Higher levels of men’s family carework were associated with lower suicide mortality, especially among men and under high-unemployment conditions, wich points to the suicide-protective potential of men’s family carework

Caregiving as suicide-prevention: an ecological 20-country study of the association between men’s family carework, unemployment, and suicide. Ying-Yeh Chen, ZiYi Cai, Qingsong Chang, Silvia Sara Canetto & Paul S. F. Yip. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, May 5 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-021-02095-9

Abstract

Purpose: Suicide rates are generally higher in men than in women. Men’s higher suicide mortality is often attributed to public-life adversities, such as unemployment. Building on the theory that men’s suicide vulnerability is also related to their private-life behaviors, particularly men’s low engagement in family carework, this ecological study explored the association between men’s family carework, unemployment, and suicide.

Methods: Family-carework data for twenty Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries were obtained from the OECD Family Database. Sex-specific age-standardized suicide rates came from the Global Burden of Disease dataset. The association between men’s engagement in family carework and suicide rates by sex was estimated, with OECD’s unemployment-benefits index and United-Nations’ Human Development-Index (HDI) evaluated as controls. The moderation of men’s carework on the unemployment-suicide relationship was also assessed.

Results: Overall and sex-specific suicide rates were lower in countries where men reported more family carework. In these countries, higher unemployment rates were not associated with higher male suicide rates. In countries where men reported less family carework, higher unemployment was associated with higher male suicide rates, independent of country’s HDI. Unemployment benefits were not associated with suicide rates. Men’s family carework moderated the association between unemployment and suicide rates.

Conclusion: This study’s findings that higher levels of men’s family carework were associated with lower suicide mortality, especially among men and under high-unemployment conditions, point to the suicide-protective potential of men’s family carework. They are consistent with evidence that where gender equality is greater, men’s and women’s well-being, health, and longevity are greater.

55 traditional cultures: Experts with observable motor skills like toolmaking were often generous teachers, but specialists with conceptual know-how for uncommon problems (health) used secretive knowledge to help clients

Ethnoscientific expertise and knowledge specialisation in 55 traditional cultures. Aaron D. Lightner, Cynthiann Heckelsmiller and Edward H. Hagen. Evolutionary Human Sciences, accepted manuscript, pp. 1 - 52, Jun 14 2021. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2021.31

Abstract: People everywhere acquire high levels of conceptual knowledge about their social and natural worlds, which we refer to as ethnoscientific expertise. Evolutionary explanations for expertise are still widely debated. We analysed ethnographic text records (N=547) describing ethnoscientific expertise among 55 cultures in the Human Relations Area Files to investigate the mutually compatible roles of collaboration, proprietary knowledge, cultural transmission, honest signalling, and mate provisioning. We found relatively high levels of evidence for collaboration, proprietary knowledge, and cultural transmission, and lower levels of evidence for honest signalling and mate provisioning. In our exploratory analyses, we found that whether expertise involved proprietary vs. transmitted knowledge depended on the domain of expertise. Specifically, medicinal knowledge was positively associated with secretive and specialised knowledge for resolving uncommon and serious problems, i.e., proprietary knowledge. Motor skill-related expertise, such as subsistence and technological skills, was positively associated with broadly competent and generous teachers, i.e., cultural transmission. We also found that collaborative expertise was central to both of these models, and was generally important across different knowledge and skill domains.

Social media summary: In a cross-cultural study we found that experts with observable motor skills like toolmaking were often teachers, but specialists with conceptual know-how for uncommon problems like illness used secretive knowledge to help clients.

Keywords: Ethnoscience, Expertise, Cultural transmission, Conceptual knowledge, eHRAF

Animals also hold beliefs and there are some aspects that underly the formation of beliefs which are shared with other animal species, namely the relationship between causality, predictability and utility of beliefs

An Evolutionary Approach to the Adaptive Value of Belief. Anabela Pinto. Chapter in Evolutionary Psychology Meets Social Neuroscience, June 14th 2021. DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.97538

Abstract: The word “belief” evokes concepts such as religious or political beliefs, however there is more to belief than cultural aspects. The formation of beliefs depends on information acquired through subjective sampling and informants. Recent developments in the study of animal cognition suggest that animals also hold beliefs and there are some aspects that underly the formation of beliefs which are shared with other animal species, namely the relationship between causality, predictability and utility of beliefs. This review explores the biological roots of belief formation and suggests explanations for how evolution shaped the mind to harbour complex concepts based on linguistic structures held by humans. Furthermore, it suggests that beliefs are shaped by the type and process of information acquisition which progresses through three levels of complexity.

Keywords: Biology of beliefutility of beliefsacquisition of information meaning causality predictability utility bias

5. The adaptive value of beliefs

Thinkers, scientists and philosophers reach their own conclusions through methodological approaches specific to their field of expertise. In the process, they innovate, discover new methodologies, suggest theories. In summary, they gain insights into the problems they are addressing. When creating testable hypotheses, they make assumptions held as true, testing them for inconsistencies, flaws, mistakes, illogicality, etc. Hopefully, after a certain amount of time and painstaking testing, some of these assumptions, become a ‘truth’ in the mind of the thinker and her followers even though it is only a hypothesis. This truth will only survive until new evidence refutes it. A new paradigm replaces the former and the cycle restarts. This paradigm shift was thoroughly discussed by the American philosopher and physicist Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Many of our present social and personal beliefs result from cultural inheritance, our reliance on other people and sources we trust. Our survival depends on a large number of “specialised believers” telling us what to think.

We believe in the insights of others that preceded us and adopt them as truths. The teachings of the Buddha and the Middle Eastern religions, the insights of Classical Greek philosophers about the mind and nature, the discoveries of the Enlightenment and the progress of the industrial revolution, all are examples of personal insights that spread in space and time. Some insights are independently arrived at in different cultures and time frames, their common aspects suggesting that they may be intuitive across humankind. Similar social norms and recommendations based on an awareness of human nature that ensure that social order is upheld are found in tribal societies that never had contact with each other. Some of these rules have deep roots in biology, such as those aimed at controlling female behaviour to ensure the paternity of the offspring. Many of these norms passed on from generation to generation become enshrined in our present cultural norms and are still held as unquestionable dogmas. Similarly, questioning religious and scientific dogmas is still frowned upon by members of the groups that hold such doctrines. Individuals become emotionally attached to such beliefs and express anxiety and defensive reactions when such beliefs are challenged. This begs the question by which processes do beliefs operate to induce such strong emotional attachment?

There are aspects of the content of the belief that tap deeply into our biology [1]. When the information content of a belief aligns in some way with processes that provide survival strategies, that information perceived as meaningful is ardently protected and any challenge to its truth is aggressively repelled.

Which attributes make up the mind is much debated; however, their common features include the integration of a sensorial mechanism which contributes to make sense of an individual’s external and internal world. Whether or not the individual is conscious of that sense or meaning is irrelevant to definition, since proving presence of awareness in most animals empirically is impossible due its subjective nature. In the Descent of Man, Darwin laid out the case for believing that the difference between the minds of humans and other animals was ‘certainly one of degree and not of kind’.

There are at least four basic conditions that make a belief meaningful. First the belief must offer an explanation for causal events, secondly it must offer a sense of predictability, thirdly, the information received must be reliable and correspond to what is believed to be fact and finally, that belief must have some utility providing survival advantages [40]. But before each one of these conditions is addressed, it is necessary to understand the notion of meaning.

5.1 A biological approach to the concept of meaning

The concept of meaning can be approached through a philosophical point of view such as ‘what is the meaning of life’, a psychological cognitive approach, such as ‘what you are telling me makes no sense in my mind’ and through a linguistic approach which begs for definitions such as in ‘what is the meaning of this word?’. The linguistic description of meaning plays an important role in communication and spread of beliefs. A sound, a word, a sentence, all have meaning when they contribute to the comprehension of the message. But comprehension or understanding is also a function of the subjective experiences of the receiver. If I say “table” it induces different mental images in the receiver. It can be a word that simply categorises objects with four legs and a surface high enough to allow our legs under it. But there are many variations of the concept table. Is it in wood or metal and glass? Is it unassuming with straight lines or convolutedly decorated with arabesques? The word table may confer a limited number of characteristics that are common to most people that have experienced the shape and function of furniture but its meaning varies accordingly to function. Is it a dining table, a coffee table or a desk? Whereas descriptive words for objects may be easy to define by just pointing at it or simply describing its function, abstract concepts may have different meanings to different people. For example, what is the meaning of the concept of freedom of speech? Does it mean I can say whatever I feel like or does it encompass a certain level of censorship to prevent incitement to harm others? What is the meaning of friendship? Does it require unconditional loyalty or does it give room for compassionate lies?

Frequently, what gives meaning to some of these abstract concepts is the level of emotion associated with them. People who believe in freedom, or God, or homoeopathy may feel threatened when their beliefs are challenged because such beliefs define the individual, her nature, his cultural identification, her expectations. Holding strongly to beliefs provides a sense of security and predictability. Such emotions are defined by neurological processes that transduce the sound of words, to their meaning and to their emotional valence; e.g. whereas to some people the word spider evokes fear and the word mouse evokes of cuteness, to others the word mouse may evoke feelings of fear and anxiety. A thing has meaning when its description aligns with our preconceived mental models. If I am learning statistics, a t-test only has meaning if I have a prior knowledge of means and other arithmetic calculations. Asking someone to do a t-test on a set of numbers without previous understating of basic concepts, renders the requirement meaningless. Furthermore, it may induce a state of anxiety due to acknowledgement of ignorance about that subject.

The informational content of a message acquires meaning, when it is compared with a mental database of previously learnt units of knowledge and it aligns or provides incremental increases to that knowledge. It follows that meaningful information is more useful than meaningless information. It functions as a tool of survival, based on which we can induce and deduce further knowledge. It is therefore reasonable to assume that an emotional connection between pieces of meaningful information is formed. On the other hand, meaningless information triggers a sense of discomfort and rejection. Meaningful information comes associated with an emotional protective layer to challenge. This explains the strong tendency to confirmation bias and rejection of new sources of knowledge that disconfirms our beliefs.

Individuals develop an emotional attachment to familiar information to the point of suffering great anxiety when that information is deemed false.

Festinger [41] defined meaning as the perception of coherence between one’s beliefs and the real world. “When these things align, we are left with the sense that the world is ordered, controlled, and understandable. When this coherence is disrupted, however, meaning is threatened and we feel distressed and anxious as a result”.

The sense of meaning could then be seen as an adaptive feature derived and supporting beliefs. Adaptive beliefs are those which contain information that contribute to individual survival. A belief is adaptive if the information about what caused an event is reliable, predictable and useful. Beliefs shaped in this context are very likely to be strong which means, they are upheld in the mind with vehemency and any challenge to the belief is perceived as a threat to constancy. Some mental processes are common across species because they are built on neural structures that have roots in common ancestors. Perhaps the most primitive processes are those that refer to identifying the causes of what happens around oneself. The next step consists in an ability to predict future events and prediction can only be successful if it relies on the accuracy and reliability of previously stored information.

5.2 Causality: understanding causes and sequences of events

As discussed above the establishment of associations between cause and effect is perhaps the most ancient form of learning. Such associations provide the organisms with opportunities to test and improve its tactics during the acquisition of resources essential for their survival. Beliefs about the cause of events are perhaps one of the most important factors for survival. When we know what caused an event, we can somehow predict the outcome next time a similar cause is enacted. The concept of causality is coupled with the perception of agency. An agent is a living or inanimate cause which triggers an event, but very often humans attribute intentionality to the agent.

Detection of the cause-effect association is quite powerful and the motivation to find an explanation for the cause sometimes disregards rational thinking. If the explanation satisfies, then it is likely to be promptly accepted as true.

Explanation of causes are often associated with the presence of an agent. In humans, when the cause is unknown because there is no direct observation of the causal event, there is a tendency to create an invisible agent and attribute human characteristics such as intentionality. This is an important component of magical thinking and is the origin of animistic religions which created a backcloth to religions with deities. Animism attributes intentionality to forces of nature without anthropomorphic representations of entities. In animism, the believer appeals to the forces and energy of nature. They refer to the spirit of the elements such as the wind, the water, the earth as if they were fuzzy undelimited agents with consciousness and aims. Religion with gods is built on this principle where the agent is no more the forces of nature, but some invisible figure that concentrates those forces. These agents can be represented as animals whose characteristics identify with the natural phenomenon or humans.

The assumption that we are hardwired to discern relationship between cause and effect induces us to pay more attention to events that coincide, or are salient especially when they support our beliefs, thus reinforcing confirmation bias and often supporting beliefs in the paranormal.

5.3 Predictability

Assuming predictability is a strategy for coping with uncertainty. It helps in planning future decision making. Uncertainty leads to anxiety and stress and, as such, beliefs that promote a false impression of predictability are naturally easier to accept. Observations of animal behaviour and historical narratives have shown evidence that safe environments promote co-operation and trust among the members of a social group, whereas instance of resource shortage and unpredictable social settings are conducive of social instability often expressed in varied forms of aggression [1].

Predictability is intrinsically associated with pattern detection. The perception of patterns, even when they are absent in reality, confers a sense of control. Patternicity equates constancy and repeatability [1].

The perception of patterns and the need for predictability underpin the onset of superstitious behaviours present in humans and animals [42]. A pursuit of predictability is yet more pronounced in situations marked by environmental social instability. For example, studies on political preferences suggested that the way humans perceive insecurity and unpredictable events may have some influence on their political beliefs. Research revealed that helping people imagine they are completely safe from harm can make them (temporarily) hold more liberal views on social issues [43, 44] and that a perception of threat can make liberals lean more towards conservative views [45].

When the information is provided by an informant rather than through subjective sampling, the reliability of the message can vary in levels of accuracy since many factors may corrupt the informational content from the time it leaves the informant and arrives at the receiver. The type and intensity of these modifications affect the reliability of the message and may therefore provide misleading information. The occurrence of ambiguity in the message is frequently interpreted as satisfying the desired goals inducing a belief that the message offers predictions that satisfy their expectations. This process is open to behaviour manipulation. Corrupted informational content may be unintentional, deriving from random mistakes or misperception, but can also be intentional where the informer sends purposefully dishonest signals. Since dishonest signalling is widespread in nature, detection systems have co-evolved to counteract such signals.

Conveying truthful and fake information are processes that promote the survival of individuals but are not without trade-offs. While cheating can be advantageous to individuals that interact only once, it will work against the cheater once the interaction is repeated and detected. Then cheating does not pay anymore. In social groups where most individuals know one another, the cheater may collect immediate rewards but once it is detected, it is promptly punished by elements of the group. However, in human social groups when the cheating is propagated through words that meet the desires and expectations of the receivers, the cheater can get away with his lies for quite a long time. Humans seem to be open to accept lies, as long as they align with their wishful thinking. In evolutionary terms this seems to be a process that would eventually vanish from the population, given its negative impact. However, it is not all negative, for there is also a need to conform with the beliefs of the group as a means of gaining protection.

5.4 Utility

Group membership in mammals is usually established by sharing similar scents. In humans, scent identification is complemented by the sharing similar ideas where thinking like the tribe becomes the equivalent of smelling like the tribe and fitting in the same social group. Similar scents indicate a level of kin relations and, accordingly to kin selection theory based on mathematical models developed by George R. Price [46] and popularised by W.D.Hamilton [47], altruism and cooperation are more prevalent among individuals that share the highest number of genes. This implies that individuals are more likely to protect those who share genes with them, than those who do not.

Likewise, in human societies this rule could be applied to ideas in the sense that those individuals that share the same stances as me are more likely to protect one another. These ideas were popularised by Richard Dawkins [48] who coined the word memes, suggesting that the transmission of information from mind to mind follows similar rules like the transmission of molecular information through genes from parents to offspring.

This convergence towards homogenous ideas inside the group may explain the success of religion, political factions, belief in conspiracy theories, doomsday and other cults, reflecting a process of group cohesion previously regulated by scent similarity. This is reflected by what political scientists call elective affinities—the notion that there is mutual attraction between ‘the structure and contents of belief systems and the underlying needs and motives of individuals and groups who subscribe to them’ [49].

Many beliefs are not derived from personal experience, but from trusted sources or communities. So, giving up those beliefs may threaten ties with the community. When established beliefs have a useful function there is a tendency to conserve them since the sharing of common beliefs promotes group cohesion. On the other hand, homogenous group thinking prevents creativity which may result from a reluctance to conform with established rules. Rebels threaten the cohesion of the group and in order to keep them under control it is necessary to develop punitive mechanisms that discourage deviating from the status quo [50].

Thus, a strategy based on a hierarchical system of policing develops. But this strategy is not exclusive to humans, or mammalian social groups. It is also observed in groups of social insects such as ants and bees. Note that there is a difference between the evolutionary concepts of “strategies” and “tactics”. While strategies refer to a set of behavioural adaptations that evolved over time, tactics refer to the individual actions taken to pursue a strategy [50, 51]. The concept of utility can also be observed in individuals who believe in conspiracy theories. A conspiracy theory, however unlikely, represents an identification badge identifying that social group. In human societies the sharing of beliefs plays the same function as scent sharing in kin related animal groups. Common beliefs are the “intellectual scent” that unites a group. Conspiracy theories often offer theories that contradict the prevailing or official narrative of facts or events. They offer alternative explanations that appeal to those who believe they have a reason to distrust mainstream narratives. They usually refer to the existence of some hidden enemy and the individual finds safety in the confinements of their like-minded group. The belief in conspiracy theories relies on faith promoted by group think rather than evidence. The individual then finds a false sense of safety inside these ideological bubbles.

Perhaps one of the most puzzling aspects of beliefs which confer survival utility is the placebo effect which seems to have positive effects in healing of the mind and body. Perhaps one of the main characteristics of this effect is that it is grounded on the human’s tendency to magical thinking and embrace convictions rather than simple beliefs.

What Are Friends for in Russia Versus Canada?; the notions of trust and help in adversity emerged as defining features of friendship in Russia but were less clearly present in Canada

What Are Friends for in Russia Versus Canada?: An Approach for Documenting Cross-Cultural Differences. Marina M. Doucerain, Andrew G. Ryder, Catherine E. Amiot. Cross-Cultural Research, June 16, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/10693971211024599

Abstract: Most research on friendship has been grounded in Western cultural worlds, a bias that needs to be addressed. To that end, we propose a methodological roadmap to translate linguistic/anthropological work into quantitative psychological cross-cultural investigations of friendship, and showcase its implementation in Russia and Canada. Adopting an intersubjective perspective on culture, we assessed cultural models of friendship in three inter-related ways: by (1) deriving people’s mental maps of close interpersonal relationships; (2) examining the factor structure of friendship; and (3) predicting cultural group membership from a given person’s friendship model. Two studies of Russians (Study 1, n = 89; Study 2a, n = 195; Study 2b, n = 232) and Canadians (Study 1, n = 89; Study 2a, n = 164; Study 2b, n = 199) implemented this approach. The notions of trust and help in adversity emerged as defining features of friendship in Russia but were less clearly present in Canada. Different friendship models seem to be prevalent in these two cultural worlds. The roadmap described in the current research documents these varying intersubjective representations, showcasing an approach that is portable across contexts (rather than limited to a specific cross-cultural contrast) and relies on well-established methods (i.e., easily accessible in many research contexts).

Keywords: friendship, Russia, Canada, cultural models, intersubjective culture, methods

Discussion

The present studies showcased a three-pronged approach to quantitatively document cross-cultural differences in models of friendship in Canadian versus Russian cultural contexts. Our hypotheses were largely supported. Participants’ mental map of the interpersonal space around friend was different from that around droog (H1), the factorial structure of friendship characteristics differed across cultural settings (H2), and we could predict group membership from participants’ ratings of friendship characteristics (H3). We also found evidence of cultural consensus in people’s responses across studies and across cultural contexts. Further, the three aspects of our methodological approach relied on very different analytic strategies, yet yielded convergent results.

Our results documented some similarities between the two cultural contexts. Both friend and droog were located close to relationship terms with connotations of fun and good times (Study 1), and items referring to stimulating companionship clearly loaded on a single factor in both countries (Study 2a). This is consistent with existing research on the classical Aristotelian model of friendship, where enjoyment is an important feature of friendship (Bukowski et al., 1987; Hall, 2012). However, across studies, the notions of trust and help in adversity emerged as defining features of friendship in the Russian context, whereas they were less clearly present in the Canadian context. Relationship terms with connotations of “brother-in-arms” were located very close to droog (Study 1), and higher ratings of trust and not fearing negative consequences from a friend’s actions were related to a greater likelihood of being Russian (Study 2b). Trust is also seen as a friendship characteristic in the Western literature (Hall, 2012; Hartup & Stevens, 1997; Wright, 2006), but in addition to being particularly salient for Russian participants, trust may also be represented differently in the Russian context. Indeed, trust and esteem for one’s friend formed a single factor among Russians, whereas trust items were associated with instrumental help (or tended to not load very highly on their respective factor) among Canadians (Study 2a). This is consistent with Russia’s 20th century historical events. In a totalitarian regime where self-disclosure could have life threatening consequences, trust, and help in adversity may well have emerged as paramount features of friendship.

The results also indicated that friendship is seen as a closer and more intimate relationship in the Russian group than in the Canadian group. Droog and luchshiy-droog were located very close together, whereas friend and best-friend were in different clusters (Study 1), and seeing friendship as entailing very frequent interactions was related to a greater likelihood of being Russian (Study 2b). As mentioned earlier, Western research on friendship regularly distinguishes between “casual” and “close” friendships. In Western/North-American cultural worlds, a generic friendship may be mentally represented as a not a very deep relationship, and qualifiers such as “close” are necessary to account for a broader range of social ties. It was also noteworthy that endorsing more strongly the idea that having friends is a reflection of one’s social skills (Study 2b) was related to a greater likelihood of being Canadian. This is consistent with the Western interpersonal literature, whereby friendships index one’s interpersonal abilities (Jerrome, 1984) and personal characteristics (Walther et al., 2008). This notion is also encoded in the English language, where “‘making friends’ appears to be seen as an art and a skill” (Wierzbicka, 1997, p. 45).

Overall, our results echo Wierzbicka’s (1997) linguistic analyses and the qualitative findings that friendship is a very involved and demanding relationship in the Russian cultural context (Doucerain et al., 2018). Collectively, these results also support the notion that different intersubjective representations of friendship, or friendship models, are prevalent in these two cultural worlds. Although these results encourage confidence in our methodological approach, several limitations should be noted. First, we used gender-neutral names to elicit representations of as generic a friendship as possible, but this decision may have introduced noise into the results. Gender differences in friendship patterns are well documented (Aukett et al., 1988), and whether participants had a male or female generic friendship in mind when completing the study might have influenced their answers. Second, both Russian and Canadian samples were fairly young (in their thirties on average), and it is possible that older participants would have characterized friendship differently. This is particularly problematic for the Russian sample, given the profound social changes that Russia experienced over the last decades. In a related vein, North American products are increasingly prevalent in Russia, like in many other parts of the world. These globalization forces (Cowen, 2009) may influence people’s friendship representations—particularly among younger people, just like they contribute to reshaping a number of psychological constructs and processes (Kirmayer, 2006; Watters, 2011). Finally, so far, we have tacitly assumed a complete overlap between nation-state and cultural group, which is problematic. Cultural/cross-cultural psychologists routinely rely on such correspondences, but they are over-simplifications that can unfortunately reify and essentialize cultural differences (Morris et al., 2015). Our goal here was to propose and document an approach to characterize cultural models of friendship—and our results suggest that our approach was adequate—but future research should take these limitations into consideration.

We showcased our three-pronged methodological approach by contrasting Russian versus Canadian friendship models, but future research could employ a similar approach in other cultural contexts. For example, some preliminary qualitative work suggests that Japanese friendship models may also differ from North American ones (Cargile, 1998). It would be interesting to examine where friend’s translation equivalent tomodachi (友達) stands in relation to other relationship terms such as mikata, nakama, shinyuu, or tsukiai, and how the factor structure of a generic tomodachi’s characteristics compares to the factor structures derived here.

However, rather than being an end in itself, documenting cross-cultural differences in friendship models should serve as a base for subsequent “unpackaging” studies: namely, studies clarifying what mechanisms account for the observed cultural differences (Dere et al., 2012; Matsumoto et al., 2008). In other words, what sociocultural characteristics, historical circumstances, prevalent practices or core concerns of Russian versus Canadian worlds can explain the differences in friendship models we observed here? For example, the high premium placed on trust in the Russian model may stem from decades of Soviet rule where self-disclosure entailed significant risk to one’s safety, and future research should test such a hypothesis.

More broadly, focusing on the mechanisms underlying cross-cultural differences in friendship patterns may stimulate work on how culture shapes ways of relating to each other. Cultural/Cross-cultural psychologists have usually focused on individual-level constructs, such as values (Schwartz, 2012), self-construal (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), or emotional experience (Matsumoto et al., 2008), but much less on relational constructs (Morris et al., 2000). The present work took a step toward addressing this paucity of research by proposing a methodological road map for studying cross-cultural differences in friendship models and by documenting these differences across Canadian and Russian cultural contexts. Many quantitative investigations of cross-cultural differences build on initial qualitative, anthropological, or linguistic evidence. We hope to have demonstrated here one approach to negotiating this transition step in a systematic way.

Mask-wearing improved wearers’ sense of the attractiveness of faces, which were rated as less attractive when a mask was not worn after the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic

Effects of masks worn to protect against COVID-19 on the perception of facial attractiveness. Miki Kamatani, Motohiro Ito, Yuki Miyazaki, and Jun I. Kawahara. Accepted at i-Perception (2021) DOI: 10.1177/20416695211027920. Jun 2021

Abstract: Wearing a sanitary mask tended, in the main, to reduce the wearer's sense of perceived facial attractiveness before the COVID-19 epidemic (Miyazaki & Kawahara, 2016). This phenomenon, termed the sanitary-mask effect, was explained using a two-factor model involving the occlusion of cues used for the judgment of attractiveness and unhealthiness priming (e.g., presumed illness). However, these data were collected during the pre-COVID-19 period. Thus, in the present study, we examined whether the COVID-19 epidemic changed the perceived attractiveness and healthiness when viewing faces with and without sanitary masks. We also used questionnaires to evaluate beliefs regarding mask wearers. We found that the perception of mask-worn faces differed before versus after the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic. Specifically, mask-wearing improved wearers’ sense of the attractiveness of faces, which were rated as less attractive when a mask was not worn after the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic. Further, mask-worn faces were rated as healthier post-COVID-19. The proportion of respondents with negative associations regarding mask-wearing (e.g., unhealthiness) decreased relative to before the epidemic. We suggest that the weakening of this association altered the sanitary-mask effect with a relative emphasis on the occlusion component, reflecting the temporal impact of a global social incident (the COVID-19 epidemic) on the perception of facial attractiveness.

Long-term gene–culture coevolution and the human evolutionary transition: There is strong evidence that culture is a major adaptive force in the evolution of many animal species

Long-term gene–culture coevolution and the human evolutionary transition. Timothy M. Waring and Zachary T. Wood. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, June 2 2021. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0538

Abstract: It has been suggested that the human species may be undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI). But there is disagreement about how to apply the ETI framework to our species, and whether culture is implicated as either cause or consequence. Long-term gene–culture coevolution (GCC) is also poorly understood. Some have argued that culture steers human evolution, while others proposed that genes hold culture on a leash. We review the literature and evidence on long-term GCC in humans and find a set of common themes. First, culture appears to hold greater adaptive potential than genetic inheritance and is probably driving human evolution. The evolutionary impact of culture occurs mainly through culturally organized groups, which have come to dominate human affairs in recent millennia. Second, the role of culture appears to be growing, increasingly bypassing genetic evolution and weakening genetic adaptive potential. Taken together, these findings suggest that human long-term GCC is characterized by an evolutionary transition in inheritance (from genes to culture) which entails a transition in individuality (from genetic individual to cultural group). Thus, research on GCC should focus on the possibility of an ongoing transition in the human inheritance system.

2. The role of culture in human evolution

[...]

(a) Adaptive capacity

Cultural inheritance may hold greater adaptive potential than genetic inheritance due to its mechanistic differences. Indeed, the primary explanation for the emergence of the human cultural inheritance system itself is that it provides a more flexible and rapid system of behavioural evolution than genetics alone allow. Evidence [28] and theory [29] support the assertion that cultural evolution is more rapid than genetic evolution [27,28,30,31], even when measured on comparable scales [30,31]. One simple reason for this difference is that the ‘generation time’, G, of cultural transmission can be orders of magnitude shorter than that of genetic transmission [30]. In humans, the average time between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring, genetic G, ranges from roughly 2 to 3 decades, while cultural G, the average time between learning a piece of information and transmitting it, ranges from seconds to decades. Thus, it is reasonable to presume that cultural inheritance may provide greater adaptive capacity than genetic inheritance.

Indeed, there is strong evidence that culture is a major adaptive force in the evolution of many animal species, among which humans show both the strongest evidence and the greatest impacts of GCC [32]. Human culture is by far the most complex and extensive form of culture, and its impact on human genetics is correspondingly profound [33,34]. Humans are thought to have acquired significant genetic changes as a result of long-term GCC, including dramatic digestive changes, the emergence of docility and reduced aggression [35], modified vocal tracts [36], the cognitive apparatus for social learning [22,37] and norm internalization [38]. Apparent genetic accommodation of cultural evolution in humans supports the proposal that cultural evolution may be more adaptive than genetic evolution. It is still further supported by the correspondence between the growth in the scale and complexity of our social systems, and emergence of our species as the dominant ecological force on Earth [39]. Far beyond simply altering human evolution, this evidence suggests that human cultural inheritance is of global evolutionary significance.

Uncontrollable mortality creates selective advantages for families with many “cheap” offspring; declining mortality and medical progress facilitate the transition towards growth-promoting “low-fertility-high-quality” phenotypes

Darwin beats Malthus: evolutionary anthropology, human capital and the demographic transition. Katharina Mühlhoff. Cliometrica, Jun 16 2021. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11698-021-00234-5

Abstract: Declining mortality seems a natural explanation for the demographic transition. However, many economists have discarded improved infant survival as a causal trigger. Moreover, certain currents in Neo-Malthusian economics point to potentially beneficial side-effects of population shocks. Based on historical demography and evolutionary science, I challenge these views. The argument is that uncontrollable (“extrinsic”) mortality creates selective advantages for families with many “cheap” offspring, whereas stable environments favor child “quality”. Combining “life-history-theory” and a unified growth model, I demonstrate that declining mortality and medical progress facilitate the transition towards growth-promoting “low-fertility-high-quality” phenotypes. As it will turn out, this framework produces qualitatively and quantitatively closer predictions of the historical fertility decline than standard models of the Barro–Becker type. Moreover, evolutionary mechanisms provide a parsimonious explanation for diverse demographic transition patterns. Thus, evolved adaptations add a new and culture-free mechanism to older theories. Moreover, regarding sustainable growth, they suggest that natural selection eventually offsets the benefits from population shocks claimed by Malthusian theories.

Connecting with others makes people happier, but strangers in close proximity often ignore each other; we may avoid pleasant conversations with strangers because of miscalibrated concerns about starting them

Hello, stranger? Pleasant conversations are preceded by concerns about starting one. Juliana Schroeder, Donald Lyons, & Nicholas Epley. Accepted Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Jun 2021. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c171ac1710699e060ed3d94/t/60c43987d485fc055656c1ca/1623472521485/Hello+Stranger+-+June+2021.pdf

Abstract: Connecting with others makes people happier, but strangers in close proximity often ignore each other. Prior research (Epley & Schroeder, 2014) suggested this social disconnection stems from people misunderstanding how pleasant it would be to talk with strangers. Extending these prior results, in a field experiment with London-area train commuters, those assigned to talk with a stranger reported having a significantly more positive experience, and learning significantly more, than those assigned to a solitude or control condition. Commuters also expected a more positive experience if they talked to a stranger than in the solitude or control conditions. A second experiment explored why commuters nevertheless avoid conversation even  when it is generally pleasant. Commuters predicted that trying to have a conversation would be less pleasant than actually having one because they anticipated that others would be uninterested in talking. These experiments clarify the precise aspects of social interaction that may be  misunderstood. People may avoid pleasant conversations with strangers because of miscalibrated  concerns about starting them.

Keywords: conversation; communication; social cognition; social motivation; wellbeing

Individuals rated their past relationship quality more negatively in retrospect than they had actually reported at the time

Peetz, Johanna, Aidan Smyth, and Adreinne Capaldi. 2021. “Ex-appraisal Bias: Negative Illusions in Appraising Relationship Quality Retrospectively.” PsyArXiv. June 18. doi:10.1177/0265407520907150

Abstract: Cognitive biases are prevalent within the context of romantic relationships. The present research investigated biases about relationships after they have ended. In a longitudinal design (N = 184), individuals reported relationship quality at two time points, as well as rated relationship quality retrospectively. Results supported an ex-appraisal bias: individuals rated their past relationship quality more negatively in retrospect than they had actually reported at the time. This bias was present across participants who stayed together and those who broke up but was three times larger for those whose relationships had ended. This bias may be a motivated cognition that helps individuals let go of their ex-partners after a breakup.

Those who believe crime is caused by a single gene believe that punishment should be weakened, are less supportive of rehabilitation efforts, and believe that offenders are less capable of redemption

Beyond a Crime Gene: Genetic Literacy and Correctional Orientation. Amanda Graham, J.C. Barnes, Hexuan Liu & Francis T. Cullen. American Journal of Criminal Justice, Jan 9 2021. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12103-020-09595-5

Abstract: Is there a “crime gene”? This question has been answered by the scientific community, and the response is a definitive “no.” Yet, it is unclear whether this information has been communicated to the general public. Furthermore, it is unclear whether people’s views about the genetics of crime influence their perceptions of the way offenders should be treated. This study uses attribution theory to understand how perceptions of the role of genetic factors in criminal behavior influence beliefs about the punishment, redeemability, and rehabilitation of offenders. Drawing on a national sample of White respondents (N = 392), this study finds that only a small proportion believe there is a single crime gene. Compared to other respondents, those who believe crime is caused by a single gene believe that punishment should be weakened, are less supportive of rehabilitation efforts, and believe that offenders are less capable of redemption. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Studies of females with congenital adrenal hyperplasia show how prenatal androgens affect behavior across the life span; large effects on interest and engagement in gendered activities, moderate effects on spatial abilities

Evidence and Implications From a Natural Experiment of Prenatal Androgen Effects on Gendered Behavior. Sheri A. Berenbaum, Adriene M. Beltz. Current Directions in Psychological Science, June 18, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721421998341

Abstract: Sex and gender are key to people’s lives, and are the focus of scientific and popular interest and controversy. Sex-related psychological characteristics reflect more than socialization; they are influenced by sex hormones present during sensitive periods of development, particularly androgens that are present prenatally. Studies of females with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) show how prenatal androgens affect behavior across the life span; these hormones have large effects on interest and engagement in gendered activities, moderate effects on spatial abilities, and relatively small (or no) effects on gender identity, gender cognitions, and gendered peer involvement. In addition to showing the complexity of androgens’ effects on gendered behavior, studies of females with CAH provide an opportunity to test theories of gender development, gain insight into how nature and nurture work together, and examine mechanisms of development. The implications of this work have often been misunderstood, so we consider what it means—and does not mean—for biology to influence gender-related behavior.

Keywords: congenital adrenal hyperplasia, differences of sex development, gender development, gender identity, interests, natural experiments, peers, prenatal androgens, spatial abilities

New Research Claims Darwin Made an Error About Sexual Selection: Evolution of large males is associated with female-skewed adult sex ratios in amniotes

Evolution of large males is associated with female-skewed adult sex ratios in amniotes. András Liker, Veronika Bókony, Ivett Pipoly, Jean-Francois Lemaître, Jean-Michel Gaillard, Tamás Székely, Robert P. Freckleton. Evolution, May 22 2021. https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.14273

Abstract: Body size often differs between the sexes (leading to sexual size dimorphism, SSD), as a consequence of differential responses by males and females to selection pressures. Adult sex ratio (ASR, the proportion of males in the adult population) should influence SSD because ASR relates to both the number of competitors and available mates, which shape the intensity of mating competition and thereby promotes SSD evolution. However, whether ASR correlates with SSD variation among species has not been yet tested across a broad range of taxa. Using phylogenetic comparative analyses of 462 amniotes (i.e., reptiles, birds, and mammals), we fill this knowledge gap by showing that male bias in SSD increases with increasingly female-skewed ASRs in both mammals and birds. This relationship is not explained by the higher mortality of the larger sex because SSD is not associated with sex differences in either juvenile or adult mortality. Phylogenetic path analysis indicates that higher mortality in one sex leads to skewed ASR, which in turn may generate selection for SSD biased toward the rare sex. Taken together, our findings provide evidence that skewed ASRs in amniote populations can result in the rarer sex evolving large size to capitalize on enhanced mating opportunities.

Popular version Darwin Made an Error About Sexual Selection, New Research Reveals (sciencealert.com):

In a new study, my colleagues and I have confirmed a link between sexual selection and sex ratios, as Darwin suspected. But surprisingly, our findings suggest Darwin got things the wrong way round. We found that sexual selection is most pronounced not when potential mates are scarce, but when they're abundant – and this means looking again at the selection pressures at play in animal populations that feature uneven sex ratios."

[...]

This in no way invalidates Darwin's theories of natural selection and sexual selection. Our finding simply shows that a different mechanism to the one Darwin proposed is driving mating competition for animals living in sex-skewed populations.

Darwin's assumption was based on the idea that the most intense competition for mates should occur when there's a shortage of mating partners. But more recent theories suggest this logic may not be correct, and that sexual selection is actually a system in which the winner takes all.

That means that when there are many potential partners in the population, a top male – in our study, the largest and heaviest – enjoys a disproportionately high payout, fertilizing a large number of females at the expense of smaller males, who may not reproduce at all.

Autism diagnosis and symptoms were associated with greater brain maleness, but the effects appeared to be driven by differences in brain size; brain maleness may be due to he same factors that influence brain size

Testing the extreme male brain hypothesis: Is autism spectrum disorder associated with a more male-typical brain? Liza van Eijk, Brendan P. Zietsch. Autism Research, May 19 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2537

Abstract: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is more common in males than females and has been linked to male-typical behavior. Accordingly, the “Extreme Male Brain” hypothesis suggests that ASD is associated with an exaggeratedly male-typical brain. To test this hypothesis, we derived a data-driven measure of individual differences along a male–female dimension based on sex differences in subcortical brain shape (i.e., brain maleness) by training our algorithm on two population samples (Queensland Twin IMaging study and Human Connectome Project; combined N = 2153). We then applied this algorithm to two clinical datasets (Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange I and II; ASD N = 1060; neurotypical controls N = 1166) to obtain a brain maleness score for each individual, representing maleness of their brain on a male–female continuum. Consistent with the Extreme Male Brain hypothesis, we found a higher mean brain maleness score in the ASD group than in controls (d = 0.20 [0.12–0.29]), parallel to higher scores for control males than control females (d = 1.17 [1.05–1.29]). Further, brain maleness was positively associated with autistic symptoms. We tested the possibility this finding was driven by the ASD group's larger brains than controls (d = 0.17 [0.08–0.25]), given that males had larger brains than females (d = 0.96 [0.84–1.07]). Indeed, after adjusting for differences in brain size, the brain maleness difference between the ASD group and controls disappeared, and no association with autistic symptoms remained (after controlling for multiple comparisons), suggesting greater maleness of the autistic brain is driven by brain size. Brain maleness may be influenced by the same factors that influence brain size.

Lay Summary: A popular theory proposes that individuals with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) have an “extreme male brain”, but this has not been subject to rigorous, direct tests. We developed a measure of individual differences along a male–female dimension and then derived this measure for 1060 individuals with ASD and 1166 neurotypical controls. Individuals with ASD had slightly more male-type brains. However, this difference is accounted for by males and individuals with ASD having relatively larger brains than females and controls, respectively.

People who recognize that they possess inconsistent personal qualities may nonetheless attain a coherent understanding of themselves by spontaneously developing a contextually-embedded sense of self

Personality coherence in acts and texts: Searching for coherence within and beyond trait categories. Mairéad McKenna et al. European Journal of Personality, June 12, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070211022131

Abstract: This paper reports two studies that explore complementary aspects of personality coherence. Study 1 addressed cross-situational coherence in contextualized psychological response. Idiographically-tailored methods assessed individuals’ (i) beliefs about their personal attributes, (ii) subjective “mappings” of these attributes to everyday circumstances, and (iii) self-reported contextualized action tendencies. A novel index of idiographic–nomothetic relations gauged the degree to which the idiographic methods yield unique information. Participants’ mappings commonly deviated from the structure of nomothetic trait categories; people often grouped together contextualized action tendencies traditionally associated with different trait categories. The idiographic mappings predicted cross-situational coherence in action tendencies. Study 2 asked whether the contextualization of personal qualities would be evident when people merely are asked to describe their personal attributes in natural language. Participants wrote narratives describing positive and negative qualities. Narratives were coded for the presence of three linguistic features: conditional statements, probabilistic statements, and personality trait inconsistencies. All three occurred frequently. Furthermore, they co-occurred; among participants who described trait-inconsistent attributes, the large majority spontaneously cited conditions in which these attributes are manifested. People who recognize that they possess inconsistent personal qualities may nonetheless attain a coherent understanding of themselves by spontaneously developing a contextually-embedded sense of self.

Keywords: personality coherence, contextualized action tendencies, cross-situational coherence

While political polarization in the US is real, intense & increasing, partisans consistently overestimate its magnitude; this “false polarization” is insidious because it reinforces actual polarization and inhibits compromise

False Polarization: Cognitive Mechanisms and Potential Solutions. Philip M. Fernbach, Leaf Van Boven. Current Opinion in Psychology, June 17 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.06.005

Abstract: While political polarization in the United States is real, intense and increasing, partisans consistently overestimate its magnitude. This “false polarization” is insidious because it reinforces actual polarization and inhibits compromise. We review empirical research on false polarization and the related phenomenon of negative meta-perceptions, and we propose three cognitive and affective processes that likely contribute to these phenomena: categorical thinking, oversimplification and emotional amplification. Finally, we review several interventions that have shown promise in mitigating these biases.

 

Recognition of Masked Faces in the Era of the Pandemic: No Improvement, Despite Extensive, Natural Exposure

Freud, Erez, Andreja Stajduhar, R. Shayna Rosenbaum, Galia Avidan, and Tzvi Ganel. 2021. “Recognition of Masked Faces in the Era of the Pandemic: No Improvement, Despite Extensive, Natural Exposure.” PsyArXiv. June 18. doi:10.31234/osf.io/x3gzq

Abstract: Face masks became prevalent across the globe to minimize the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous research highlighted their negative qualitative and quantitative impact on face recognition. An outstanding question is whether these effects would attenuate following persistent natural exposure to masked faces in the era of the pandemic. This question also pertains, more generally, to potential effects of training on face recognition in natural settings. 1,236 participants were tested on masked, non-masked, upright and inverted versions of the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) at different time points over one year. The results showed persistent deficits in recognizing masked faces across time points. This was followed by persistent qualitative change, a reduced inversion effect for masked compared to non-masked faces. Together, these findings provide compelling support for the idea that the mature face processing system in humans is rigid in nature, even following prolonged, real-life exposure to altered faces.

Norway: Genetic Influences on Lifetime Income Increases with Gender Equality

Isungset, Martin Arstad, Tina Baier, and Torkild H. Lyngstad. 2021. “Genetic Influences on Lifetime Income Increases with Gender Equality.” SocArXiv. May 27. doi:10.31235/osf.io/e5wjk

Abstract: Over the twentieth century, the gender gap in income has decreased dramatically. We study whether the relative importance of genetic and environmental influences for lifetime income changed as gender equalization took place. We use data on 11,677 twin pairs from Norway born 1915-1991, linked with individual-level administrative data on the full population's incomes in the period 1967-2016. Our results based on genetically sensitive variance decompositions shows that as social constraints inhibiting women from earning income waned over the century, the heritability of lifetime income increased over birth cohorts. Genetic influences matter more for men than for women, and non-shared environmental influences matter more for women than for men. This indicates that women still face structural constraints to a larger degree than men. Even in a welfare state like Norway where gender equality has been a political goal since the 1950s, equalization, as measured by the heritability of lifetime income, did not manifest itself to a high degree until the latest cohorts were established in the workforce (1981-1991). Our study shows the importance of considering historical developments of ascribed statuses such as gender when investigating genetic influences, and that genetics can serve as a prism through which to study social change.

Cultural Change Reduces Gender Differences in Mobility and Spatial Ability among Seminomadic Pastoralist-Forager Children in Northern Namibia

Cultural Change Reduces Gender Differences in Mobility and Spatial Ability among Seminomadic Pastoralist-Forager Children in Northern Namibia. Helen E. Davis, Jonathan Stack & Elizabeth Cashdan. Human Nature volume 32, pages178–206. Apr 22 2021. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-021-09388-7

Abstract: A fundamental cognitive function found across a wide range of species and necessary for survival is the ability to navigate complex environments. It has been suggested that mobility may play an important role in the development of spatial skills. Despite evolutionary arguments offering logical explanations for why sex/gender differences in spatial abilities and mobility might exist, thus far there has been limited sampling from nonindustrialized and subsistence-based societies. This lack of sampling diversity has left many unanswered questions regarding the effects that environmental variation and cultural norms may have in shaping mobility patterns during childhood and the development of spatial competencies that may be associated with it. Here we examine variation in mobility (through GPS tracking and interviews), performance on large-scale spatial skills (i.e., navigational ability), and performance on small-scale spatial skills (e.g., mental rotation task, Corsi blocks task, and water-level task) among Twa forager/pastoralist children whose daily lives have been dramatically altered since settlement and the introduction of government-funded boarding schools. Unlike in previous findings among Twa adults, boys and girls (N = 88; aged 6–18) show similar patterns of travel on all measures of mobility. We also find no significant differences in spatial task performance by gender for large- or small-scale spatial skills. Further, children performed as well as adults did on mental rotation, and they outperformed adults on the water-level task. We discuss how children’s early learning environments may influence the development of both large- and small-scale spatial skills.

Puritanical moralizations condemn & praise behaviors which are perceived as affecting people’s propensity to cooperate, by modifying their ability to resist short-term impulses conflicting with cooperative motivations

Fitouchi, Léo, Jean-Baptiste André, and Nicolas Baumard. 2021. “Moral Disciplining: The Cognitive and Evolutionary Foundations of Puritanical Morality.” PsyArXiv. June 16. doi:10.31234/osf.io/2stcv

Abstract: Why do many human societies condemn apparently harmless and pleasurable behaviors, such as lust, gluttony, drinking, drugs, gambling, or even music and dance? Why do they erect temperance, hedonic restraint, sobriety, decency and piety as cardinal moral virtues? While existing accounts consider this puritanical morality as an exception to the cooperative function of moral intuitions, we propose that it stems, like other moral concerns, from moral intuitions targeting cooperative challenges. Specifically, we argue that it emerges in response to a key feature of cooperation, namely that the latter is (ultimately) a long-term strategy, requiring (proximately) the self-control of appetites for immediate gratification. Puritanical moralizations condemn and praise behaviors which, although not intrinsically cooperative or uncooperative, are perceived as affecting people’s propensity to cooperate, by modifying their ability to resist short-term impulses conflicting with cooperative motivations. Drinking, drugs, unruly feasts, dances, and immodest clothing are condemned as stimulating people’s short-term impulses, thus facilitating uncooperative behaviors (e.g. adultery, violence, economic free-riding). Immoderate indulgence in harmless bodily pleasures (e.g. lust, masturbation, gluttony) is perceived as addictively reinforcing short-term impulses, thus making harder the self-control of future temptations to cheat. Moralizations of ascetic temperance, daily self-discipline, and pious ritual observance are perceived as nurturing the self-restraint consubstantial to a cooperative character, able to resist selfish temptations when the latter arise. We review psychological, historical, and ethnographic evidence supporting this account, and discuss its implications regarding the cross-cultural variations and cultural evolution of puritanical norms.

Animal identity: The most common situations participants recalled feeling like an animal were survival, sexual, physiological, and being outdoors

I am Homo Sapien: Perceptions of Evolutionary Theory, Animal Identity, and Human–Animal Relationships among US Law and Policy Students. Leah J. Widdicombe & Seana Dowling-Guyer. Anthrozoös, Jun 16 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/08927936.2021.1926706

Abstract: People’s perception of the human–animal relationship is complex, as is our regard for animal welfare within law and policy decisions. Little attention has been paid to how political stakeholders utilize culture to identify themselves within the kingdom Animalia or how their identity relates to their political concern for animals. This research provides an overview of the beliefs, identities, and political agendas of law and policy students in the United States through an exploratory, mixed-methods study composed of two concurrent parts: (1) a cross-sectional online survey (n = 231) and (2) in-person, in-depth interviews (n = 21). Part 1 examined (a) cultural beliefs about human origins and political concern for nonhuman animals; (b) when and to what extent participants identify as an animal; and (c) how animal identity relates to their beliefs and political concern for nonhuman animals. Part 2 elaborated on underlying themes, identifying nuances in the perspectives identified in Part 1. Most participants classified humans as animals and their understanding of human origins was predominantly science-based but occasionally referenced religion. Those who stated a belief in human evolution scored significantly higher on the animal identity scale compared with those with purely Creationist beliefs. In turn, identifying more strongly as an animal was significantly associated with placing greater importance on animal issues in law and policy. A structural equation model was fitted and revealed that animal identity mediated the relationship between beliefs about human origins and the ranked importance of animal issues. The most common situations participants recalled feeling like an animal were survival, sexual, physiological, and being outdoors. As the first study to provide a mixed-methods descriptive experience of animal identity, with a focus on cultural understanding of evolutionary theory, these findings describe how the formation of an animal identity might relate to public policy decisions and are particularly relevant to animal activists and identity researchers.

KEYWORDS: Animal identityanimal law and policyhuman–animal interactionhuman origin beliefsmixed methods researchsocial identity theory

Forms and functions of the social emotions: Shame functions to minimize the spread of discrediting information about yourself and the threat of being devalued by others

Forms and Functions of the Social Emotions. Daniel Sznycer, Aaron Sell, Debra Lieberman. Current Directions in Psychological Science, June 15, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214211007451

Abstract: In engineering, form follows function. It is therefore difficult to understand an engineered object if one does not examine it in light of its function. Just as understanding the structure of a lock requires understanding the desire to secure valuables, understanding structures engineered by natural selection, including emotion systems, requires hypotheses about adaptive function. Social emotions reliably solved adaptive problems of human sociality. A central function of these emotions appears to be the recalibration of social evaluations in the minds of self and others. For example, the anger system functions to incentivize another individual to value your welfare more highly when you deem the current valuation insufficient; gratitude functions to consolidate a cooperative relationship with another individual when there are indications that the other values your welfare; shame functions to minimize the spread of discrediting information about yourself and the threat of being devalued by others; and pride functions to capitalize on opportunities to become more highly valued by others. Using the lens of social valuation, researchers are now mapping these and other social emotions at a rapid pace, finding striking regularities across industrial and small-scale societies and throughout history.

Keywords: emotion, anger, gratitude, shame, pride, social valuation

Check also Forms and Functions of the Self-Conscious Emotions. Daniel Sznycer. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Volume 23, Issue 2, February 2019, Pages 143-157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.11.007

Highlights

.  Self-conscious emotions such as pride, shame, and guilt are often studied through the lens of attributional theories. Under attributional theories, the activation and operation of self-conscious emotions depend on how the individual construes and evaluates her own successes and failures.

.  Although attributional theories highlight the intrapersonal nature of self-conscious emotions, recent theories and data suggest that the self-conscious emotions serve interpersonal adaptive functions.

.  From an adaptationist perspective, the characteristic self-reflexive and self-evaluative processes of self-conscious emotions are proximate means to solve adaptive problems related to social valuation.

.  Many known facts about the self-conscious emotions can be interpreted as outputs delivered by well-engineered emotion adaptations.

.  Attributional theories view shame as an immoral, pathological version of guilt. However, shame and guilt simply appear to be distinct adaptations serving different adaptive functions.

.  This interpersonal adaptationist framework can generate novel, testable hypotheses.

Abstract: Pride, shame, and guilt color our highest and lowest personal moments. Recent evidence suggests that these self-conscious emotions are neurocognitive adaptations crafted by natural selection. Specifically, self-conscious emotions solve adaptive problems of social valuation by promoting the achievement of valued actions and characteristics to increase others’ valuations of the individual (pride); limiting information-triggered devaluation (shame); and remedying events where one put insufficient weight on the welfare of a valuable other (guilt). This adaptationist perspective predicts a form–function fit: a correspondence between the adaptive function of a self-conscious emotion and its information-processing structure. This framework can parsimoniously explain known facts about self-conscious emotions, make sense of puzzling findings, generate novel hypotheses, and explain why self-conscious emotions have their characteristic self-reflexive phenomenology.

Keywords: shameprideguiltcooperationreputationstatus

Violent offenders show reduced attention orienting to the eyes while viewing faces; although offenders & controls show comparable emotion recognition performance, reduced eye gaze is lined to lower recognition for fearful faces

Attention orienting to the eyes in violent female and male offenders: An eye-tracking study. Nina A. Gehrer et al. Biological Psychology, June 12 2021, 108136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108136

Highlights

• Violent offenders show reduced attention orienting to the eyes while viewing faces.

• Impairments occur for female as well as male incarcerated offenders.

• Particularly early attention shifts are affected.

• Offenders and controls show comparable emotion recognition performance.

• Reduced eye gaze is related to lower recognition accuracy for fearful faces.

Abstract: Attention to the eyes and eye contact form an important basis for the development of empathy and social competences including prosocial behavior. Thus, impairments in attention to the eyes of an interaction partner might play a role in the etiology of antisocial behavior and violence. For the first time, the present study extends investigations of eye gaze to a large sample (N = 173) including not only male but also female violent offenders and a control group. We assessed viewing patterns during the categorization of emotional faces via eye tracking. Our results indicate a reduced frequency of initial attention shifts to the eyes in female and male offenders compared to controls, while there were no general group differences in overall attention to the eye region (i.e., relative dwell time). Thus, we conclude that violent offenders might be able to compensate for deficits in spontaneous attention orienting during later stages of information processing.

Keywords: female offendersviolent offenderseye gazeattention to the eyeseye tracking

From the first author's PhD thesis:

Discussion 

This study is the first to investigate the association between psychopathic personality traits 

and eye contact during live social interaction. For this purpose, we assessed a group of 

incarcerated offenders who had been convicted of serious crimes (e.g., first-degree murder, 

child molestation, rape, etc.) and had validated psychopathy scores. Eye movements were 

recorded during a semi-structured face-to-face interaction with a mobile eye-tracking headset 

and analyzed using a newly developed automated method for the definition of AOIs (i.e., 

face, eyes and philtrum). Consistent with our hypotheses, higher scores of affective 

psychopathy in particular (but not interpersonal, lifestyle, or antisocial facets of psychopathy) 

were found to significantly predict reduced eye contact in combination with increased 

attention to the lower parts of the face, i.e. the philtrum. Therefore, affective psychopathic 

traits were associated with a different focus within the face, while general attention to the face 

was unrelated to these traits.

Our findings are in line with previous studies that linked reduced eye gaze to high CU (callous unemotional) traits, a precursor of affective psychopathy, in children (Billeci et al., 2019; Dadds et al.,  2008; Dadds et al., 2006; but see also Martin-Key et al., 2018). A few studies replicated this  association between CU traits and eye contact assessed by observer ratings during live parentchild interactions (Dadds et al., 2014; Dadds et al., 2011). In offender samples, however,  reduced attention to the eyes of facial stimuli was only documented in laboratory settings with  existing evidence pointing to an association with interpersonal features of psychopathy  (Dargis et al., 2018). Our study extends previous research in several important ways. For one,  our study is the first to document an association between reduced eye contact and the affective  facet of psychopathy (i.e., impaired empathy, an incapacity of feeling guilt or remorse, and  shallow affect) in incarcerated offenders. Second, we show for the first time that these deficits  generalize to naturalistic settings such as live social interaction and therefore exhibit  behavioral relevance. Taken together, this suggests that impairments in attention to socially  salient features previously documented in children and adolescents with high CU traits  (Dadds et al., 2008; Dadds et al., 2011) presumably persist through life. Therefore, assumed  detrimental effects on the development of social cognition and social competence may play a role in the development and the maintenance of psychopathic personality traits (Bedford et al., 2015; Dadds et al., 2014; Dadds et al., 2011; Vaughan Van Hecke et al., 2007). Similar mechanisms have been posited for social deficits in other psychological or neurological disorders, e.g., autism spectrum disorder or amygdala lesion (Auyeung et al., 2015; Freeth & Bugembe, 2019; Hanley et al., 2015; Hanley et al., 2014; Moriuchi, Klin, & Jones, 2017; Spezio, Huang, Castelli, & Adolphs, 2007; Yoder, Stone, Walden, & Malesa, 2009). Future research is needed in order to understand the mechanisms behind impaired attention processes and their association with these psychopathologies in order to further the understanding of etiology, to improve diagnostic specificity, and to develop new intervention and prevention  strategies. 

This study contains notable strengths as well as a number of limitations. Besides its 

ecological validity, our approach is bolstered by the use of a newly developed method to 

automate AOI labelling in video frames (Duchowski et al., 2019). This is a significant 

improvement of the eye-tracking state-of-the-art (e.g., during social interaction) which, to 

date, has relied on manual frame-by-frame labeling of facial AOIs (Hessels, Benjamins, 

Cornelissen, & Hooge, 2018). The approach presented in this paper offers greater objectivity 

and efficiency of the analysis. Furthermore, psychopathic traits were measured via PCL-R 

scores as assessed by independent experts and we took into account effects of possible 

confounding variables identified by recent research, i.e., age and activity as well as eye 

contact expressed by the experimenter (Gillespie et al., 2017; Hessels et al., 2019; Murphy & 

Isaacowitz, 2010; Rogers et al., 2018). The effects of these variables documented in our study 

fit well with previous findings, e.g., reduced attention to the face when talking compared to 

listening during live interaction (Hessels et al., 2019) or reduced attention to the eyes with 

greater age (Gillespie et al., 2017; Murphy & Isaacowitz, 2010). A clear limitation of our 

study is that we are not able to draw conclusions regarding female psychopaths since gender 

has been linked to scan patterns of faces (Hall, Hutton, & Morgan, 2010; Sullivan, Campbell, 

Hutton, & Ruffman, 2017). Furthermore, future studies need to investigate whether our results 

extend to less structured interaction settings and across different interaction partners. 

However, based on previous findings showing the stability of viewing patterns across 

different interaction partners, the present findings can be expected to generalize despite 

variation of interactional situations (Rogers et al., 2018). 

 In sum, we conclude that early impairments in attention to the eyes of an interaction 

partner are presumably stable over one’s lifespan and affect socialization processes including 

the development of empathy during childhood. Recently, not only psychopathic traits but also

other mental disorders such as autism have been associated with similar attentional deficits. 

Therefore, these impairments may represent a general risk factor for the development of 

psychological disorders characterized by social problems. The underlying mechanisms might 

involve deficient amygdala or ventromedial prefrontal cortex functioning (Spezio et al., 2007; 

Wolf, Philippi, Motzkin, Baskaya, & Koenigs, 2014) but need to be further clarified. It will be 

important to develop effective intervention and prevention strategies that improve visual 

attention and eye contact of children at risk. To date, evidence for lasting changes in eye gaze 

through social attention bias modification training (Alvares et al., 2019; Schönenberg et al., 

2014) or parent training programs (Dadds, English, Wimalaweera, Schollar-Root, & Hawes, 

2019) is still elusive. Thus, these promising approaches and further opportunities that target 

impaired eye contact need to be further investigated and enhanced.