal conflict, sexual health anxiety, condemnation) that prevent people from pursuing or maintaining CNM. Throughout, we consider how CNM compares to infidelity as an alternative strategy for pursuing multiple, concurrent romantic or sexual relationships. We close by discussing current directions in the scientific study of CNM and highlight which gaps in the literature are most pressing to address.

Check also The Implications of Sociosexuality for Marital Satisfaction and Dissolution. Juliana E. French, Emma E. Altgelt, Andrea L. Meltzer. Psychological Science, September 4, 2019. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/09/relatively-unrestricted-sociosexuality.html

Cebu, Philippines: Fathers' childcare highly facultative, likely contingent on local socioecological predictors

Fathers' care in context: ‘facultative,’ flexible fathers respond to work demands and child age, but not to alloparental help, in Cebu, Philippines. Stacy Rosenbaum et al. Evolution and Human Behavior, June 12 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2021.05.003

Abstract: Current evolutionary theory conceptualizes fathers' childcare as highly facultative and likely contingent on a variety of local socioecological predictors. Much of the evolutionarily-motivated work on the predictors of paternal care has focused on smaller-scale societies, while similar, potentially complementary research in larger-scale societies has focused on theoretical frameworks from (e.g.) economics and developmental psychology. Due to the different emphases, relatively few studies have incorporated information on variables known to predict paternal care in one context with those known to predict it in the other. Here, we assess whether paternal care conforms to predictions derived from the facultative fathering hypothesis and life history theory in Cebu, the Philippines. We evaluated which of 6 variables—hours worked outside the home, age and number of children, number of other caregivers, family residence pattern, and fathers' educational attainment—predicted the number of hours fathers reported spending on 12 common caregiving tasks. Consistent with the basic premise of facultative fathering, men who worked more spent less time on childcare. Additionally, the time fathers spent on different types of caregiving reflected changes in demand as children age. However, alloparental care appears to be a complement to, rather than a substitute for, paternal care in this context, in contrast to the predictions of the facultative fathering hypothesis. We also found that men with more education reported spending more time on childcare, consistent with a caregiving strategy that emphasizes heavy investment in embodied capital across generations. Our data illustrate the context-specific nature of ‘facultative’ caregiving in humans, and highlight the importance of considering locally-relevant predictors when testing predictions derived from evolutionary theory.

Keywords: Parental carePaternal careMaternal careAllocareAllomaternal careCooperative breeding

Psychopathy as extreme B5/FFM traits: Psycho-meanness = exploitation of others & poor attachment; psycho-disinhibition = greater negative affect & poor behavioral constraint; psycho-boldness = reduced negative affect & greater narcissism

A Comparison of Two Five-Factor Model Operationalizations of the Triarchic Model of Psychopathy in a Clinical Sample. Jared R. Ruchensky et al. Assessment, June 6, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/10731911211006186

Abstract: Structural models of personality traits, particularly the five-factor model (FFM), continue to inform ongoing debates regarding what personality attributes and trait domains are central to psychopathy. A growing body of literature has linked the constructs of the triarchic model of psychopathy (boldness, meanness, disinhibition) to the FFM. Recently, researchers developed both item and regression-based measures of the triarchic model of psychopathy using the NEO Personality Inventory–Revised—a popular measure of the FFM. The current study examines the correlates of these two FFM-derived operationalizations of the triarchic model using data from the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study. The two approaches had strong convergent validity coefficients and similar patterns of criterion-related validity coefficients. Meanness related to greater personality pathology characterized by exploitation of others and poor attachment, whereas disinhibition related to indicators of greater negative affect and poor behavioral constraint. Boldness related to reduced negative affect and greater narcissistic personality traits. Although the item and regression-based approaches showed similar patterns of associations with criterion-variables, the item-based approach has some practical and psychometric advantages over the regression-based approach given strong correlations between the meanness and disinhibition scores from the regression approach.

Keywords: psychopathy, five-factor model, personality, personality disorders, triarchic model

From 2019... Online dating markets: Sex ratio varies widely between submarkets, with younger submarkets having more men & fewer women than older ones; minority women are younger than the average in older submarkets

From 2019... Structure of Online Dating Markets in U.S. Cities. Elizabeth E. Bruch and M. E. J. Newman. Sociological Science, April 2, 2019. 10.15195/v6.a9

Abstract: We study the structure of heterosexual dating markets in the United States through an analysis of the interactions of several million users of a large online dating website, applying recently developed network analysis methods to the pattern of messages exchanged among users. Our analysis shows that the strongest driver of romantic interaction at the national level is simple geographic proximity, but at the local level, other demographic factors come into play. We find that dating markets in each city are partitioned into submarkets along lines of age and ethnicity. Sex ratio varies widely between submarkets, with younger submarkets having more men and fewer women than older ones. There is also a noticeable tendency for minorities, especially women, to be younger than the average in older submarkets, and our analysis reveals how this kind of racial stratification arises through the messaging decisions of both men and women. Our study illustrates how network techniques applied to online interactions can reveal the aggregate effects of individual behavior on social structure.

Check also Men's revealed preference for their mates' ages. Kitae Sohn. Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 38, Issue 1, January 2017, Pages 58-62. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2021/05/we-analyzed-all-first-marriages.html

Discussion

The experience of mate selection is frequently described, both in popular discourse and the scientific literature, in the language of markets: An individual’s goal is to secure the best possible mate for themselves in the face of competition from others. However, we know little about the structure of these romantic markets in part for lack of appropriately detailed data. The advent and vigorous growth of the online dating industry in the last two decades provides a new source of data about courtship interactions on an unprecedented scale. In this study, we have provided a first look at how network analysis techniques can reveal the structure of U.S. dating markets as evidenced by interactions on a popular dating website. Across the United States as a whole, we find that geography is the defining feature of national dating markets. Within cities, submarkets are defined by age as well as other demographic factors—most notably, race. We find that submarket structure is shaped by both first-messaging patterns and replies. Threequarters of all reciprocated messages fall within submarkets, and only one-quarter fall between individuals in different submarkets. A larger fraction, about 43 percent, of all first messages are between different submarkets, which indicates that people do attempt to contact partners outside of their submarkets, but those attempts are often unsuccessful. Overall, our results reveal the aggregate implications of individuals’ mate choices and suggest that metropolitan areas are best characterized as a collection of geographically integrated but demographically distinct submarkets. More generally, our study illustrates how state-of-the-art network science techniques can be applied to rich data from online interactions or administrative records to reveal subtle features of social structure. In recent years, the growing availability of search data from online sources has led to interest in how individuals’ choices reveal submarkets in other social domains (Piazzesi, Schneider, and Stroebel 2015; Rae 2015). As we have shown in the dating context, market outcomes reflect the choices made by actors on both sides (e.g., men and women in heterosexual dating markets, workers and firms in job markets). Our approach could straightforwardly be extended to look at structural features of housing or job markets, and we view this as a fruitful direction for future work. 

Statements without discernible meaning that consists of modern, abstract words, created to impress & not to inform, were attributed to famous philosophers & physicists (Nietzsche, Plato, Hawking, Einstein) or uncredible authors (Johnny Depp, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Brad Pitt)

The effect of source credibility on bullshit receptivity. Sandra Ilić, Kaja Damnjanović. Applied Cognitive Psychology, June 3 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3852

Summary: Pseudo-profound bullshit pertains to grammatically and syntactically correct but meaningless sentences, that, due to syntactical correctness appear as made to communicate something and research shows that people deem them profound. However, the effect of differing source credibility on bullshit profoundness evaluations has, to our knowledge, not yet been tested. We presented participants with pseudo-profound bullshit alone and with authors of different credibility. In order to partly replicate and extend on the findings regarding mechanisms of receptivity and sensitivity to bullshit we collected profoundness evaluations for mundane statements and proverbs, and different measures of analytic thinking. Ascribing credible authors leads to an increase while ascribing uncredible authors leads to a decrease in profoundness evaluations. Cognitive reflection protects against the tendency to evaluate any type of statement as profound and drives better differentiation between pseudo- and conventionally truly profound, while positive views about actively open-minded thinking enable stronger effects of credible authorship.

Effects of Increased Weights of Alternative Fuel Trucks on Pavement and Bridges: Long-haul electric trucks with a range of 300 miles are expected to be 5,328 pounds heavier than fossil-fuel versions in 2030, in 2050 they will be 1000 pounds less

Effects of Increased Weights of Alternative Fuel Trucks on Pavement and Bridges. Harvey, John, Saboori, ArashMiller, Marshall, Kim, Changmo, Jaller, Miguel, Lea, JonKendall, Alissa, Saboori, Ashkan. Univ of California Institute of Transportation Studies, report no. 2020/19, Nov 2020. https://doi.org/10.7922/G27M066V

Abstract: California’s truck fleet composition is shifting to include more natural gas vehicles (NGVs), electric vehicles (EVs), and fuel cell vehicles (FCVs), and it will shift more quickly to meet state greenhouse gas (GHG) emission goals. These alternative fuel trucks (AFTs) may introduce heavier axle loads, which may increase pavement damage and GHG emissions from work to maintain pavements. This project aimed to provide conceptual-level estimates of the effects of vehicle fleet changes on road and bridge infrastructure. Three AFT implementation scenarios were analyzed using typical Calif. state and local pavement structures, and a federal study’s results were used to assess the effects on bridges. This study found that more NGV, EV, and FC trucks are expected among short-haul and medium-duty vehicles than among long-haul vehicles, for which range issues arise with EVs and FCs. But the estimates predicted that by 2050, alternative fuels would power 25–70% of long-haul and 40–95% of short-haul and medium-duty trucks. AFT implementation is expected to be focused in the 11 counties with the greatest freight traffic—primarily urban counties along major freight corridors. Results from the implementation scenarios suggest that introducing heavier AFTs will only result in minimal additional pavement damage, with its extent dependent on the pavement structure and AFT implementation scenario. Although allowing weight increases of up to 2,000 lbs. is unlikely to cause major issues on more modern bridges, the effects of truck concentrations at those new limits on inadequate bridges needs more careful evaluation. The study’s most aggressive market penetration scenario yielded an approximate net reduction in annual well-to-wheel truck propulsion emissions of 1,200–2,700 kT per year of CO2 -e by 2030, and 6,300–34,000 kT by 2050 versus current truck technologies. Negligible effects on GHG emissions from pavement maintenance and rehabilitation resulted from AFT implementation.

1 lb is almost .5 kg

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Long-haul electric trucks with a range of 300 miles are expected to be 5,328 pounds heavier than fossil-fuel versions in 2030. Short-haul and medium-duty box delivery electric trucks are expected to weigh 1,400 extra pounds. Batteries are heavy because the chemicals and materials in battery cells are densely packed and have a good amount of mass. Based on average market penetration, the batteries on electric trucks in 2030 could collectively equal 59.3 million pounds. Future technology is expected to reduce that weight by almost 1,000 pounds by 2050. Also, adding tires and axles to the largest trucks could spread the load more evenly to reduce stress on roads and bridges.

4.3 Cost to Strengthen and Replace Bridges Due to a 2,000-Pound Truck Weight Increase

The MAP-21 study provided an estimate of $0.4 billion for the one-time costs to strengthen and replace bridges due to a 5axle, 88,000 lb. truck (Scenario 1 of the CTSWLS) across all states. The following is a top-down first-order calculation that translates that national-level cost to California alone.

• The MAP-21 study assumed that bridges with a rating factor (either flexure or shear) less than 1.0 will require rehabilitation.

• For this current study, it was assumed that the bridges in the structurally deficient category are those that had rating factors less than 1.0.

• California has 6.2 percent of all the bridges in the US that are structurally deficient and 3.9 percent of all the structurally deficient NHS bridges. It was assumed for this study that 4.5 percent of the bridges are structurally deficient. Bridges on the NHS system are longer and more costly to rehabilitate than non-NHS bridges.

• It was also assumed for this study that the 82,000-lb. GVW limit produces half (allowing for some illegal trucks over the 82,000-lb. limit) as many ratings less than 1.0 than the 88,000-lb. truck scenario (a conservative estimate).

• The estimated cost is then: 4.5% × 0.5 × $400 million = $9 million in 2011 dollars.

• This cost estimate does not include any increases in annual maintenance costs due to the heavier trucks.

Pride, shame, envy, admiration, respect, contempt, anger, fear—and status hierarchies

Durkee, Patrick. 2021. “Emotions and Status Hierarchies.” OSF Preprints. May 23. doi:10.31219/osf.io/hukwr

Abstract: Emotions define and are defined by status hierarchies. This chapter examines human emotions in relation to hierarchy navigation. Because emotional adaptations evolve in response to selective pressures, I first present evidence supporting the ubiquity of hierarchies and the fitness-relevance of status in the ancestral past. Next, I provide a sketch of the recurrent adaptive challenges likely posed by life within hierarchically organized groups to circumscribe the hierarchy-navigation tasks emotional adaptations are expected to address. I then highlight several emotions—pride, shame, envy, admiration, respect, contempt, anger, and fear—that appear to facilitate hierarchy navigation, review the evidence for their functional design, and explore ways in which relative differences in status may modulate recurring emotional experiences. Finally, I discuss how understanding the interplay between emotions and hierarchy navigation can inform our understanding of broad individual differences.

Check also Psychological foundations of human status allocation. Patrick K. Durkee, Aaron W. Lukaszewski, and David M. Buss. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 18, 2020. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2020/08/social-status-is-universal-and.html

When cumulative culture functionally overlaps with genes, genetic effects become masked, unmasked, or even reversed, & the causal effects of an identified gene become confounded with features of the cultural environment

Cultural Evolution of Genetic Heritability. Ryutaro Uchiyama, Rachel Spicer and Michael Muthukrishna. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, May 21 2021. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X21000893. Pre-print heritability-165_final(1) (muthukrishna.com)

Abstract: Behavioral genetics and cultural evolution have both revolutionized our understanding of human behavior—largely independent of each other. Here we reconcile these two fields under a dual inheritance framework, offering a more nuanced understanding of the interaction between genes and culture. Going beyond typical analyses of gene–environment interactions, we describe the cultural dynamics that shape these interactions by shaping the environment and population structure. A cultural evolutionary approach can explain, for example, how factors such as rates of innovation and diffusion, density of cultural sub-groups, and tolerance for behavioral diversity impact heritability estimates, thus yielding predictions for different social contexts. Moreover, when cumulative culture functionally overlaps with genes, genetic effects become masked, unmasked, or even reversed, and the causal effects of an identified gene become confounded with features of the cultural environment. The manner of confounding is specific to a particular society at a particular time, but a WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) sampling problem obscures this boundedness. Cultural evolutionary dynamics are typically missing from models of gene-to-phenotype causality, hindering generalizability of genetic effects across societies and across time. We lay out a reconciled framework and use it to predict the ways in which heritability should differ between societies, between socioeconomic levels and other groupings within some societies but not others, and over the life course. An integrated cultural evolutionary behavioral genetic approach cuts through the nature–nurture debate and helps resolve controversies in topics such as IQ.

Comments on this paper... Mitchell, Kevin J. 2021. “Developmental Noise Is an Overlooked Contributor to Innate Variation in Psychological Traits.” PsyArXiv. September 21. Developmental Noise Is an Overlooked Contributor to Innate Variation in Psychological Traits

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From the 2020 version:

The question, “Which SNPs  are associated with skin cancer?” is similarly culturally dependent. In societies where sunscreen use is common, we expect genes that govern skin pigmentation to be less predictive of skin cancer compared to societies where it is not.

...

A gene can be beneficial in one environment but not in another. For example, we have known for a long time that increasing nutrition (Lynn 1990; Stoch et al. 1982), improving schooling (Ceci 1991; Davis 2014; Ritchie and Tucker-Drob 2018), and removing parasites (Wieringa et al. 2011) have positive effects on general intelligence. None of this is surprising, but it means that in a society where parasite infection is kept under control, we would not notice that parasite status correlates with intelligence, due to a lack of sufficient variation in parasite load. For the same reason, a correlation between lead exposure and IQ (Needleman and Gatsonis 1990; Wasserman et al. 1997) will not be revealed in a society where lead is not a problem. The same principle applies to genes: genes that provide protection against malnutrition, parasites, or pollution would only be positively associated with intelligence in environments where these insults occur. In environments where these challenges have been overcome, the same genes would not be associated with intelligence, and can even be deleterious. For example, being a carrier (heterozygous) for abnormal hemoglobin via sickle cell trait (Elguero et al. 2015) or thalassemia (Mockenhaupt et al. 2004) protects against malaria and is thus beneficial in an environment with the Plasmodium falciparum parasite. Because malaria is known to have a negative impact on cognitive development (Holding and Snow 2001), we would expect the gene for abnormal hemoglobin to be positively associated with intelligence in environments with a high risk of malaria. As the risk of malaria decreases heterozygosity will be neutral or deleterious, but this too depends on environmental factors such as diet. Similarly, alleles that protect against parasite infection (Carter 2013) or lead poisoning (Onalaja and Claudio 2000) will be predictive of IQ only if the environmental risk factors are present in sufficient quantities. In an environment with arsenic contamination, variants in AS3MT associated with more efficient arsenic metabolism (Schlebusch et al. 2015) may be predictive of intelligence (Wang et al. 2007).

Spontaneous face touching: Count and duration increase with arousal, emotional or cognitive load; active prevention of face touching to reduce infections requires mental effort

Stop touching your face! A systematic review of triggers, characteristics, regulatory functions and neuro-physiology of facial self touch. Jente L. Spille et al. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, June 11 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.05.030

Highlights

• Spontaneous face touching is associated with cortical regulatory processes.

• Self touch count and duration increase with arousal, emotional or cognitive load.

• Active prevention of face touching to reduce infections requires mental effort.

• Association of face touch with trigeminal communicating rami is discussed.

• Fundamental mechanisms and functions of spontaneous face touches remain unknown.

Abstract: Spontaneous face touching (sFST) is an ubiquitous behavior that occurs in people of all ages and all sexes, up to 800 times a day. Despite their high frequency, they have rarely been considered as an independent phenomenon. Recently, sFST have sparked scientific interest since they contribute to self-infection with pathogens. This raises questions about trigger mechanisms and functions of sFST and whether they can be prevented. This systematic comprehensive review compiles relevant evidence on these issues. Facial self-touches seem to increase in frequency and duration in socially, emotionally as well as cognitively challenging situations. They have been associated with attention focus, working memory processes and emotion regulating functions as well as the development and maintenance of a sense of self and body. The dominance of face touch over other body parts is discussed in light of the proximity of hand-face cortical representations and the peculiarities of facial innervations. The results show that underlying psychological and neuro-physiological mechanisms of sFST are still poorly understood and that various basic questions remain unanswered.

Keywords: nonverbal communicationinfection transmissionemotion regulationworking memoryattention focustic disordertrigeminal nervesensory attenuation

Deterministic Attributions of Behavior: Biological explanations had more influence than social explanations on ratings of others’ responsibility, capacity for change, and sentencing considerations

Deterministic Attributions of Behavior: Brain versus Genes. Kevin R. Peters, Alena Kalinina, Nastassja M. Downer & Amy Van Elswyk. Neuroethics, Jun 11 2021. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12152-021-09471-x

Abstract: This research examined the influence of social-, genetic-, and brain-based explanations on attributions of others’ behaviors. Participants were university students in Studies 1 (N = 140), 2 (N = 142), and 3 (N = 260). Participants read a vignette about an individual who possessed several undesirable behaviors and answered related questions. The first two studies had within-subjects designs. Participants in Study 1 were provided with social-, genetic-, and brain-based explanations for the individual’s behavior. The order of the genetic- and brain-based explanations was reversed in Study 2. Study 3 used the same materials, but had a between-subjects design where participants were assigned to one of three groups that differed in their explanation: social, genetic, or brain. Participants also completed measures of social desirability and free will beliefs in all three studies. Consistently, biological explanations had more influence than social explanations on ratings of others’ responsibility, capacity for change, and sentencing considerations. There was inconsistent evidence across the three studies, however, that brain-based explanations had more influence than genetic-based explanations. Interestingly, Free will scores were associated with aspects of the individual’s behavior in the social condition but not in the biological conditions. Additional social cognition research is needed to determine whether brain-based explanations are just one specific instantiation of biological explanations or whether they are unique in this regard when it comes to the attributions we make about others’ behaviors.

Disease and Disapproval: COVID-19 Concern is Related to Greater Moral Condemnation

Disease and Disapproval: COVID-19 Concern is Related to Greater Moral Condemnation. Robert K. Henderson, Simone Schnall. Evolutionary Psychology, June 10, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/14747049211021524

Abstract: Prior research has indicated that disease threat and disgust are associated with harsher moral condemnation. We investigated the role of a specific, highly salient health concern, namely the spread of the coronavirus, and associated COVID-19 disease, on moral disapproval. We hypothesized that individuals who report greater subjective worry about COVID-19 would be more sensitive to moral transgressions. Across three 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 relatively less 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. Furthermore, for Studies 1 and 2 the effect also was robust when taking into account the contamination subscale of the Disgust Scale–Revised. 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.

Keywords: morality, disgust, pathogen avoidance, behavioral immune system, moral judgment, emotion, harm, COVID-19, coronavirus, moral foundations theory

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.

Libet experiment dominant in debates about conscious causation and free will; evidence base remarkably thin and high uncertainty for central time difference; some findings of the experiment seem more fragile than anticipated

A meta-analysis of Libet-style experiments. Moritz Nicolai, Braun Janet, Wessler Malte Friese. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, June 10 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.06.018

Highlights

• Libet experiment dominant in debates about conscious causation and free will.

• Meta-analytical evidence has been lacking.

• Results of present meta-analysis largely consistent with original Libet experiment.

• Evidence base remarkably thin and high uncertainty for central time difference.

• Some findings of the Libet experiment seem more fragile than anticipated.

Abstract: In the seminal Libet experiment (Libet et al., 1983), unconscious brain activity preceded the self-reported, conscious intention to move. This was repeatedly interpreted as challenging the view that (conscious) mental states cause behavior and, prominently, as challenging the existence of free will. Extensive discussions in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and jurisprudence followed, but further empirical findings were heterogeneous. However, a quantitative review of the literature summarizing the evidence of Libet-style experiments is lacking. The present meta-analysis fills this gap. The results revealed a temporal pattern that is largely consistent with the one found by Libet and colleagues. Remarkably, there were only k = 6 studies for the time difference between unconscious brain activity and the conscious intention to move — the most crucial time difference regarding implications about conscious causation and free will. Additionally, there was a high degree of uncertainty associated with this meta-analytic effect. We conclude that some of Libet et al.’s findings appear more fragile than anticipated in light of the substantial scientific work that built on them.

Keywords: Libet studyVolitionIntentional actionReadiness potentialMeta-analysisFree willW-timeM-time

In contrast to previous research that used surveys, we found little evidence that mask wearers have strong preferences for caring for others and equality for all; it is more about social identity

Powdthavee N, Riyanto YE, Wong ECL, Yeo JXW, Chan QY (2021) When face masks signal social identity: Explaining the deep face-mask divide during the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS ONE 16(6): e0253195, Jun 10 2021. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253195

Abstract: With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging and the vaccination program still rolling out, there continues to be an immediate need for public health officials to better understand the mechanisms behind the deep and perpetual divide over face masks in America. Using a random sample of Americans (N = 615), following a pre-registered experimental design and analysis plan, we first demonstrated that mask wearers were not innately more cooperative as individuals than non-mask wearers in the Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD) game when information about their own and the other person’s mask usage was not salient. However, we found strong evidence of in-group favouritism among both mask and non-mask wearers when information about the other partner’s mask usage was known. Non-mask wearers were 23 percentage points less likely to cooperate than mask wearers when facing a mask-wearing partner, and 26 percentage points more likely to cooperate than mask wearers when facing a non-mask-wearing partner. Our analysis suggests social identity effects as the primary reason behind people’s decision whether to wear face masks during the pandemic.

Discussions

In this paper, we conducted a pre-registered, online incentivized lab experiment using a high-powered sample of Americans to test whether people generally use others’ face mask usage as a signal of social identity instead of innate willingness to cooperate during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast to previous research that used surveys to demonstrate that mask wearers have strong preferences for caring for others and equality for all [9], we found little evidence that mask wearers behaved more cooperatively than non-mask wearers in the PD game compared to non-mask wearers when information about their own and the other person’s mask usage is not salient. However, more consistent with social identity theory, we found strong evidence of in-group versus out-group bias based on mask usage during the pandemic. Non-mask wearers were 23 percentage points (p = 0.001) less likely to cooperate than mask wearers when facing a mask-wearing partner, and 26 percentage points (p<0.001) more likely to cooperate than mask wearers when facing a non-mask wearing partner. These findings are surprising, considering that there is little evidence that mask wearers were generally more cooperative than non-mask wearers in the scenario where the information about mask usage was not known to the participants.

Our results are notably different from recent studies that found zero social identity effects associated with COVID-19 vaccination. Kohn et al. [34] demonstrated that vaccinators and non-vaccinators generally treat vaccinators better in prosocial activities and, in a follow-up study by Weisel [35], that there is little evidence of the politicization of vaccination in people’s prosocial behaviours even when, like face masks, there are more Democrats than Republicans who are pro-vaccine. One possible explanation for this is that, unlike face masks, vaccination and vaccination intentions are not readily visible to both in-group and out-group members. Hence, despite evidence of political partisanship based on vaccination against COVID-19 shown in Weisel [35], without visibility of one’s vaccination status to others, it would be less likely that vaccination is going to be affected by politicization when compared to wearing face masks in America [10–14].

Moreover, not only have we demonstrated that face masks signal strong social identity, we have also uncovered evidence of an in-group bias based on face masks that is completely orthogonal to one’s political identity and remains unexplained in our regression model. Despite the politicization of face masks being the likely root cause of the social identity effects, our experimental evidence seems to suggest that people may have evolved over time to assign face mask usage as a minimal condition required for favouring in-group members and discriminating against out-group members.

Our results, which provide new insights into the extent and the mechanisms behind the deep divide over face masks in America, have important public health implications. With the more infectious strains, e.g., the UK (B.1.1.7) and South African (B.1.351) variants, taking over and vaccination programs still rolling in America, public messages designed to curb the transmission rate by increasing awareness about face mask effectiveness in protecting themselves and others in the community from COVID-19 [36] are unlikely to change non-mask wearers’ world views and behaviours towards mask usage as doing so would signal disloyalty to their held political identity. A better public health strategy might focus less on the details of the messages and more on the ‘messenger’ or the information source. Studies in behavioural economics have shown how messengers who are authority figures, share similar characteristics with and are likable to the target individuals, tend to be more successful in getting their messages across and, in turn, change individuals’ choices and behaviours [37, 38]. Given that part of the social-identity effects is explained by political identity, non-mask wearers might be more willing to listen to a message about face mask’s effectiveness from an authoritative figure in the Republican party or non-political figures who share similar characteristics or are generally well-liked by non-mask wearers. This could include, for example, family doctors of non-mask wearers and mask-wearing friends who share the same political affiliation as non-mask wearers. Future research could explore what type of messenger works best at reducing the social identity effects of face masks and, in-so-doing increase the mask usage rate in the United States and elsewhere around the world.

Finally, our findings, when viewed in conjunction with Korn et al. [34] and Wiesel [35], suggest that political partisanship based on health measures are more likely to lead to actual polarization in the take-up rate when the health measures in question are visible and salient to the individual and others in the community. Given the recent political discussions on vaccine passports [39, 40] and getting those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 to wear a sticker visible to others [41], our results suggest that such efforts might lead to the unintended politicization of vaccinations, which would inevitably undermine the large-scale vaccination efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Like all studies in social sciences, our study is not without limitations. One concern is the external validity of our findings. While it has been shown that people can easily identify PD games and play according to the game theory in the lab [42], it is possible that the same individuals may behave differently when facing a similar social dilemma in the real-world. It also remains to be seen whether our results can be generalised to other types of health measures such as vaccine passports and social distancing—scenarios where the stakes are large and interactions are repeated across countries and stages of the pandemic. Nonetheless, we have no reason to believe that the results depend on other characteristics of the subjects, materials, or context that are not already accounted for in the current study.

An Analysis was conducted on five Automated Vehicle Collisions, and consistent patterns emerged: The drivers were underloaded and did not effectively monitor the road environment, in part because of trust in automation

What can we learn from Automated Vehicle collisions? A deductive thematic analysis of five Automated Vehicle collisions. Siobhan E. Merriman et al. Safety Science, Volume 141, September 2021, 105320, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2021.105320

Highlights

• A Deductive Thematic Analysis was conducted on five Automated Vehicle Collisions.

• Interconnection models were created, and consistent patterns emerged.

• Links were made with the drivers’ attitudes, mental models and trust in automation.

• The drivers were underloaded and did not effectively monitor the road environment.

• This impaired their ability to identify and avoid hazards in their path.

Abstract: There have been a number of high-profile collisions involving Automated Vehicles on the road. Although car manufacturers are making considerable investments into the development of Automated Vehicles, these collisions may deter the public from purchasing and using them. Therefore, solutions need to be developed to prevent these collisions from occurring in the future. One such solution is driver training. A previous literature review identified nine themes which are essential in Automated Vehicle driver training. In this article, a deductive thematic analysis was conducted on five high-profile Automated Vehicle collisions in order to demonstrate the relevance of these themes and to gain insights into how the driver’s behaviour contributed to each collision, thus understand the potential role of training in reducing collisions of this nature. By creating interconnection models for each collision, a consistent pattern emerged. A link was made with the drivers’ attitudes, the accuracy of their mental models and their level of trust in the automation. The automation caused the drivers to become underloaded, which impaired their ability to effectively monitor the automation and the road environment. This could have impaired their situation awareness and their ability to identify and avoid hazards in the path of their vehicle. This analysis suggests that future Automated Vehicle driver training programmes should be multifaceted and cover all nine themes. This analysis has validated these nine driver training themes, so these themes and interconnections can help in the development of a comprehensive training programme for drivers of Automated Vehicles in the future.

Keywords: Automated VehiclesSafetyDriver TrainingDeductive Thematic AnalysisAccident Analysis

Polarization: We see members of groups across the aisle as being our opposites on non-political dimensions & reflect personal preferences rather than empirical grop differences (preference for cats or dogs, or liking the color yellow)

When Polarization Triggers Out-Group “Counter-Projection” Across the Political Divide. Kathryn R. Denning, Sara D. Hodges. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, June 10, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211021211

Abstract: Although projecting one’s own characteristics onto another person is pervasive, “counter-projection,” or seeing the opposite of oneself in others is also sometimes found, with implications for intergroup conflict. After a focused review of previous studies finding counter-projection (often unexpectedly), we map conditions for counter-projection to an individual out-group member. Counter-projection requires identified antagonistic groups, is moderated by in-group identity, and is moderated by which information is assessed in the target person. Using political groups defined by support for former U.S. President Trump, across our Initial Experiment (N = 725) and Confirmatory Experiment (N = 618), we found counter-projection to individual political out-group targets for moral beliefs, personality traits, and everyday likes (e.g., preference for dogs vs. cats). Counter-projection was increased by in-group identification and overlapped considerably with “oppositional” out-group stereotypes, but we also found counter-projection independent of out-group stereotypes (degree of overlap with stereotyping depended on the information being projected).

Keywords: projection, politics, intergroup relations, polarization, stereotyping

In contrast to that intuitive view, this study argues that democratic rule and high state capacity combined produce higher levels of income inequality over time

Inclusive institutions, unequal outcomes: Democracy, state capacity, and income inequality. Mart Trasberg, Hector Bahamonde. European Journal of Political Economy, June 8 2021, 102048. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2021.102048

Highlights

• Democratic rule combined with high state capacity produces higher income inequality.

• Mechanisms: foreign direct investment and financial development.

• We use a novel measure of state capacity based on cumulative census administration.

• Fixed effects panel regressions with the data from 126 countries between 1970 and 2013.

Abstract: Although the relationship between democratic rule and income inequality has received important attention in recent literature, the evidence has been far from conclusive. In this paper, we explore whether the redistributive effect of democratic rule is conditional on state capacity. Previous literature has outlined that pre-existing state capacity may be necessary for inequality-reducing policies under democratic rule. In contrast to that intuitive view, this study argues that democratic rule and high state capacity combined produce higher levels of income inequality over time. This relationship operates through the positive effect of high-capacity democratic context on foreign direct investment and financial development. By making use of a novel measure of state capacity based on cumulative census administration, we find empirical support for these claims using fixed-effects panel regressions with the data from 126 industrial and developing countries between 1970 and 2013.

Keywords: Income inequalityDemocracyState capacityFinancial DevelopmentFDI

Humor mistakes are more damaging for men than women: Women (vs men) who falter are still seen as more attentive, causing their mistakes to seem less substantial and bolstering downstream evaluations of them

No laughing matter: Why humor mistakes are more damaging for men than women. Taly Reich etl al. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 96, September 2021, 104169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104169

Abstract: People of all genders regularly pursue both personal and professional objectives. To the latter, research has documented substantial barriers for women, especially when they make mistakes. As articulated by role congruity theory, their stereotypically communal nature appears at odds with the agentic objectives frequently seen as inherent to the workplace. To the former, though, how are women (versus men) evaluated in pursuit of communal objectives? We propose that observers are more likely to see men (versus women) as less successful after mistakes in the interpersonal realm. Nine preregistered experiments (N = 5400) test this proposition by targeting, specifically, the use of humor. They provide evidence for a process model by which women (versus men) who falter are still seen as more attentive, causing their mistakes to seem less substantial and bolstering downstream evaluations of them. Implications for gender, humor, and mistakes are discussed.

Keywords: GenderMistakeHumorPerson perceptionStereotypeRole congruity theory

New social interaction mechanisms—change in the rules of exchange and collective-action dilemmas—devised by the interacting individuals, allow for self-interested individuals to remain prosocial as societies grow

Cooperation in large-scale human societies—What, if anything, makes it unique, and how did it evolve? Simon T. Powers, Carel P. van Schaik, Laurent Lehmann. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, June 4 2021, https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21909

Abstract: To resolve the major controversy about why prosocial behaviors persist in large-scale human societies, we propose that two questions need to be answered. First, how do social interactions in small-scale and large-scale societies differ? By reviewing the exchange and collective-action dilemmas in both small-scale and large-scale societies, we show they are not different. Second, are individual decision-making mechanisms driven by self-interest? We extract from the literature three types of individual decision-making mechanism, which differ in their social influence and sensitivity to self-interest, to conclude that humans interacting with non-relatives are largely driven by self-interest. We then ask: what was the key mechanism that allowed prosocial behaviors to continue as societies grew? We show the key role played by new social interaction mechanisms—change in the rules of exchange and collective-action dilemmas—devised by the interacting individuals, which allow for self-interested individuals to remain prosocial as societies grow.

4 PROSOCIALITY IN LARGE-SCALE SOCIETIES: DECISION-MAKING MECHANISMS VS SOCIAL INTERACTION MECHANISMS

As discussed in Section 2, large-scale societies are dependent on prosocial behaviors for their existence. Yet, evolutionary theory shows that, everything else being equal, the selection pressures favoring prosocial behaviors decrease drastically as the number of interacting individuals increases, and hence prosocial behavior is unlikely to be favored in large groups (Powers & Lehmann, 2017). So what was the key mechanism that allowed for prosocial behavior to be sustained in the transition from small-scale to large-scale societies? Did prosocial behavior start to go against the actor's genetic self-interest as the scale of society increased? If so, it would need to be maintained by a decision-making mechanism that is less sensitive to material payoff compared to the decision-making mechanism of evolutionary biology (FMM) described in the previous section. Or alternatively, was prosocial behavior still payoff-sensitive because of changes in the social interaction mechanism?

4.1 Hypothesis 1: A special decision-making mechanism is the key driver of prosocial behavior in large-scale societies

The first hypothesis is the cultural group selection hypothesis (Richerson et al., 2016; Richerson & Boyd, 2005), which posits that the main driver maintaining the expression of prosocial behavior in the transition to large-scale societies is that humans are largely SLM agents with a high degree of prestige and conformity bias. These biases can maintain prosocial behavior within a group, even if the prosocial behavior is not payoff-sensitive and hence not an equilibrium behavior for self-interested agents. Prosocial acts in large-scale societies can therefore be altruistic under this hypothesis. If different groups reach different patterns of behavior, some with a greater frequency of prosocial behaviors, and some with less, then competition between groups can cause the prosocial behavior to spread throughout the population (Boyd et al., 2003; Henrich & Boyd, 2001). However, explicit formal models investigating these processes (Lehmann & Feldman, 2008; Molleman et al., 2013; Peña et al., 2009), and holding everything else constant in comparison to payoff-biased transmission, have so far generally failed to show that conformist-biased transmission favors the spread of prosocial behaviors. Prestige-biased transmission fares better, though (Molleman et al., 2013).

Cultural group selection was first proposed to explain the transition to large-scale social societies in economics (Hayek, 1988) but without much detail as to what form of competition between groups would do the job, a point that has been expressed as follows (Sugden, 1993):

Sometimes it seems to be suggested that less successful groups imitate more successful ones; sometimes, that individuals migrate from less successful to more successful groups; sometimes, that more successful groups reproduce more rapidly; and sometimes, that more successful groups exterminate less successful ones. I think we must assume that Hayek has no particular theory of group selection clearly in mind, but has the hunch that there is some common criterion of “success” or “fitness” that would be favored by any plausible theory.

Much the same variations of group competition have been proposed in the more recent literature (Richerson et al., 2016). It has been argued that cultural group selection will be reinforced if competition between groups involves the physical displacement of less prosocial groups by their more prosocial neighbors, for example, through warfare (Bowles et al., 2003; Boyd et al., 2003; Turchin et al., 2013). This type of group competition could cause payoff-insensitive prosocial behaviors to spread if SLMs use prestige or conformity bias, including altruistic behaviors. It has also been proposed that competition between groups could take the form of individuals either migrating to more successful groups, or imitating individuals in more successful groups (Richerson et al., 2016). This could cause payoff-insensitive prosocial behaviors to spread if SLMs use prestige bias when choosing the group to migrate to or imitate. In both of these cases, the social interaction mechanism does not matter much because of the agent's decision-making mechanism.

On the other hand, both types of group competition could also function with payoff-biased SLMs. However, in this case there would need to be a mechanism of social interaction which ensures that prosocial behaviors give a higher payoff than non-prosocial behaviors within a single group, for example, non-altruistic forms of sanctioning (Ostrom, 1990). And with payoff-biased SLMs, prosocial behaviors could only be cooperative in large groups of genetically unrelated individuals, and not altruistic. This idea has been proposed in some “weaker” versions of the cultural group selection hypothesis, which argue that prosocial behaviors in social dilemmas are actually cooperative equilibria within a single group (Richerson et al., 2016). However, this is typically an assumption of cultural group selection models (Bowles et al., 2003; Boyd & Richerson, 1990), rather than the models demonstrating the evolution of a social interaction mechanism that makes prosocial behaviors an equilibrium for self-interested individuals in a single group. In summary, there is no single theory of cultural group selection and the different variants make different assumptions on the payoff-sensitivity of individual behavior.

4.2 Hypothesis 2: A refinement of social interaction mechanisms is the key driver of prosocial behavior in large-scale societies

The second hypothesis is the institutional path hypothesis (Powers et al., 2016; Powers & Lehmann, 2017), which posits that the driver maintaining the expression of prosocial behavior in the transition to large-scale societies is a refinement of social interaction mechanisms (see Glossary, Table 1); namely, people changed the rules of their economic games. Individuals are thus assumed to have formal and/or informal political interactions that affect their economic interactions. The hypothesis is that as groups grew in size, individuals have refined and created new institutional rules supporting exchange and/or have changed systems of monitoring and sanctioning to handle larger numbers of individuals in collective-action problems. Institutional rules may also have reduced the effective number of individuals that interact through the creation of nested group structures (Ostrom, 1990). These new mechanisms of social interaction (not necessarily created by “deliberate design,” see more on this in the next section) would lead to prosocial behaviors increasing material payoff to the actor, and hence can be generally favored even by self-interested individuals. Prosociality among non-relatives in large-scale societies is thus always cooperative, rather than altruistic, and so individual behavior is always payoff-sensitive under this hypothesis.

Due to this payoff-sensitivity, the institutional-path hypothesis is compatible with RSM agents, behavioral ecology-biased FMM agents, and with SLM agents that use payoff-biased social learning when choosing prosocial behavior. It is also compatible with the PAM subtype of FMM to the extent that the institutional rules recreate the conditions where cooperative prosocial behaviors were payoff-sensitive in small-scale societies, for example, effective sharing of reputational information. Moreover, PAMs would be expected to create institutional rules similar to those found in small-scale societies in circumstances that are ecologically similar (Boyer & Petersen, 2012; Petersen et al., 2013), for example, to create rules of uniform sharing in periods of high resource variance (Cosmides & Tooby, 1992).

The form of the institutional rules a group ends up with will be influenced by proximate factors such as asymmetries in power, influence, and information (Singh et al., 2017), which determine the outcome of political interactions. Furthermore, only a subset of the individuals affected by the institutional rules may take part in the political interactions, and the interests of those taking part may not be representative of the interests of the group as a whole. Consequently, conflicts of interests between segments of the group may result in institutional rules not being optimal for all group members, as exemplified by the rise of highly despotic states such as Ancient Egypt, where despotic leaders biased institutional rules in favor of themselves. As such, the institutional path hypothesis is compatible with the widespread existence of inefficient institutions (North, 1990). On the other hand, when the interests of group members are aligned, or bargaining strengths are equal, then efficient institutions that increase average material-payoff are more likely to arise, a point that has been repeatedly stressed in the (political) economics literature (Greif, 2006; North, 1990; Ostrom, 1990).

The ability to create and enforce rules by self-interested individuals, especially over food sharing and property rights, would have been necessary to support the hunter-gatherer lifestyle (Hill, 2009). If hunter-gatherers did not have political interactions, then the institutional path hypothesis cannot explain the origin of large-scale societies. But there is evidence that hunter-gatherers do indeed have political interactions that affect their economic interactions, even though they lack the bureaucratic elements of large-scale societies. For example, when the extant Ache hunter-gatherer society transitioned from foraging to horticulture, they advocated and voted in local meetings to transfer fields from public to private ownership (Kaplan et al., 2005).

4.3 A combination of a special decision-making mechanism and a change in social interaction mechanisms?

Since both the cultural group selection and the institutional-path hypotheses assume a quantitative scaling up of the same kinds of exchange and collective-action problems, the above analysis shows that a key question in determining the driving factors in the transition to large-scale societies is what decision-making mechanism determines the expression of prosocial behavior. If individuals are sensitive to material payoff when choosing prosocial behavior, then there must have been a change in their social interaction mechanisms, as proposed by the institutional-path hypothesis. Without such a change, individuals should stop acting prosocially as they took part in exchanges and collective actions with more individuals, because when everything else is constant the pressures favoring prosocial behaviors decrease rapidly as the number of interacting individuals increases. Conversely, if there was no change in the social interaction mechanisms then individuals must be less sensitive to payoff. If so, a special decision-making mechanism must operate, whereby some form of cultural group selection does the work in explaining why prosocial behaviors, be they cooperative or altruistic, are stable in large-scale societies.

Because humans undoubtedly experiment with many behaviors by trial-and-error and do considerably rely on social learning (Legare, 2017), the rules constraining behavior in economic interactions to which a society converge must to some extent at least partly be the outcome of some “spontaneous order” (Hayek, 1988; Sugden, 1993; Vanberg, 1994) and not the outcome of fully deliberate design. A case in point is the advent of the usage of money, which is a typical rule-based change in economic organization that is both in the interest of individuals using it and that is likely to have spread gradually by payoff-biased social learning (Vanberg, 1994). As such, some ingredients of the cultural group selection hypothesis may be complementary with the institutional-path hypothesis, with competition between groups spreading different “spontaneous orders.” However, this depends critically on the exact version of “cultural group selection” that has been operating. If the version of cultural group selection involves altruistic behaviors or altruistic punishment, then it is not complementary as it assumes individuals that are not self-interested (André, 2011; Pinker, 2015).

Competition between groups resulting from warfare, differential migration, or environmentally induced extinctions acts as an equilibrium selection device (Binmore, 2005a; Boyd & Richerson, 1990; Harsanyi & Selton, 1988), favoring equilibria that lead to a higher average payoff for group members. Cultural group selection advocates traditionally stressed that high-payoff equilibria resulted from prestige and conformity biased SLMs causing behaviors to spread within groups even if they were not payoff-sensitive in the underlying social interaction mechanism, rather than being equilibria because they were payoff-sensitive (Henrich et al., 2015; Richerson & Boyd, 2005). But prosocial equilibria can also exist within groups under payoff-biased social learning, or under RSM agents that rationally choose their actions, if the right mechanisms of social interaction are in place. In this case, between-group competition can again act as an equilibrium selection device, spreading by cultural transmission mechanisms of interaction that lead to cooperation, without individuals acting against their self-interest (Binmore, 2005a; Boyd & Richerson, 1990; Harsanyi & Selton, 1988). This can act alongside the creation of mechanisms of interaction by bargaining and negotiation, helping to fill in where individuals are less than fully rational, that is, boundedly-rational RSMs or PAMs. On the other side, an explicit consideration of political interactions for changing institutional rules can complement cultural group selection models, which typically leave unspecified how a group arrives at a particular equilibrium in the first place. Much formal work remains to be done to ascertain the conditions under which such equilibrium selection processes at the level of rules of the game (instead of economic behavior under given rules) may work. There are essentially no models of this to date.

Despite ingredients of the cultural group selection and institutional path hypotheses not being necessarily mutually exclusive, there is a crucial need to understand whether the main driver of the evolution of prosocial behavior in large-scale societies is a special decision-making mechanism that can cause agents to perform prosocial behaviors that are not payoff-sensitive, or the creation of new mechanisms of social interaction that maintain the expression of payoff-sensitive behavior as group size increases. Without clarification, the perennial question of the extent to which prosocial behaviors in large-scale societies are compatible with (genetically) self-interested individuals will remain. Fully elucidating the evolved decision-making mechanism that humans use is extremely challenging. Determining, however, whether observed prosocial behaviors are payoff-sensitive is less challenging. For example, we can more easily determine whether systems of monitoring and sanctioning involve altruistic behaviors, or whether they directly benefit the individuals doing the monitoring and sanctioning by increasing their material payoff (Guala, 2012; Ostrom, 1990). If it is the former, then this suggests that a special decision-making mechanism was key to their spread and maintenance. If it is the latter, then the creation of new mechanisms of social interaction is likely to have been the key driver. Empirical work should thus pay more attention to the payoff sensitivity of monitoring and sanctioning behaviors.