Couples made more downward than upward comparisons; however, upward comparisons had a more lasting impact, resulting in decreased satisfaction and optimism, and less positive self-perceptions and partner perceptions

Thai, Sabrina, Penelope Lockwood, and Elizabeth Page-Gould. 2021. “The Ups and Downs of Being Us: Cross-relationship Comparisons in Daily Life.” PsyArXiv. October 12. doi:10.31234/osf.io/8j2ds

Abstract: Cross-relationship comparisons are an integral part of relationship processes, yet little is known about the impact of these comparisons in daily life. The present research employed a dyadic experience sampling methodology (N=78 couples) with end-of-day surveys, end-of-week follow-up, and a six-month follow-up to examine how individuals make cross-relationship comparisons in daily life, the cumulative impact of these comparisons over time, and the dyadic consequences of such comparisons. Participants made more downward than upward comparisons; however, upward comparisons had a more lasting impact, resulting in decreased satisfaction and optimism, and less positive self-perceptions and partner perceptions, at the end of each day and the week. Individuals who made more upward comparisons were also less satisfied six months later. Individuals were also affected by their partner’s comparisons: On days when partners made more upward comparisons, they felt less satisfied and optimistic about their relationship, and less positive about themselves and their partner.

The moderating role of culture on the benefits of economic freedom: Introducing economic freedom enhances economic development if the population is oriented at long term benefits rather than short term gains

The moderating role of culture on the benefits of economic freedom: Cross-country analysis. Johan Graafland, Eelkede Jong. Journal of Comparative Economics, October 5 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2021.09.005

Highlights

• Introducing economic freedom enhances economic development if the population is oriented at long term benefits rather than short term gains.

• High levels of uncertainty avoidance decrease the beneficial effects of economic freedom on economic development.

• Countries that benefit most from economic freedom are located in Asia.

• Countries that benefit least from economic freedom are located in South America.

Abstract: The implementation of pro-market policies and institutions is often suggested for enhancing a country's development. However, implementing pro-market policies and institutions has a mixed track record. Some have ascribed the bad results to the neglect of people's predispositions, often described as culture. In this study, we argue that successful implementation of pro-market policies and institutions requires that large parts of the population know how to use the resulting freedom in a way that can bring long term benefits. A panel analysis on a sample of 67 countries from 1970 to 2019 confirms this theoretical argument. We find that Long Term Orientation increases the effect of economic freedom on income per capita, whereas Uncertainty Avoidance weakens the positive relationship between economic freedom and income per capita. The policy implication is that the introduction of free market policies and institutions will particularly foster economic development in long-term oriented societies and in societies with low Uncertainty Avoidance.

Keywords: CultureEconomic developmentEconomic freedomUncertainty avoidanceLong term orientation

5. Conclusions and discussion

The main result of this study is that the positive association between economic freedom and economic development depends on the nation's culture. To support economic development, the culture should encourage individuals to take initiative and to act with a view to the long term consequences. An empirical study using Hofstede's cultural dimensions confirms these notions in that the interactions between economic freedom on the hand, and Uncertainty Avoidance (negative sign), and Long Term Orientation (positive sign) on the other are significant.

The results of this paper confirm the view that the introduction of economic freedom institutions and policies, as such, does not necessarily have an effect. The population should also be able and willing to put the economic freedom to good use. This would appear to be oriented toward future return and not toward short-term benefits. This outcome is of particular importance for international organizations (IMF, World Bank, EU), which provide advice to national governments. If a more market-oriented economy is requested, then suggesting institutions and policies be changed might not be the best advice. It could be that measures have to be taken beforehand to enhance the population's ability and willingness to take control of their own life. Consequently, a gradual process during which people can learn that as individuals they should take responsibility for action will deliver better results than a “big bang” solution targeted at implementing new rules and legislation only. Those who know how to deal with the newly created freedom could easily misuse the new regulation. As a result, in cases where the population at large does not know how to act properly, or is unable to do so, the chances are high for the creation of an elite that will enrich itself by buying assets at below market prices. Many of the countries of the former USSR stand as an example of this misuse of power. In many of these countries, oligarchs dominate the economy and politics and thus undermine both free markets and democratic policy making.

The results of this study are based on data from 67 countries. The cultural dimensions are derived from large surveys. This implies that the external validity is larger than that of experimental studies that make use of a limited set of students. The countries are also spread over different continents. However, due to data availability African countries are underrepresented. So extending the analysis to these countries would be interesting at such time as data become available. Furthermore, as discussed in our methodology section, our empirical analysis does not allow strong conclusions about the causality in the relationships between economic freedom and income per capita, because of the possibility of reverse causality. Future research should aim at developing proper instrumental variables that can theoretically be argued to causally drive economic freedom without affecting income per capita, and help identify the causality.

Conscientiousness could be the "wealth trait"; these industious individuals—demonstrating a steady, plodding behavior pattern—appear to build higher net worth by using other skills to convert their higher incomes into net worth

O.C.E.A.N.: How Does Personality Predict Financial Success? Jim Exley et al. Journal of Financial Planning. Oct 2021. https://www.financialplanningassociation.org/article/journal/OCT21-ocean-how-does-personality-predict-financial-success

Executive Summary

Purpose: Research across fields suggests that the Big Five personality traits (O.C.E.A.N.) predict individual behaviors including various financial outcomes. However, O.C.E.A.N. as a measuring tool has not caught on in the academic or applied financial planning field as extensively as it has in other disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to be the first to examine the relationship between the Big Five personality traits (O.C.E.A.N.) and four regularly collected financial outcomes—financial literacy, financial risk tolerance, income, and net worth—using a single data set. The correlational format shows the potential predictive ability of personality on various financial behaviors that is succinct and easy to understand.

Hypothesis: The research hypothesis is that O.C.E.A.N is a significant predictor of financial outcomes. Specifically, 14 out of a possible 20 correlations between O.C.E.A.N. and financial literacy, financial risk tolerance, income, and net worth will be significant.

Methods: Personality, financial literacy, income, and net worth were collected using a significantly powered current MTurk sample (n=412) representing the U.S. population. Correlations and OLS regressions were run controlling for age, gender, and education to test the relationship between the variables.

Findings: 16 out of a possible 20 correlations between O.C.E.A.N. and financial literacy, financial risk tolerance, income, and net worth were significant, though some were different than hypothesized. Specifically, this study was the first to find that extraversion correlated positively with financial risk-taking and income but negatively with financial literacy. There was no significant relationship with net worth. Conscientiousness correlated positively with financial literacy, income, and net worth, but negatively with financial risk tolerance. Neuroticism correlated negatively with financial literacy, income, and net worth. These findings contribute to the financial planning field by demonstrating that O.C.E.A.N. can be simply and systematically collected from individuals—much like risk tolerance—which adds insight into specific financial behaviors.

Possible Research Directions: Much like the systematic adoption of risk tolerance, the academic field of financial planning can be advanced by collecting robust personality data using the O.C.E.A.N. framework. This will allow for the generalization of findings from other fields over to financial planning. To assist researchers, the University of Michigan should consider adding robust measures of financial risk tolerance and personality to its valuable Health and Retirement Study. In addition, practicing financial professionals should consider collecting O.C.E.A.N. data on clients to gain additional insights into clients’ behaviors over and above standalone risk tolerance.

Discussion

This study sought to elucidate how the Big Five personality traits may play a role in describing household outcomes related to (1) financial literacy, (2) financial risk tolerance, (3) income, and (4) net worth. Eleven of the 14 hypotheses were supported and 16 of the 20 correlations were significant. OLS regressions and correlations tell a similar story. With regression, these associations are smaller and less stable because age, gender, and education have well-established relationships with aspects of O.C.E.A.N. By controlling for these covariates, we remove meaningful variance attributable to the personality metrics of interest. Acknowledging that these relationships will be weaker as less variance is available to explain, the discussion will focus on the bivariate correlations.

Financial Literacy. It was hypothesized that financial literacy would be positively correlated with openness and conscientiousness and negatively correlated with neuroticism. Each of these hypotheses was supported. When assisting individuals high in C and O, planners may see higher financial aptitudes. Open individuals likely value financial information as a way of continuous learning and have gathered knowledge along their financial journey. Conscientious individuals have likely also gathered financial knowledge possibly through study and determination to master the process. High Os and Cs may benefit from more detailed explanations of advanced topics involving their investing and planning. This advanced learning should allow high Os and Cs to grasp more complex strategies that may assist in reaching their goals. In addition, these individuals will likely appreciate a detailed discussion of the inner workings of various strategies, even if they decide against implementation.

Though neuroticism was negatively correlated with financial literacy, extraversion had a similar negative relationship. When assisting individuals with high E and high N, planners may see lower financial aptitudes. While high Ns may readily admit this shortcoming, high Es may deny low financial literacy as high Es can be prone to overconfidence (Schaefer, Williams, Goodie, and Campbell 2004). Planners assisting high Es and Ns should consider creative ways to spend time on basic financial literacy in review meetings rather than assigning self-learning tasks these individuals may not value or complete.

Financial Risk-Taking. For financial risk-taking, as hypothesized, extraversion had a significant positive relationship with risk tolerance while conscientiousness and agreeableness had significant negative relationships with risk tolerance. In a surprise finding of this sample, openness also had a significant negative relationship with risk-taking. Neuroticism did not have a significant relationship with an individual’s appetite for financial risk-taking. In the current climate, extroverts may pose a unique challenge. When assisting individuals with high E, planners should be mindful that big, extroverted personalities tend to add risk even when it may be detrimental to their long-term goals. Spending extra time evaluating and understanding high Es’ risk tolerance over and above industry protocol should be beneficial with these clients. Extroverts are often concerned with appearance and status (Naumann, Vazire, Rentfrow, and Gosling 2009). High Es may also be at higher risk for “Gambler’s Ruin” (Huygens 1657; Campbell, Goodie, and Foster 2004). A “sandbox strategy” or “trading account” consisting of a small set of risky assets that are fun to discuss at cocktail parties may scratch the risk itch, while not endangering the entire financial plan.

Planners may spend extra time understanding and assisting high Cs and As with their risk tolerance in an attempt to nudge them into riskier assets if needed to accomplish their long-term goals. Planners may consider more detailed explanations of the costs and benefits of risk, appealing to high Cs’ and As’ higher financial literacy.

Income. As hypothesized, income had a positive relationship with conscientiousness and extraversion, and a negative relationship with neuroticism. Financial industry compensation structures incent planning professionals to pursue larger accounts. In search of larger clients with higher incomes, planners may be unknowingly selecting individuals with high C and high E and deselecting individuals with high N. Planners could personally benefit from familiarizing themselves with the unique behavioral patterns of high Cs and high Es and tailoring their communication and recommendations to the individual. For example, knowing a high-income earner is high in conscientiousness should encourage planners to use education and discipline strategies—such as budgeting tools—often appreciated by high Cs. However, high-income Es may not value the extra education and may benefit more from automated strategies that systematically increase discipline—thus lowering risk—such as the automatic enrollment and asset allocation features that are included in various financial tools such as 401(k) plans.

Individuals high in neuroticism face a tall hill to climb. However, planners should be well equipped. Michael Kitces found in his 2018 annual survey of financial advisers that successful advisers often have lower N scores—meaning quality advisers often come with a high dose of emotional stability. With lower incomes, high Ns will need help embracing other paths to wealth building such as financial literacy, discipline, and risk-taking. However, individuals with lower incomes have been shown to have lower financial literacy and less access to financial institutions (Zhan, Anderson, and Scott 2006). High Ns may have the highest need for financial advice without the means to pay. This is an area where financial services might need to consider skills and tools developed in the counseling and mental health fields to better serve high-neuroticism clients. Understanding personality traits may provide clues as to the mechanisms individuals are employing to earn higher incomes that may or may not be beneficial to their long-term goals.

Net Worth. As hypothesized, conscientiousness had a positive relationship with net worth while neuroticism had a significant negative relationship. Extraversion was not found to have a significant relationship with net worth despite the finding that extroverts earn more. These findings, along with other studies (Duckworth et al. 2012), could lead to conscientiousness being considered the “wealth trait.” These industrious individuals—demonstrating a steady, plodding behavior pattern—appear to build higher net worth by using other skills to convert their higher incomes into net worth. Despite also earning higher incomes, high Es did not convert their higher income into higher net worth for this sample. Individuals high in neuroticism had significantly lower net worth, which is not surprising given lower incomes and lower financial literacy.

In total, 11 of the 14 O.C.E.A.N. personality trait hypotheses were supported. In addition, 16 out of a possible 20 personality–financial-outcome relationships were significant, though—as mentioned—a few were unexpected or in the opposite direction of the hypothesis. Clearly, the Big Five personality traits meaningfully predict a range of important household financial outcomes.

Implications

This study has several implications for researchers and those working in the financial services profession. For those in academia and the emerging field of wealth science, this study documents the associations among the Big Five personality traits and four household financial characteristics. Few studies have used net worth as a dependent variable in relation to personality modeling (Duckworth et al. 2012; Nabeshima and Seay 2015). Most personality research related to household finance topics has focused on income as the dependent variable. In The Millionaire Next Door, Stanley and Danko (1996) found that wealthier individuals tend to focus more heavily on measuring their net worth than lower net worth individuals, suggesting conscientiousness. However, few academic studies have followed up on this finding. Hopefully, this study inspires future studies using Big Five and net worth measures. Additionally, results from this study provide support for the model of risk-taking proposed by Irwin (1993).

From an applied standpoint, this study widens the pathway into furthering financial psychological research and expands the tools available to investors and financial service professionals as they attempt to grow wealth. Coaching and education—taking into account their unique O.C.E.A.N. profile—may provide additive benefits over and above standalone financial risk profiles. For example, high Cs may need assistance with adding risky assets to their portfolios, while high Es may need assistance in reducing financial risk and increasing their financial literacy.

Future Research

This study focused on the trait portion of personality. Traits describe a stable pattern of behavior, motivation, emotion, and cognition that can be observed in any sociocultural context (DeYoung 2011). However, individuals possess traits in a package (sometimes referred to as a personality “profile”), not standalone. Exploring repeating patterns of O.C.E.A.N. traits and financial outcomes could prove especially interesting. Secondly, much valuable research in the area of finance and personality is conducted using the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study (e.g., Duckworth et al. 2012; Nabeshima and Seay 2015). Adding a more robust measure of financial risk tolerance and Big Five personality to this survey could potentially open the floodgates for financial personality research. Finally, the McAdams model of personality also includes characteristic adaptations and integrative life stories. Using the McAdams model as a guiding framework, future research that combines traits, experiences, and life stories should provide additional insight into repeatable patterns of financial behavior.

Limitations

The study has several limitations. First, it is important to replicate this pattern of findings in a larger sample to test their generalization. While the present self-reported MTurk sample had sufficient size to establish stable associations, ideally this study would have used the much larger Health and Retirement Study (HRS) that verifies financial data. Ideally, direct measures of net worth and income based on bank records, spouse reports, or other assessment approaches would be used. However, the purpose of this study was to use a robust measure of personality and risk tolerance not included in the HRS. While MTurk has been validated as a sampling tool, studies have shown that results can differ from the general population (Arditte, Cek, Shaw, and Timpano 2016). To test predictive validity, a larger sample representative of investors, a larger and more refined set of control variables, and multiple indicators of outcome variables would be ideal. Second, this study assessed a single point in time. It would be beneficial to have longitudinal data that establish perhaps a more direct or active role of personality in financial decision-making. For example, changes in conscientiousness at time one may lead to increased net worth at a later time. This would be particularly important to establish over market cycles.

Congenitally blind participants facially imitate smiles heard in speech, despite having never seen a facial expression

Facial mimicry in the congenitally blind. Pablo Arias, Caren Bellmann, Jean-Julien Aucouturier. Current Biology, Volume 31, Issue 19, October 11 2021, Pages R1112-R1114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.059

Summary: Imitation is one of the core building blocks of human social cognition, supporting capacities as diverse as empathy, social learning, and knowledge acquisition1. Newborns’ ability to match others’ motor acts, while quite limited initially, drastically improves during the first months of development2. Of notable importance to human sociality is our tendency to rapidly mimic facial expressions of emotion. Facial mimicry develops around six months of age3, but because of its late emergence, the factors supporting its development are relatively unknown. One possibility is that the development of facial mimicry depends on seeing emotional imitative behavior in others4. Alternatively, the drive to imitate facial expressions of emotion may be independent of visual learning and be supported by modality-general processes. Here we report evidence for the latter, by showing that congenitally blind participants facially imitate smiles heard in speech, despite having never seen a facial expression.

For the much larger set of gender stereotypical vacancies, filling times, wages, & job durations were largely unaffected by the campaign: The elimination of stated preferences had at most small consequences on overall job match efficiency

Gender Preferences in Job Vacancies and Workplace Gender Diversity. David Card, Fabrizio Colella & Rafael Lalive. NBER, Working Paper 29350, Oct 2021. https://www.nber.org/papers/w29350

Abstract: In spring 2005, Austria launched a campaign to inform employers and newspapers that gender preferences in job advertisements were illegal. At the time over 40% of openings on the nation’s largest job-board specified a preferred gender. Over the next year the fraction fell to under 5%. We merge data on filled vacancies to linked employer-employee data to study how the elimination of gender preferences affected hiring and job outcomes. Prior to the campaign, most stated preferences were concordant with the firm’s existing gender composition, but a minority targeted the opposite gender - a subset we call non-stereotypical vacancies. Vacancies with a gender preference were very likely (>90%) to be filled by someone of that gender. We use pre-campaign vacancies to predict the probabilities of specifying preferences for females, males, or neither gender. We then conduct event studies of the effect of the campaign on the predicted preference groups. We find that the elimination of gender preferences led to a rise in the fraction of women hired for jobs that were likely to be targeted to men (and vice versa), increasing the diversity of hiring workplaces. Partially offsetting this effect, we find a reduction in the success of non-stereotypical vacancies in hiring the targeted gender, and indications of a decline in the efficiency of matching. For the much larger set of stereotypical vacancies, however, vacancy filling times, wages, and job durations were largely unaffected by the campaign, suggesting that the elimination of stated preferences had at most small consequences on overall job match efficiency.

Zebra finches: Is female mate choice repeatable across males with nearly identical songs?

Is female mate choice repeatable across males with nearly identical songs? Daiping Wang et al. Animal Behaviour, October 11 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2021.09.001

Highlights

• Individual-specific mate preferences are common but poorly understood.

• Mate preferences differ strongly between individual female zebra finches.

• Individual males differ strikingly in their songs.

• Females respond differently to males with exceptionally similar songs.

• Song traits are hence not the target of individual-specific preferences.

Abstract: Individual-specific mate preferences are thought to be widespread, but they are still poorly understood in terms of mechanisms and function. Earlier work on a songbird (the zebra finch, Taeniopygia guttata) showed predominantly individual-specific mate preferences and signs of behavioural incompatibility with certain partners. However, the phenotypic target of preference or aversion remains unclear. A previous study suggested that female preferences may be related to variation in male song. Male zebra finches have individually distinct songs and together with individual-specific female song preferences they could function according to a ‘key–lock principle’. Here we report on a preregistered study in which we tested the hypothesis that individual females respond to males with highly similar songs in a similar way. We selected 18 duos of males with nearly identical songs and released them with females in communal breeding aviaries. We scored female preference as the female's responsiveness to male courtship and confirmed that females indeed had strong individual-specific mate preferences. However, female responsiveness scores were not positively correlated across males closely matched for their song, thereby rejecting the idea of a song-based ‘key–lock principle’ as an explanation for the observed individual-specific preferences. We suggest researchers should focus on details of the interactions between potential partners to elucidate the cause of behavioural incompatibility.

Keywords: behavioural compatibilitybirdsongindividualitymate choicemate preferencesmonogamypreregistration

A minority are responsible for the majority of lies told, some basically honest people have extreme bad lies days now and then, and a few people almost never lie

Unpacking variation in lie prevalence: Prolific liars, bad lie days, or both? Kim B. Serota, Timothy R. Levine & Tony Docan-Morgan. Communication Monographs, Oct 10 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2021.1985153

Abstract: Testing truth-default theory, individual-level variation in lie frequency was parsed from within-individual day-to-day variation (good/bad lie days) by examining 116,366 lies told by 632 participants over 91 days. As predicted and consistent with prior findings, the distribution was positively skewed. Most participants lied infrequently and most lies were told by a few prolific liars. Approximately three-quarters of participants were consistently low-frequency liars. Across participants, lying comprised 7% of total communication and almost 90% of all lies were little white lies. About 58% of the variance was explained by stable individual differences with approximately 42% of the variance attributable to within-person day-to-day variability. The data were consistent with both the existence of a few prolific liars and good/bad lie days.

Keywords: Deceptionlieslying over timeprevalenceprolific liarstruth-default theoryTDT

Greater narcissism was associated with women’s preferences to retain their birth name, & with men’s desires for both partners to use his name

Emerging adults’ preferred surnames: Reasons and social cognitive dispositions. Laura Stafford, Susan L. Kline, Xiaodan Hu. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, October 10, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075211046391

Abstract: Surname practices in the U.S. are believed to reflect and reinforce the enduring patriarchal nature of U.S. society. Yet, some women and men reject patriarchal expectations. Calls for research accounting for such individual variations have been made. We examine the role that dispositional differences play in preferences for and reasoning about marital surnames in a sample of U.S. heterosexual women and men. With an online survey, we examined 799 heterosexual unmarried emerging adults’ (mean age = 19.9) preferences for their own and a future partner’s surname, reasons for their preferences, and associations with social cognitive dispositions relevant to self- and other-orientations: narcissism and perspective-taking. The findings suggest greater flexibility about women’s surname preferences than previously reported. Approximately one-third of men and women were open to nontraditional options. Reasons for preferences included heritage, tradition, masculinity norms, conceptions of marriage and family, identity, family pressures, and practical reasons. After controlling for age, relational status, traditionalism, autonomy, and career aspirations, lower perspective-taking was predictive of women’s preferences for both partners to retain their birth names, whereas greater narcissism was associated with women’s preferences to retain their birth name. Greater narcissism was associated with men’s desires for both partners to use his name. Taken together, the addition of individual difference dispositions provides greater insight into surname preferences and reasons for those preferences beyond gender masculinity norms.

Keywords: Surnames, emerging adulthood, narcissism, perspective-taking, patriarchy, gender

There is vidence suggesting that in martial arts competitions athletes characterized by higher anxiety & harm avoidance may be more likely to lose a fight; cortisol is higher in losers before and in response to a competition

Cortisol, Temperament and Serotonin in Karate Combats: An Evolutionary Psychobiological Perspective. Davide Ponzi, Harold Dadomo, Laura Filonzi, Paola Palanza, Annalisa Pelosi, Graziano Ceresini, Stefano Parmigiani & Francesco Nonnis Marzano. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, Oct 4 2021. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40750-021-00178-0

Abstract

Objectives: There is evidence suggesting that in martial arts competitions athletes characterized by higher anxiety and harm avoidance may be more likely to lose a fight. This psychological profile has been hypothesized to explain in part the observation that cortisol is higher in losers before and in response to a competition. An important research target that needs further exploration is the identification of phenotypic traits that can be helpful in predicting athletes’ performance. Here we present a brief description of the theoretical bases that drives our research in the evolutionary psychobiology of sports and illustrate preliminary data on the relationship between the 5HTTLPR genotype, salivary cortisol, temperament and competition.

Methods: Sixty-five healthy male non-professional athletes provided saliva samples 10 min before and after a kumite session and filled out the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire.

Results: Salivary cortisol levels 10 min before the competition were higher in losers and in athletes with the S allele. Temperament was associated with competition outcome and cortisol: losers were characterized by higher scores of harm avoidance and harm avoidance was positively correlated with cortisol levels.

Conclusions: The results confirm previous findings linking temperamental traits, pre-and post- competition physiological stress response with competition outcome in kumite fight. Moreover, they indicate an association between the 5HTTLPR polymorphism and pre-competition salivary cortisol, thus providing a preliminary but non-conclusive evidence on the role played by the 5HTTLPR genotype as a vulnerability factor in sport competition.

Discussion

A crucial challenge for sport scientists is to identify the psychobiological substrates (i.e., personality, genes and hormones) that are associated with athletes’ superior performance. Provided that sports are a ritualized form of competition evolved for access to primary and secondary fitness relevant resources, we expect successful athletes to show a cluster of functionally adapted traits. Natural selection should favor the co-evolution of traits if their covariation has increased animals’ performance throughout their evolutionary past. For example, if a specific type of personality is positively correlated with higher fitness, other traits that share the same genes, either through negative pleiotropy or linkage disequilibrium (Svensson et al., 2021) or physiological bases (Dochtermann, 2011; Kern et al., 2016; McGlothlin & Ketterson, 2008) with the personality trait should be more frequently found in the same individual.

In the present study we were interested to know if winners and losers of a karate fight could be identified by their scores in three different psychobiological traits. We found that salivary cortisol levels 10 min before the competition were higher in athletes that lost the fight, but no differences were found between winners and losers for salivary cortisol reactivity. Athletes that lost the fight had on average higher levels of harm avoidance while no relationships of the 5HTTLPR polymorphism with competition outcome or harm avoidance were found. However, we provide preliminary evidence showing that athletes with the SS genotype might have on average higher pre-competition levels of salivary cortisol, an interesting insight in light of several studies reporting a role played by the 5HTTLPR polymorphism in managing sport anxiety (Petito et al., 2016, 2021; Sanhueza et al., 2016).

Within the animal literature, subjects that tend to win fights are characterized by a cluster of behavioral, physiological and neurobiological characteristics such as higher aggressiveness, higher risk-approach behavior and lower HPAA responses to challenges (Koolhaas et al., 1999; Korte et al., 2005). Currently, there is still an open debate on the role played by cortisol in predicting competition outcome in martial arts (Casto & Edwards, 2016a; Filaire et al., 2009; Jiménez et al., 2012; Papacosta et al., 2016; Parmigiani et al., 2006, 2009; Salvador et al., 2003; Suay et al., 1999). Likewise, the role played by psychological factors such as mood and personality in relation to competition performance and especially on winning and losing has been extensively studied (Casanova et al., 2015; Casto & Edwards, 2016b; Casto et al., 2017; Gonzalez-Bono et al., 1999; Salvador & Costa, 2009; Salvador, 2005; Suay et al., 1999; Zilioli & Watson, 2013), but a direct translation of the evolutionary concept of coping strategies and evolved, correlated traits such as personality and physiological responses has not yet been produced. Our finding that 85% of karate fighters could be predicted to be winners or losers based on their harm avoidance score and pre-competition cortisol levels is very interesting in his regard.

It is important to highlight that the single, pre-competition measure of cortisol of our study cannot unequivocally be considered an anticipatory response of the HPA axis to the competition. Instead, it possible that these higher levels of cortisol found in losers represent a stable trait of those people that experience higher everyday anxiety and stress because of their higher scores of harm avoidance. Some authors have suggested that elevated scores of harm avoidance may predispose individuals to experience psychological distress, fear, anxiety and low mood (Farmer & Seeley, 2009; Trouillet & Gana, 2008) and harm avoidance appears related with the magnitude of HPA axis activation (Tyrka et al., 2008). Thus, perhaps athletes that went on to lose the fight were already stressed out by similar daily hussles unrelated to the karate competition.

Lastly, the 5HTTLPR polymorphism was not predictive of victory or defeat nor of temperament, despite being correlated with pre-competition salivary cortisol. This should not be surprising for several reasons. We should not expect a single candidate gene to be predictive of competition outcome. Specifically in relation to behavioral coping strategies, genetic variation in genes related to other neurotransmitters such as dopamine may be important. In this regard, the dopamine transporter genotype 9/9 and allele 9 that have been reported to be highly frequent in Olympic athletes (Filonzi et al., 2015). However, the effects of candidate genes on personality (and perhaps on behavioral coping strategies) are probably very small, while the role played by many variants with small effects is more likely (Penke & Jokela, 2016). Finally, it is possible that the lack of a correlation between harm avoidance and the s allele could be due by the choice of the personality measure and by the lack of statistical power. In fact, the presence and strength of a SS genotype-anxiety link has been found to depend on the personality measures used and on sample size. For example, the neuroticism dimension of the Big Five personality inventory but not harm avoidance is strongly correlated with the 5HTTLPR polymorphism (Sen et al., 2004). Yet, the possible relationship between harm avoidance and the5HTTLPR polymorphism should not be discarded since a recent study carried out with high level Italian athletes reported that those with higher scores of harm avoidance were more likely to have the s allele (Petito et al., 2021). Perhaps more important, the sample size of our study is a limitation for these kinds of research questions (Miller et al., 2013).

The etiology of mental disorders is not fully understood, but one likely contributor is perturbations of neurodevelopment; nonright-handedness is a sign of such perturbations, but psychopaths don't show elevated rates of nonright-handedness

Is Psychopathy a Mental Disorder or an Adaptation? Evidence From a Meta-Analysis of the Association Between Psychopathy and Handedness. Lesleigh E. Pullman, Nabhan Refaie, Martin L. Lalumière, DB Krupp. Evolutionary Psychology, October-December 2021: 1–17. DOI: 10.1177/14747049211040447

Abstract: Psychopathy has historically been conceptualized as a mental disorder, but there is growing evidence that it may instead be an alternative, adaptive life history strategy designed by natural selection. Although the etiology of mental disorders is not fully understood, one likely contributor is perturbations affecting neurodevelopment. Nonright-handedness is a sign of such perturbations, and therefore can be used to test these competing models. If psychopathy is a mental disorder, psychopaths should show elevated rates of nonright-handedness. However, an adaptive strategy perspective expects psychopaths to be neurologically healthy and therefore predicts typical rates of nonright-handedness. We meta-analyzed 16 studies that investigated the association between psychopathy and handedness in various populations. There was no difference in the rates of nonright-handedness between community participants high and low in psychopathy. Furthermore, there was no difference between psychopathic and nonpsychopathic offenders in rates of nonright-handedness, though there was a tendency for offenders scoring higher on the Interpersonal/Affective dimension of psychopathy to have lower rates of nonright-handedness, and for offenders scoring higher on the Behavioral dimension of psychopathy to have higher rates of nonright-handedness. Lastly, there was no difference in rates of nonright-handedness between psychopathic and nonpsychopathic mental health patients. Thus, our results fail to support the mental disorder model and partly support the adaptive strategy model. We discuss limitations of the meta-analysis and implications for theories of the origins of psychopathy.

Keywords: Psychopathy, life history, adaptation, mental disorder, handedness

Children from an early age present a remarkable level of understanding of coronavirus & the COVID-19 disease as a multidimensional construct, covering the SARS-CoV-2 side, & medical, social, & psychological consequences on people’s lives

Children’s conceptions of coronavirus. Fotini Bonoti, Vasilia Christidou, Penelope Papadopoulou. Public Understanding of Science, October 9, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625211049643

Abstract: The present study aimed to examine children’s conceptions of coronavirus as denoted in their verbal descriptions and drawings and whether these vary as a function of children’s age and the mode of expression. Data were collected in Greece during spring 2020 and 344 children aged 4 to 10 years were first asked to verbally describe coronavirus and then to produce a drawing of it. Content analysis of data revealed the following main themes: (a) Coronavirus, (b) Medical, (c) Psychological, and (d) Social. Results showed that children from an early age present a remarkable level of understanding of coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease as a multidimensional construct, which can be designated not only through characteristics of the Sars-Cov-2 but also through its medical, social, and psychological consequences on people’s lives. Moreover, children were found to emphasize different aspects of this construct depending on their age and the mode of expression.

Keywords: children, conceptions, coronavirus, COVID-19, drawings

Twitter has a negative effect on conspiracy beliefs—as opposed to all other platforms under examination which are found to have a positive effect (Messenger, WhatsApp, YouTube, & Facebook)

Does the platform matter? Social media and COVID-19 conspiracy theory beliefs in 17 countries. Yannis Theocharis et al. New Media & Society, October 9, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211045666

Abstract: While the role of social media in the spread of conspiracy theories has received much attention, a key deficit in previous research is the lack of distinction between different types of platforms. This study places the role of social media affordances in facilitating the spread of conspiracy beliefs at the center of its enquiry. We examine the relationship between platform use and conspiracy theory beliefs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on the concept of technological affordances, we theorize that variation across key features make some platforms more fertile places for conspiracy beliefs than others. Using data from a crossnational dataset based on a two-wave online survey conducted in 17 countries before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we show that Twitter has a negative effect on conspiracy beliefs—as opposed to all other platforms under examination which are found to have a positive effect.

Keywords: Affordances, conspiracy theories, COVID-19, misperceptions, social media

Conclusion

While the Internet has always served as a meeting place for fringe groups and conspiracy theorists, social media have added a new layer to this reality. Aided by the platforms’ interactive and networking features, as well as their capacity to deliver different kinds of content to very different audiences, social media have become hotspots for unsubstantiated information and the diffusion of misperceptions. Nevertheless, not all social media platforms should be painted with the same brush as different architectural features and affordances of social media platforms have consequences for how users encounter content and others with whom they can interact and build relationships (Bossetta, 2018).

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to many conspiracy theories, providing us with a unique opportunity to study conspiracy theory proliferation in platforms during the initial phase of the pandemic. We theorized that variation across different features of social media platforms might make some platforms more likely to accommodate conspiracy theory beliefs than others. Our results support the hypothesis that Twitter has a negative effect on conspiracy beliefs, while use of Facebook, YouTube, Messenger, and WhatsApp were found to have positive effects. For Facebook and its private messaging counterpart Messenger, it should, however, be noted that coefficients are only significant for the pooled models, when country effects were not weighted. Although this suggests that effects might not be uniform across countries, scrutinizing country differences is beyond the scope of this study and could make for a valuable endeavor for future research.

Our study makes several contributions. We show that not all social media platforms are the same when it comes to conspiracy theory beliefs about COVID-19. Our findings resonate with the core theoretical tenets of affordances theory, that there is a multifaceted relational structure between a technological tool and the user which might enable (in the case of Facebook, YouTube, and Messenger services) or constrain (in the case of Twitter) behavioral outcomes in a particular context (Evans et al., 2017: 36). This has implications for theory-building. Understanding how the spread of conspiracy theories differs across social media platforms is key to developing strategies to correct misperceptions, as well as to theorizing about how different features lead to different information diffusion dynamics. Our design does not allow us to tease out the specific effect of different affordances which would help understand why precisely we observe these effects, but the main finding lays the ground for future research zooming into individual affordances (network features, type of content, etc.) and studying the particular dynamics they give rise to. Specifically, a number of platform-specific features that we discussed earlier may have a link to how CTB proliferate. Future research focusing on the micro-mechanisms of the effects tied to specific affordances could consider a number of possibilities when studying, for example, Twitter’s distinct effect in comparison to other platforms. Twitter’s users combine higher than average education with a greater tendency for news-seeking and engagement into political discussions than any of the platforms in our study. This could imply that a larger number of users with potentially high-quality information sources were there to create content which, due to the asymmetrical structure of connections on the platform, can reach very far very fast through retweeting that cuts across different types of networks. In this fashion, it is possible that conspiratorial content—when it appeared—could be debunked fast or possibly “drown out” with better quality information or the sheer volume of those willing to quickly jump in and correct misperceptions. This is in contrast to platforms like Facebook or Messenger services, where the networks are not only more homogeneous, but countering opinions may be harder to emerge for different reasons. For example, precisely because of Facebook’s more family-and-friends oriented connections, users might think twice before attempting to correct conspiratorial content, as they are more likely to have to face the cost of jeopardizing social relationships. Indeed, the topic of how to talk to friends and family sharing conspiracy theories on social media became the subject of many articles in reputable news sources once conspiracy theories started to emerge (Warzel, 2020). But while this might be very relevant to Facebook users, it is not a barrier to Twitter users who could have happened upon a conspiratorial content and decided to interject (or hijack) a discussion with their own evidence. The contrast between Twitter also holds for YouTube where, due to the platform’s architecture, upon watching a video users have to move to the comments to encounter any debate about the content, thus possibly having less exposure to corrective information other than those flagged by the platform (when that happenes).

Different approaches to platform governance might have also played a significant role, meaning that some platforms need more oversight than others. Twitter quickly put in place measures such as deprioritizing content that could pose risks to people’s health along with labels and warning messages to content that contained COVID-19 misinformation. Facebook, which eventually instituted similar measures, continues to face criticism for being too slow to act on groups profiting from COVID-19 conspiracy theories (Jackson et al., 2021) and it is possible that related content or groups were able to gain substantial audiences before they were blocked (Marchal and Au, 2020). Finally, as none of the two messenger services has the type of warnings or content removal practices implemented on Twitter or Facebook, letting private conversations (often among large groups) be unmoderated could have increased the likelihood for conspiratorial content to proliferate on these. Zooming into the specific affordance-related mechanisms would help identify which parts of the conspiracy theory diffusion chain platforms need to work harder on to make their products safer, especially when it comes to public health. While the COVID-19 pandemic should serve as an important case study on how platforms react when scientific consensus in relation to content previously labeled as misinformation shifts, our findings add to the mounting evidence enticing social media platforms to self-reflect on the information quality in their environments and its potential broader effects on citizen attitudes and beliefs that are essential for public choices.

While our study has focused on conspiratorial beliefs about COVID-19, there is a little theoretical reason to believe that the effects we uncover would not apply to other types of conspiracy theories. This reasoning implies that our study has applications to a far larger problem than COVID-19-specific conspiracy theories. Future research should re-examine the connection of platform type and conspiracy theory beliefs using other conspiracy theories.

Our study does not come without limitations. The most important one is selection bias, which our data and design do not allow us to settle definitively. We have provided a strong theoretical rationale that platforms’ diverse features might be responsible for the way in which each platform is connected to conspiracy theory beliefs. It is, however, also possible that users’ particular characteristics or motivations may shape their decision to use this or the other platform precisely because it can offer the type of environment that fits their individual or community needs best. In recognition of this limitation, we employed propensity score matching which enabled us to find users with comparable characteristics to non-users across platforms, thus providing an additional test that our assumptions about the role of platforms are robust. This is an important test as, compared to regression-based techniques, this technique at least does not rely on out of data range extrapolations. Nevertheless, the ideal design for disentangling the causal order in this puzzle is, ultimately, a randomized experimental design. Random assignment into platforms could come with significant challenges, however, given the social media saturated environment of our times, and the difficulties of compliance with being active on a singular platform (Theocharis and Lowe, 2016). Ultimately, one would have to trade external validity for internal validity, which is why no single study design can stand alone.

Despite these shortcomings, our study provides important evidence that future studies based on other designs can build upon to address an issue of increasing importance given the role of platforms in people’s media and socialization diets.

Rolf Degen summarizing... Strangers to ourselves: People carelessly neglect habits and latch on to internal states when explaining their own or others' behavior

Mazar, Asaf, and Wendy Wood. 2021. “Illusory Feelings, Elusive Habits: Explanations of Behavior Overlook Habits.” PsyArXiv. October 9. doi:10.31234/osf.io/ug86s

Abstract: Habits underlie much of human behavior. However, people may prefer agentic explanations that overlook habits in favor of inner states such as mood. We tested this misattribution hypothesis in an online experiment of helping behavior as well as an ecological momentary assessment study of college students’ everyday coffee drinking. Both studies revealed a substantial gap between attributed and actual influences on behavior: Habit strength outperformed or matched inner states in predicting behavior, whereas participants’ attributions for their behavior emphasized inner states. Participants continued to overlook habits even when incentivized for accuracy, as well as when making attributions for other people’s behavior. We discuss how this attribution pattern could adversely influence self-regulation.

The size of scientific fields may impede the rise of new ideas: Fundamental progress may be stymied if quantitative growth of scientific endeavors—in number of scientists, institutes, & papers—is not balanced by focusing attention on novel ideas

Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science. Johan S. G. Chu and James A. Evans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 12, 2021 118 (41) e2021636118; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2021636118

Significance: The size of scientific fields may impede the rise of new ideas. Examining 1.8 billion citations among 90 million papers across 241 subjects, we find a deluge of papers does not lead to turnover of central ideas in a field, but rather to ossification of canon. Scholars in fields where many papers are published annually face difficulty getting published, read, and cited unless their work references already widely cited articles. New papers containing potentially important contributions cannot garner field-wide attention through gradual processes of diffusion. These findings suggest fundamental progress may be stymied if quantitative growth of scientific endeavors—in number of scientists, institutes, and papers—is not balanced by structures fostering disruptive scholarship and focusing attention on novel ideas.

Abstract: In many academic fields, the number of papers published each year has increased significantly over time. Policy measures aim to increase the quantity of scientists, research funding, and scientific output, which is measured by the number of papers produced. These quantitative metrics determine the career trajectories of scholars and evaluations of academic departments, institutions, and nations. Whether and how these increases in the numbers of scientists and papers translate into advances in knowledge is unclear, however. Here, we first lay out a theoretical argument for why too many papers published each year in a field can lead to stagnation rather than advance. The deluge of new papers may deprive reviewers and readers the cognitive slack required to fully recognize and understand novel ideas. Competition among many new ideas may prevent the gradual accumulation of focused attention on a promising new idea. Then, we show data supporting the predictions of this theory. When the number of papers published per year in a scientific field grows large, citations flow disproportionately to already well-cited papers; the list of most-cited papers ossifies; new papers are unlikely to ever become highly cited, and when they do, it is not through a gradual, cumulative process of attention gathering; and newly published papers become unlikely to disrupt existing work. These findings suggest that the progress of large scientific fields may be slowed, trapped in existing canon. Policy measures shifting how scientific work is produced, disseminated, consumed, and rewarded may be called for to push fields into new, more fertile areas of study.

Keywords: scientific progressdurable dominanceentrepreneurial futilityscience policyscience of science

Discussion

These findings suggest troubling implications for the current direction of science. If too many papers are published in short order, new ideas cannot be carefully considered against old, and processes of cumulative advantage cannot work to select valuable innovations. The more-is-better, quantity metric-driven nature of today’s scientific enterprise may ironically retard fundamental progress in the largest scientific fields. Proliferation of journals and the blurring of journal hierarchies due to online article-level access can exacerbate this problem.

Reducing quantity may be impossible. Proscribing the number of annual publications, shuttering journals, closing research institutions, and reducing the number of scientists are hard-to-swallow policy prescriptions. Even if a scientist wholeheartedly agreed with the implications of our study, curtailing their output would be impractical given the damage to their career prospects and those of their colleagues and students, for example. Limiting article quantity without altering other incentives risks deterring the publication of novel, important new ideas in favor of low-risk, canon-centric work.

Still, some changes in how scholarship is conducted, disseminated, consumed, and rewarded may help accelerate fundamental progress in large fields of science. A clearer hierarchy of journals with the most-prestigious, highly attended outlets devoting pages to less canonically rooted work could foster disruptive scholarship and focus attention on novel ideas. Reward and promotion systems, especially at the most prestigious institutions, that eschew quantity measures and value fewer, deeper, more novel contributions could reduce the deluge of papers competing for a field’s attention while inspiring less canon-centric, more innovative work. A widely adopted measure of novelty vis a vis the canon could provide a helpful guide for evaluations of papers, grant applications, and scholars. Revamped graduate training could push future researchers to better appreciate the uncomfortable novelty of ideas less rooted in established canon. These measures, while not easy to implement across large fields, may help push scholarship off the local attractor of existing canon and toward more novel frontiers.

The current study is at the level of fields and large subfields, and one could argue that progress now occurs at lower subdisciplinary levels. To examine lower levels at scale requires more precise methods for classifying papers—perhaps using temporal citation network community detection—than are currently available. But note that the fields and subfields identified in the Web of Science correspond closely to real-world self-classifications of journals and departments. Established scholars transmit their cognitive view of the world to their students via field-centric reading lists, syllabi, and course sequences, and field boundaries are enforced through career-shaping patterns of promotion and reward.

It may be that progress still occurs, even though the most-cited articles remain constant. While the most-cited article in molecular biology (22) was published in 1976 and has been the most-cited article every year since 1982, one would be hard pressed to say that the field has been stagnant, for example. But recent evidence (23) suggests that much more research effort and money are now required to produce similar scientific gains—productivity is declining precipitously. Could we be missing fertile new paradigms because we are locked into overworked areas of study?

Children do not judge animals (chicken, cows, & pigs) to be appropriate food sources; 41pct of children claimed that bacon came from a plant

Children are unsuspecting meat eaters: An opportunity to address climate change. Erin R. Hahn, Meghan Gillogly, Bailey E. Bradford. Journal of Environmental Psychology, October 9 2021, 101705. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101705

Highlights

• Children are not reliably accurate in identifying the origins of common foods.

• Forty-one percent of children claimed that bacon came from a plant.

• Children do not judge animals to be appropriate food sources.

• Most 6- and 7-year-olds classified chicken, cows, and pigs as not OK to eat.

• Children's food concepts may help to normalize environmentally-responsible diets.

Abstract: Eating a plant-based diet is one of the most effective ways people can reduce their carbon footprint. However, global consumption of meat and other animal products is increasing. Studying children's beliefs about food may shed light on the relationship between eating behaviors and climate change. Here, we examined children's knowledge of the plant and animal origins of foods, as well as children's judgments of what can be eaten, using 2 dichotomous sorting tasks. The sample consisted of 4- to 7-year-old children from the United States. We found pervasive errors in their basic food knowledge. Foods derived from animals—especially, but not exclusively meats—were among those that children understood the least well. We suggest that the results may reveal a fundamental misunderstanding in children's knowledge of animal based foods, and we discuss reasons why the origins of meat may represent a particularly challenging concept for children to grasp. We end by considering the role that children may play as agents of environmental protection.

Keywords: Sustainable dietsAnimalsMeat eatingMeat paradoxClimate changeChildren

Language offers a unique window into psychology; natural-language processing & comparative linguistics are contributing to how we understand topics as diverse as emotion, creativity, & religion

From Text to Thought: How Analyzing Language Can Advance Psychological Science. Joshua Conrad Jackson et al. Perspectives on Psychological Science, October 4, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211004899

Abstract: Humans have been using language for millennia but have only just begun to scratch the surface of what natural language can reveal about the mind. Here we propose that language offers a unique window into psychology. After briefly summarizing the legacy of language analyses in psychological science, we show how methodological advances have made these analyses more feasible and insightful than ever before. In particular, we describe how two forms of language analysis—natural-language processing and comparative linguistics—are contributing to how we understand topics as diverse as emotion, creativity, and religion and overcoming obstacles related to statistical power and culturally diverse samples. We summarize resources for learning both of these methods and highlight the best way to combine language analysis with more traditional psychological paradigms. Applying language analysis to large-scale and cross-cultural datasets promises to provide major breakthroughs in psychological science.

Keywords: natural-language processing, comparative linguistics, historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, cultural evolution, emotion, religion, creativity

Applying Language Analysis in Psychological Science: Three Case Studies

Psychological science still has work to do before researchers can master NLP and comparative linguistic methods. We dedicate the rest of this article to illustrating how that might happen. First, we present Figure 4, which is a visual flowchart illustrating how the language-analysis methods discussed in this article can be employed to address psychological questions. We then summarize three case studies that demonstrate how NLP and comparative linguistics can yield new insights and increase the scale and diversity of study into three psychological constructs that have been notoriously difficult to study—emotion, religion, and creativity. In these sections, we highlight research that has used language analysis to address new questions or solve long-standing debates or that has used language-analysis methods to increase the scale or cultural diversity of research in these fields. This work illustrates the utility of language analysis for asking enduring psychological questions and foreshadows the potential of these tools to address psychological constructs across social, cultural, cognitive, clinical, and developmental psychology.

Fig. 4. A flowchart of different language-analysis methods and the kinds of questions they are best suited to answer. Orange boxes represent methods from comparative linguistics, and gray boxes represent methods from NLP. Black boxes approximate the questions that may guide researchers toward these methods. Concepts are defined here as the meaning associated with words. This is meant as a general guide for researchers interested in language analysis, and there is some overlap in classifications. For example, word embeddings can show how language conveys moods and attitudes, and colexification can sometimes uncover evolutionary dynamics.

Emotion

Questions and debates about the nature of human emotion have existed since the earliest days of psychological science (Darwin, 1872/1998; James, 1884; Spencer, 1894; Wundt, 1897) and are relevant to psychological questions pertinent to social, clinical, and developmental psychology. Language-analysis methods have already increased the scope of this long-standing field and generated original methods of addressing old debates.

One of the most enduring debates about emotions concern whether emotions are universal, inborn categories that possess little variation around the world or are socially learned categories that vary in their experience and conceptualization across cultures (Cowen & Keltner, 2020; Ekman & Friesen, 1971; Izard, 2013; Plutchik, 1991; Lindquist et al., 2012; Mesquita et al., 2016; Russell, 2003). We recently addressed this question by means of a comparative-linguistics approach using colexifications (Jackson, Watts, et al., 2019). This analysis allowed us to increase the scale and generalizability over previous field studies of cross-cultural differences in emotion that had relied on smaller sample sizes and two-culture comparisons (Bryant & Barrett, 2008; Ekman & Friesen, 1971; Gendron et al., 2014, 2015, 2020).

In our study, we computationally aggregated thousands of word-lists and translation dictionaries into a large database named “CLICS” (https://clics.clld.org/), and we used this database to examine colexification patterns of 24 emotion concepts across 2,474 languages. We constructed networks of colexification in which nodes represented concepts (e.g., “anger”) and edges represented colexifications (instances in which people had named two concepts with the same word), and then compared emotion colexification networks across language families. In contrast to Youn and colleagues (2016), who found universal colexification patterns involving concepts such as “sun” and “sky,” we found wide cultural variation in the colexification of emotion concepts such as “love” and “fear.” In fact, clusters of emotion colexification varied more than three times as much as the clustering patterns of colors—our set of control concepts—across language families (see Fig. 5). For example, “anxiety” was perceived as similar to “fear” among Tai-Kadai languages, but was more related to “grief” in Austroasiatic languages, suggesting that speakers of these language may conceptualize anxiety differently.

Fig. 5. The colexification structure of emotion concepts for all languages (top left) and for five individual language families in Jackson and colleagues (2019) analysis of emotion. Nodes are emotion concepts, and links between concepts represent the likelihood that these concepts will be colexified in a language. Color indicates semantic community, which refers to clusters of emotions that are similar in meaning. From Jackson, J. C., Watts, J., Henry, T. R., List, J. M., Forkel, R., Mucha, P. J., Greenhill, S., Gray, R. D., & Lindquist, K. A. (2019). Emotion semantics show both cultural variation and universal structure. Science, 366(6472), 1517–1522. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw8160. Reprinted with permission from AAAS.

The variability in emotion meaning that we observed was associated with the geographic proximity of language families, suggesting that the meaning of emotion may be transmitted through historical patterns of contact (e.g., warfare, trade) and common ancestry. We also found that emotions universally clustered together on the basis of their hedonic valence (whether or not they were pleasant to experience) and to a lesser extent, by their physiological activation (whether or not they involved high levels of physiological arousal), suggesting valence and physiological activation might be biologically based factors that provide “minimal” universality to the meaning of emotion. In sum, this study used an unprecedented sample of cultures to yield new insights into the structure and cultural variation of human emotion.

A different set of language-analysis studies involving NLP are improving how psychologists measure emotion and track it over time and across social networks. For example, in a study of unprecedented historical scale, Morin and Acerbi (2017) used sentiment analysis to examine English fiction from 1800 to 2000 to assess whether the expression of emotion had changed systematically over time. They found a decrease in positive (but not negative) emotions conveyed in language over history in three separate corpora of text. This change could not be explained by changing writer demographics (e.g., age and gender), vocabulary size, or genre (fiction vs. nonfiction), raising the possibility that something about emotion or its expression has itself changed over time.

Other studies have also used language analysis to track faster emotional dynamics, such as measuring the emotional qualities of social-media posts (Roberts et al., 2012; Yu & Wang, 2015) and testing whether the emotions of one person are likely to rapidly spread via language throughout that person’s social network. Such studies have shown experimentally that emotional sentiment conveyed by language on social-media websites (e.g., Facebook) is more likely to make individuals who view that language express similar emotions (Kramer et al., 2014). Correlational studies find that social-media information with high emotional content is more likely to be shared than information with low emotional content (Brady et al., 2017). These studies show how affect can spread across many social-media users in a short period of time.

Religion

The science of religion has a rich legacy equal to that of the psychology of emotion; many psychological studies have addressed questions about the social value and historical development of religion. Language analysis has recently begun answering both kinds of questions with a scope and ecological validity that was not possible with traditional methods.

NLP analyses have shed light on the positive and negative ways that religion affects happiness and intergroup relations. Some social theorists view religion as a primarily positive force because it reinforces social connections and promotes well-being (Brooks, 2007). On the other hand, “New Atheism” suggests that religion has a more negative effect on psychology by narrowing people’s worldviews and homogenizing the beliefs of religious adherents (Dawkins & Ward, 2006; Hitchens, 2008). Evidence for this debate has been mixed because of methodological challenges. For example, religious people frequently report more well-being than atheists in large national surveys, but they also show more social-desirability bias (Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012), which makes their self-reports less reliable.

NLP analyses are able to overcome these social-desirability limitations and have begun to show ecologically valid evidence that religion is linked to well-being. For example, Ritter et al. (2014) conducted a sentiment analysis of 16,000 users on Twitter and found that Christians expressed more positive emotion, less negative emotion, and more social connectedness than nonreligious users. Wallace et al. (2019) conducted a creative analysis of obituaries, finding that people whose obituaries mentioned religion had lived significantly longer than people whose obituaries did not mention religion, even controlling for demographic information.

Other NLP research has called the New Atheist proposition of religious worldview homogeneity into question. For example, Watts and colleagues (2020) analyzed the explanations that Christian and nonreligious participants generated to explain a wide range of supernatural and natural phenomena and estimated the overlap of these explanations as a measure of worldview homogeneity. If religion does indeed homogenize adherents’ worldviews, one would expect that religious people’s explanations would share greater overlap than nonreligious people’s explanations. Watts and colleagues (2020) used a text analysis approach known as Jaccard distances, which was able to estimate the similarity between participants’ explanations of the world using overlapping key words, and test whether religious people offered more homogeneous explanations than did nonreligious people. Using this algorithm, the researchers found that religious people’s explanations of supernatural phenomena were more homogeneous than nonreligious people’s explanations, but their explanations of natural phenomena (e.g., the prevalence of parasites) were more diverse than were nonreligious explanations, probably because they drew on supernatural as well as scientific concepts when explaining the natural world.

Comparative linguistics has mostly contributed to questions about how religion has developed over time across cultures. Many of these analyses have focused on the “supernatural monitoring hypothesis”: that watchful and punitive gods contributed to the evolution of social groups by increasing in-group prosociality and fostering large-scale cooperation (Johnson, 2016; Norenzayan et al., 2016). This idea is nearly a century old, arguably dating back to Durkheim (1912/2008), but most tests of the hypothesis have been correlational, and there is an ongoing debate about whether societies with large-scale cooperation tend to adopt moralistic religions or societies that adopt moralistic religions tend to be more cooperative (Whitehouse et al., 2019).

Researchers using comparative-linguistics methods recently addressed these debates by focusing on the development of religion in the Pacific Islands, where linguistic analyses have mapped out cultural phylogenies that can then be repurposed for cross-cultural research (R. D. Gray et al., 2009). Using these phylogenetic trees and implementing a method known as Pagel’s discrete (Pagel, 1999), Watts and colleagues (2015) inferred the probability that ancestor cultures had high levels of political complexity (indicating large-scale cooperation), the probability that they believed in supernatural punishment, and the probability that they worshiped moralizing high gods. Their results showed partial support for both sides of the debate about religion and cooperation. Broad supernatural punishment (e.g., punishment for violating taboos) tended to precede and facilitate political complexity. However, belief in watchful and punitive high gods (e.g., the Christian God) tended to occur only when societies were already politically complex.

Phylogenetic analyses have also shed light on the darker side of religious evolution, such as ritualized human sacrifice practices, which were common across the ancient world. According to the social-control hypothesis, ritual human sacrifice was used as a tool to help build and maintain social inequalities by demonstrating the power of leaders and instilling fear among subjugates. Yet evidence in support of this theory was based largely on individual case studies showing that higher classes often orchestrated ritual sacrifices (Carrasco, 1999; Turner & Turner, 1999). Watts and colleagues (2016) tested this prediction by examining patterns of ritual human sacrifice and social inequality across 93 Pacific societies that had been mapped onto an established language phylogeny (R. D. Gray et al., 2009). They found evidence that ritual human sacrifice often preceded, facilitated, and helped to sustain social inequalities, supporting the social-control hypothesis.

Creativity

Compared with the psychology of emotion and religion, that of creativity has a shorter history in psychology. Most psychologists agree that creativity contributes to personal feelings of self-fulfillment and societal innovation (Pratt & Jeffcutt, 2009; Wright & Walton, 2003), but the field is still exploring the best ways to measure creativity as a psychological construct. More than a dozen creativity-measurement paradigms exist in psychology. One such measure asks participants to name multiple uses for common household items such as article clips and bricks (Guilford, 1950), whereas others require participants to think of creative marketing schemes (Lucas & Nordgren, 2015) or draw an alien from another planet (Ward, 1994). In each paradigm, responses are qualitatively scored on creativity by trained research assistants. Although these tasks are themselves quite creative, the coding process can be onerous, and it can take months to obtain creativity ratings for a small behavioral study. Because these measures require custom tasks and laboratory settings, they are also rarely suitable for analyzing real-world creative behavior.

Language analysis has only recently been applied to study creativity, but NLP techniques are already advancing the measurement of creativity with paradigms that can be applied to both individuals in a small study as well as millions of people around the world. One such paradigm is “forward flow” (K. Gray et al., 2019). Forward flow asks people to free associate concepts, much like classic psychoanalysis methods. But rather than qualitatively deconstructing these free associations, forward flow uses word embeddings to quantitatively analyze the extent that present thoughts diverge from past thoughts. For example, because “dog” and “cat” are frequently used together in large corpora, “dog” → “cat” would not represent as much divergence as “dog” → “fortress,” which are less frequently used together. Forward flow correlates with higher creativity scores on validated behavioral tasks such as the multiple uses task, and creative professionals such as actors, performance majors, and entrepreneurs score highly on forward flow (K. Gray et al., 2019). Forward flow in celebrities’ social-media posts can even predict their creative achievement (K. Gray et al., 2019). Forward flow may represent a rich and low-cost measure that could help capture creativity across people and societies.

Other NLP analyses have captured creativity in terms of divergences from normative language (e.g., Kuznetsova et al., 2013). Much like an unorthodox-looking alien, unorthodox patterns of language can signal creativity. However, it can be difficult to distinguish nonnormative and creative language (e.g., “metal to the pedal,” which is a reformulation of “pedal to the metal”) from nonnormative and nonsensical language (e.g., “the metal pedal to”). Berger and Packard (2018) developed a potential solution to this problem in a study of the music industry and used this method to test how creativity related to a product’s success. Their approach first used topic modeling to develop words that frequently appeared in different genres of music. For instance, words about bodies and movement were often featured in dance songs, whereas words about women and cars were often featured in country music songs. The study next quantified each song from the sample on its typicality according to how much it used language typical of its genre. Analyzing these trends found that songs that broke from tradition and featured atypical language performed better than songs featuring more typical language, offering some evidence that people prefer creative cultural products.

Recent language-analysis studies have already made a considerable impact on the study of creativity and show the potential of NLP for capturing and quantifying variability in creativity across people and products. Although no comparative-linguistics research has examined creativity, this subfield also has great potential for examining whether creativity varies in its structure across cultures and how creativity has evolved across history. Some historical analyses suggest that creativity has been highest during periods of societal looseness—periods with less rigid social norms and more openness (Jackson, Gelfand, et al., 2019). But this research was done on American culture, and it is not clear whether these findings would generalize around the world.