Reduce the number of interviewers in your process. If you have more than four or five interviewers, chances are that the costs associated with the additional complexity in your process have exceeded the benefits they produce.
Be explicit about whose decision it is. Steer your organizational culture away from a consensus-oriented approach. Instead, for each role make it explicit whose decision it is, who else might have veto power, and that other interviewers should not be offended if a candidate is hired despite not getting their approval. And then keep repeating this message until most of your colleagues adapt to this new approach.
Ask interviewers to use numerical ratings when evaluating candidates. We’ve experienced that doing so helps hiring committees focus on the holistic view rather than on one-off negative comments. Having interviewers submit their ratings before getting input from their colleagues will have the further benefit of reducing the chance of groupthink in your evaluations.
Remove the “Dr. Deaths” from your hiring committee. Track which interviewers turn down the most candidates, and if they are not better at picking good hires, communicate with them that they will be removed from the hiring committee if they don’t correct their behavior.
Change your culture to reward those who spot great hires, not penalizing those who end up with an occasional poor performer. You can further do this by emphasizing the difference between good decisions and good outcomes. Sometimes a fully logical bet will result in a poor outcome. If needs be, call out those spreading negativism.
Lightner, Aaron, and Edward H. Hagen. 2022. “All Models Are Wrong,
and Some Are Religious: Supernatural Explanations as Abstract and
Useful Falsehoods About Complex Realities.” PsyArXiv. July 11.
doi:10.31234/osf.io/2uvjm
Abstract:
Many cognitive and evolutionary theories of religion argue that
supernatural explanations are byproducts of our cognitive
adaptations. An influential argument states that our supernatural
explanations result from a tendency to generate anthropomorphic
explanations, and that this tendency is a byproduct of an error
management strategy because agents tend to be associated with
especially high fitness costs. We propose instead that
anthropomorphic and other supernatural explanations result as
features of a broader toolkit of well-designed cognitive adaptations,
which are designed for explaining the abstract and causal structure
of complex, unobservable, and uncertain phenomena that have
substantial impacts on fitness. Specifically, we argue that (1)
mental representations about the abstract vs. the supernatural are
largely overlapping, if not identical, and (2) when the
data-generating processes for scarce and ambiguous observations are
complex and opaque, a naive observer can improve a bias-variance
tradeoff by starting with a simple, underspecified explanation that
Western observers readily interpret as "supernatural." We
then argue that (3) in many cases, knowledge specialists across
cultures offer pragmatic services that involve apparently
supernatural explanations, and their clients are frequently willing
to pay them in a market for useful and effective services. We propose
that at least some ethnographic descriptions of religion might
actually reflect ordinary and adaptive responses to novel problems
such as illnesses and natural disasters, where knowledge specialists
possess and apply the best available explanations about phenomena
that would otherwise be completely mysterious and unpredictable.
Labor Unions and Product Quality
Failures. Omesh Kini, Mo Shen, Jaideep Shenoy, Venkat Subramaniam.
Management Science, Aug 27 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.4082
Abstract:
In this paper, we study the impact of labor unions on product quality
failures. We use a product recall as our measure of quality failure
because it is an objective metric that is applicable to a broad
cross-section of industries. Our analysis employs a union panel
setting and close union elections in a regression discontinuity
design framework to overcome identification issues. In the panel
regressions, we find that firms that are unionized and those that
have higher unionization rates experience a greater frequency of
quality failures. The results obtain even at a more granular
establishment level in a subsample in which we can identify the
manufacturing establishment associated with the recalled product.
When comparing firms in close elections, we find that firms with
close union wins are followed
by significantly worse product quality outcomes than those with close
union losses. These results are amplified in non–right-to-work
states, where unions have a relatively greater influence on the
workforce. We find that unionization increases firms’ costs and
operating leverage and, consequently, crowds out investments that
potentially impact quality. We also find some suggestive evidence
that unions may compromise quality by hurting employee morale and by
resisting technological upgrades in the firm. Overall, our results
suggest that unions have an adverse impact on product recalls, and
thus, product quality is an important dimension along which unions
impact businesses
---
Comments
by Alex Tabarrok Labor
Unions Reduce Product Quality - Marginal REVOLUTION: Two
strengths of the paper. First, the authors have relatively objective
measures of product quality from thousands of product recalls
mandated by the FDA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration covering
many different industries. Second the authors use 3 different
methods. First, they find that unionized firms are more likely to
have recalls than non-unionized firms (a simple difference in means
subject to many potential cofounds but I still like to see the raw
data), second they find that in a panel model with industry and year
fixed effects and other controls that firms which are more unionized
have a greater frequency of product recalls. Finally they find that
firms where the union just barely won the vote are more likely to
have subsequent product recalls than firms for which the union just
barely lost the vote--a regression discontinuity study.
The
authors put more weight on financial strains caused by unionization
as a mechanism whereas my story would be that unionization prevents
firms from disciplining shoddy workers and that leads to lower
product quality. Note that my theory would also cover teachers unions
which the author’s mechanism would not.
From 2016... Kret ME, Tomonaga M (2016) Getting to the Bottom of Face Processing. Species-Specific Inversion Effects for Faces and Behinds in Humans and Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes). PLoS ONE 11(11): e0165357. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0165357
Abstract: For social species such as primates, the recognition of conspecifics is crucial for their survival. As demonstrated by the ‘face inversion effect’, humans are experts in recognizing faces and unlike objects, recognize their identity by processing it configurally. The human face, with its distinct features such as eye-whites, eyebrows, red lips and cheeks signals emotions, intentions, health and sexual attraction and, as we will show here, shares important features with the primate behind. Chimpanzee females show a swelling and reddening of the anogenital region around the time of ovulation. This provides an important socio-sexual signal for group members, who can identify individuals by their behinds. We hypothesized that chimpanzees process behinds configurally in a way humans process faces. In four different delayed matching-to-sample tasks with upright and inverted body parts, we show that humans demonstrate a face, but not a behind inversion effect and that chimpanzees show a behind, but no clear face inversion effect. The findings suggest an evolutionary shift in socio-sexual signalling function from behinds to faces, two hairless, symmetrical and attractive body parts, which might have attuned the human brain to process faces, and the human face to become more behind-like.
Discussion
The current study shows chimpanzee’s expertise in recognizing behinds and suggests they process the bright pink sex swellings of female chimpanzees configurally and in a similar way as humans process faces. The female chimpanzee’s behind has a very high socio-sexual signaling function and the changes in size and color over the menstrual cycle reflect fertility. For that reason, it is important for conspecifics to be able to quickly detect this signal in the environment, but at the same time, it is vital to know who the behind belongs to[19]. For male chimpanzees this is relevant to prevent inbreeding. In turn, for female chimpanzees it is relevant to be aware of competing females to protect their own mating success.
The current study replicates previous research on the face inversion effect in humans, demonstrating that they process faces configurally[2]. In line with our hypothesis, the face inversion effect was dampened when faces were turned into greyscale, but still strongly significant, which is in line with previous research in humans showing that orientation is more important than color when it comes to processing human faces[31]. Also without color, the human face contains many high contrasting features such as eye whites, a prominent nose and lips and eyebrows. Although facial color can provide important social information, such as about emotions and health, there are also minor alterations over the menstrual cycle [40]. However, these small changes are beyond any comparison with the rich coloration of the chimpanzee behind where the alterations are much more obvious. In chimpanzees, the relevance of color for processing behinds is reflected in the absence of the behind inversion effect when pictures of behinds were presented in greyscale. In real life, the size and color of the swelling change in synchrony over the menstrual cycle. Thus, a full swelling around estrus is always redder than the female behind half a cycle later. It is therefore possible that due to the un-naturalistic mismatch between color (grey) and size (full swelling), these behinds were processed as objects, i.e., identified by the parts rather than as a whole.
Like humans, great apes are optimally equipped to process color and the spectral sensitivity of the cones in their retinas is ideal for discriminating both density of hemoglobin and oxygen saturation of the blood[30]. Also, the brain areas specialized in processing faces and bodies possess unique neural wiring to effectively process color[32, 33]. Once developed over the course of evolution, color vision (and especially trichromatic color perception) proceeded to impose a selective pressure on certain external traits such as the pink female sexual swelling in chimpanzees and the red lips and cheeks in humans.
A limitation of this study is the low number of individuals in the chimpanzee sample. Although this is common in most primate research and is largely compensated for by the large number of trials per individual, it is possible that effects would have been stronger had we been able to test a larger sample. Moreover, the chimpanzees in our sample were adolescents and adults and we can therefore only speculate about whether this specialization in processing behinds is inborn or related to expertise and emerged sometime during the developmental trajectory. In humans, the specialization for faces occurs already in the first couple of months of life[41]. In fact, already from birth, infants are interested in other people’s faces and eyes and make eye-contact[42]. The making of eye-contact is also facilitated in our species as walking upright freed the hands of parents, allowing them to carry their babies in their arms more often[43]. In contrast, chimpanzees are knuckle-walkers and carry their infants on their belly or back. For them, the swellings become particularly relevant only around puberty. The swellings also appear around that time, i.e., around the age of 10, and at that age, the color of the face changes from pink to a permanent black tint, reducing the contrast with the rest of the body[20]. The swellings stand out enormously in terms of color, size, smoothness and shininess and have a much stronger socio-sexual signaling function in the chimpanzee than the face. Future experiments with larger sample sizes are needed to test for sex differences and could also benefit from including male behinds as a control condition. In addition, it might be valuable to repeat this experiment in the bonobo (Pan Paniscus), as this species is as closely related to us as the chimpanzee but uses sex as a way to prevent and solve conflicts, has an alpha female rather than an alpha male[44] and is known to be highly attentive towards pictures showing genitals and even pay more attention to this category than to images showing threat displays[45].
In sum, applying well-established psychological paradigms to our closest relatives represents a promising approach to providing insight into the evolution of behavior. For primates, being able to recognize each other is necessary for detecting mates. Yin’s(1969) landmark article about the ‘face inversion effect’ turned the face-literature upside-down and hundreds of articles since describe that humans process faces unlike objects. But how faces compare to another body part similar in shape, size, color and attractiveness was thus far unknown. The present study demonstrates that chimpanzees, unlike humans, show a ‘behind inversion effect’ and suggests that identity recognition ‘moved up’ from the bottom to the face in our uprightly walking species. The findings of our study suggest that over human evolution the face took over important properties shared with the primate behind and largely replaced its socio-sexual signaling function, making our species attuned to faces.
Sound induces analgesia through corticothalamic circuits. Wenjie Zhou et al. Science, Jul 7 2022, Vol 377, Issue 6602, pp. 198-204, DOI: 10.1126/science.abn4663
The pain-reducing effects of music: That sound can effectively suppress pain has been known for some time. However, it is still unclear what drives the analgetic effect induced by music or noise. Zhou et al. used a range of methods to demonstrate in mice that the auditory cortex is functionally connected to regions involved in nociception (see the Perspective by Kuner and Kuner). The neuronal circuits depend on the physical location of the pain. Whereas the analgetic effect of a 5-decibel signal-to-noise ratio white noise on the hindpaws involved projections from the auditory cortex to the posterior thalamic nuclei, on the forepaws, it involved projections from the auditory cortex to the ventral posterior nuclei. Distinct thalamic nuclei are thus involved in the processing of nociceptive information perceived at distinct physical locations. —PRS
Abstract: Sound—including music and noise—can relieve pain in humans, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unknown. We discovered that analgesic effects of sound depended on a low (5-decibel) signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) relative to ambient noise in mice. Viral tracing, microendoscopic calcium imaging, and multitetrode recordings in freely moving mice showed that low-SNR sounds inhibited glutamatergic inputs from the auditory cortex (ACxGlu) to the thalamic posterior (PO) and ventral posterior (VP) nuclei. Optogenetic or chemogenetic inhibition of the ACxGlu→PO and ACxGlu→VP circuits mimicked the low-SNR sound–induced analgesia in inflamed hindpaws and forepaws, respectively. Artificial activation of these two circuits abolished the sound-induced analgesia. Our study reveals the corticothalamic circuits underlying sound-promoted analgesia by deciphering the role of the auditory system in pain processing.
Sexual Fantasies, from Part II - Copulatory Adaptations. Rui Miguel Costa. In The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology, pp 209-240. Jun 30 2022. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108943567.011
Summary: Sexual fantasies refer to mental imagery of sexual activity with an emotional component that absorbs the fantasizer. These images are often sexually arousing and enjoyable, but they can elicit guilt and be unwanted and intrusive. Reported frequency of sexual fantasizing is subject to large individual differences. The present chapter reviews and discusses the role of motivational tendencies underlying sexual fantasies and the relationship between sexual functioning and sexual fantasies. Men report more frequent fantasies than women, but at least part of the difference is explained by greater frequency of masturbation accompanied by fantasies for men than women. Sexual desire does not require the experience of fantasies, but fantasy frequency is robustly related to sexual desire in the reproductive years. Tendency to experience sexual fantasies is related to imagery ability, in general, but the modest correlations suggest independent processes. Unlike sexual activity that requires compromise between partners’ desires, fantasies are unconstrained by physical and social reality; as such, they provide a window into sexual motivations that guide cognitions and behavior. Predictions of sex differences in fantasy contents based on evolutionary theory have been confirmed by many studies. Women are more likely than men to fantasize about sex with the current partner, and less likely than men to fantasize about group sex, sex with strangers, extradyadic relationships, and sex with (legally) much younger partners. This is interpreted as fantasies reflecting sex-differentiated mating strategies. However, a substantial proportion of women report fantasies of group sex, sex with unknown men, and sex with men other than their current partner. This suggests that a certain degree of sperm competition has occurred in human evolutionary history, which is corroborated by the relative size of men’s testes in comparison with other primates. Generally (and against expectations), women do not fantasize more about sex with much older partners and famous people. Fantasies involving sexual aggression are very common. Men fantasize more than women about forcing someone to have sex. Some studies report that women fantasize more about being forced to have sex, but others have failed to find this sex differences. Still, more women than men report that the fantasy of being forced to have sex is among their favorites. These fantasies are typically very sexually arousing, but they may challenge evolutionary explanations and the notion of fantasies revealing motivations, as rape is reported to be traumatic and revolting by victims. Several explanations are discussed. Rape fantasies might facilitate intercourse and sexual pleasure in circumstances of psychological ambivalence, when the environment is safe. In women, evidence of a relationship between sexual fantasies and sexual satisfaction is mixed. Sexual satisfaction is unrelated to female coital fantasies and to male fantasies, in general. Many variables that may cause fantasy-related dissatisfaction are discussed; these include fantasies provoking guilt feelings, preference for arousal solely induced by sensory and emotional stimulation, fantasies being used as escapes from relationship problems and other stressors of reality, and lack of adequate sleep leading to greater fantasy-induced arousal.
Men’s Provisioning of Oral Sex, from Part II - Copulatory Adaptations. Gavin Vance. In The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology, pp 271-293, June 2022. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108943543.014
Summary: Men sometimes engage in noncopulatory sexual behaviors, such as cunnilingus and other kinds of sexual foreplay. Men involved in long-term romantic relationships, in particular, tend to provision their partners with oral sex. Potential adaptive functions of cunnilingus in humans are discussed with a focus on the hypothesis that men use oral sex provisioning as part of a general benefit-provisioning, long-term mating strategy. Other potential adaptive functions are also considered, including the infidelity detection hypothesis and several hypotheses concerning sperm competition adaptations. Some research has proposed the possibility that men may use oral sex as a form of infidelity detection, wherein they might be able to smell or taste the semen of rival males in their partner’s vagina. Other research has posited that men might perform cunnilingus in order to induce orgasm in their partners, thereby increasing the amount of sperm retained in her reproductive tract after ejaculation. Still others have suggested that men might perform cunnilingus to increase their own arousal, thus increasing their subsequent ejaculate volume. These adaptive perspectives are couched within the wider literature on oral sex, which includes data regarding the frequency of oral sex in adolescent, preindustrial and non-Western samples, as well as women’s desire for receiving oral sex. Regarding the relative infrequency of cunnilingus in preindustrial and non-Western samples, in particular, men’s provisioning of oral sex is considered as potentially being a part of an evolved cognition for benefit-provisioning mate retention in general, rather than oral sex itself serving a specific adaptive function. Specifically, oral sex may be one type of sexual favor that men, especially those in Western cultures, sometimes provide to their long-term partners. Additional data regarding the increased sexual and relationship satisfaction in women who engage in a wider variety of sexual practices and who more frequently experience orgasm further supports the mate retention hypothesis of men’s provisioning of oral sex. Nevertheless, the available literature investigating these potential adaptive functions is currently insufficient to draw any decisive conclusions. Finally, gaps in the current literature and suggestions for future research that may help determine the evolved nature of men’s oral sex provisioning are discussed.
Yours Truly: On the Complex Relationship Between Authenticity and Honesty. Erica R. Bailey, Sheena S. Iyengar. Current Opinion in Psychology, July 8 2022, 101419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101419
Abstract: Authenticity is defined as being true to yourself, but does being true to yourself always mean being truthful? The apparent similarity between authenticity and honesty has obscured directly scrutinizing possible tension between the two constructs. In the current paper, we review recent research which reveals their orthogonality, highlighting how honesty can decrease authenticity and dishonesty can increase authenticity. In addition, we delineate between honesty with the self and self-rated authenticity, as well as honesty with others and perceived authenticity. Finally, we propose the importance of coherence and morality which describe when honesty will serve (or harm) authenticity both intra- and interpersonally, illuminating avenues for future research.
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People reliably report that their “true self”, the often-cited source of authenticity, is more moral and generally better than the true selves of others.
Abstract:
The capacity to elicit vivid visual mental images varies within an
extensive range across individuals between hyper- and aphantasia. It
is not clear, however, whether imagery vividness is constant across
the lifespan or changes during development and later in life. Without
enforcing the constraints of strict experimental procedures and
representativity across the entire population, our purpose was to
explore the self-reported level of imagery vividness and determine
the relative proportions of aphantasic/hyperphantasic participants in
different age groups. Relying on the frequently used Vividness of
Visual Imagery Questionnaire, we collected data on a random sample of
2252 participants between the ages of 12 to 60 years. We found a
novel developmental pattern that describes a declining ability to
elicit vivid visual mental images in the group averages of different
age groups from adolescence to middle age. This effect involves both
a decreasing proportion of individuals with vivid visual imagery
vividness and an increasing proportion of individuals with low
imagery vividness as maturation (based on bone age assessments in
adolescents) and ageing progress. These findings may shed some light
on the developmental mechanisms of our internal, stimulus-independent
processes, and might also help to determine genetic, maturational,
and age-dependent factors in the cases of hyper- and aphantasia.
We examined whether visual imagery vividness is constant across the lifespan, or whether it changes during development and later in life. Our results show - for the first time - that visual imagery vividness declines with age, and this decline is more pronounced in males than females. Above average imagery vividness is common during the teenage years, while the proportion of hyperphantasics sharply declines from adolescence to middle age. Aphantasia, on the other hand, is non-existent in adolescents, and seems to become increasingly prevalent in the later years. Additionally, in 11 to13-year-old adolescents, advanced biological maturity (measured via bone age assessment) is correlated with weaker visual imagery vividness. We interpret these findings as evidence for the waning of imagery vividness as a function of chronological age between adolescence and middle age, and as a function of biological age in adolescents.
We believe that the discovered developmental changes in visual imagery vividness and in the prevalence of aphantasia are novel findings. In terms of visual mental imagery and ageing, there exist different experimental approaches, as well as studies on mental rotation, visuo-spatial internal representation, and visual working memory (for recent examples see: Craik & Dirkx, 1992; Dror & Kosslyn, 1994; Isaac & Marks, 1994; Wimmer et al., 2015) trying to define and model the phenomenon of visual internal representations. However, these studies approach mental imagery from a stimulus-response, functional perspective of short-term memory, while our study looks at the development of external stimulus independent visual mental imagery. The latter could avoid the potential biases of perceptual changes or decline due to ageing.
Our results contradict some of the already heterogeneous results of earlier studies measuring visual imagery vividness over the lifespan mentioned in the introduction (Isaac & Marks, 1994; Campos & Sueiro, 1993; Kemps & Newson, 2005; White et al., 1977; Wolmer et al., 1999). We noted that these studies use comparatively small sample sizes, limited age-based distribution, and other artefacts, which may contribute to inconsistent findings. The above described, age-related declining pattern of imagery vividness seems to provide a fresh and more coherent picture, and perhaps an alternative way of thinking about the background of internal representations. Our results may also shed light on the necessity of more representative surveys in this field to get more persuasive information about the maturational effects of the phenomenon.
Our observation on the remarkable distribution of the two extremes – namely hyper- and aphantasia – is also unique in the literature. Most previous studies on aphantasia look at its role in different cognitive functions, and potential impairments or compensative internal processes, mainly only in adult samples (for recent examples, see: Jacobs et al., 2018; Pounder et al., 2018; Keogh et al., 2021; Milton et al., 2021; Wicken et al., 2021). However, to understand the phenomenon more comprehensively, it would be essential to examine the nature of lifelong prevalence as well. The fact that both chronological and biological age are negatively correlated with visual imagery vividness seems to uncover a developmental process and indicates the existence of “developmental aphantasia” in addition to the potentially genetically based and acquired forms.
The other terminus of the visual imagery vividness spectrum is the phenomenon of hyperphantasia (Zeman, 2020). In contrast to aphantasia, this kind of extreme, ’offline-perceptual’ experience means to have abnormally strong, or photo-like, even eidetic imagery. According to the previous prevalence calculations, this mental representational ability is more frequent in the group of elementary-school-aged children, than among subjects in other age groups (Giray et al., 1976; Haber, 1979; Haber & Haber, 1964). Different theoretical approaches exist to explain this distributional pattern of which the most popular viewpoint is the developmental hypothesis (Haber, 1979; Haber & Haber, 1964). According to this assumption, extreme visual imagery vividness is an early capacity, modulated or lost by the progression of developmental processes during childhood. Nevertheless, this aspect could not necessarily provide a reliable explanation to any longitudinal observations, namely to the cases within the eidetic subjects that remained eidetically classified in the entire experimental time interval (Leask et al., 1969). Based on our findings, we would like to suggest that in addition to the genetically based neurodiversity along the visual imagery spectrum, a lifelong developmental pattern of decreasing visual imagery vividness is also part of the picture. The mechanism behind this decline and the neural background is not within the scope of our investigation here, however, we hope to facilitate a more detailed investigation of the neural correlates.
Inspired by our current findings we propose that the vividness of visual mental imagery is shaped by developmental factors, and there is a natural tendency for less vivid mental images with both maturation and ageing (see Fig. 2). Although we leave the possibility open that there might be a small proportion of individuals with genetically based hyper- or aphantasia whose imaging capacities are unaffected by maturational or developmental factors, we also claim the relevance of the developmental changes. As for future studies, this relevance might be twofold. On one hand, by acknowledging the changing distributions of imaging capacities, future studies might involve samples more representative for age and gender to determine the actual prevalence of either, potentially genetically based extremes. On the other hand, the clear declining tendency raises several questions about the developmental mechanisms that bring about such a remarkable change. For example, is there a difference between genetically based and developmental hyper- and aphantasia?
Instead of indulging in further exciting but unanswered questions, let us also note the limitations of our exploratory study that could be overcome in further investigations. First, despite the large number of participants in the adult age groups, our study cannot be considered representative, and it is not longitudinal. Therefore, we cannot completely rule out confounds related to random samples, and confounds that may include social, educational, technological, or lifestyle changes over time that may affect the spectrum of mental imagery vividness across the examined age groups. It would be very important to systematically study these potential confounds in future studies. Additionally, although unlikely, we cannot rule out the possibility that aphantasics from older age brackets were more inclined to participate in our study, e.g., by being overrepresented among the readers of the news portal where the invitation link of the study was published. Attrition bias might also be present if, e.g., mortality would decrease in the presence of aphantasia, or increase in the general and hyperphantasic population. The latter effect, that is, the relative decrease in the number of people with high imagery vividness in the population might be due to a confound with psychiatric or neurodegenerative diseases reducing life expectancy (Ji et al., 2019; Pearson et al., 2013; Pearson et al., 2015). It is also a shortcoming of this exploratory study that we used a self-report questionnaire that is subject to several response biases, and it may not be readily applicable in children.
Since it seems relevant to extend the current investigation to childhood, where over-reporting of imagery experience might be an issue, more objective measures involving lower levels of cognitive complexity are called for. For example, a no-report version (Frässle et al. 2014; Ziman et al., 2022) of the binocular rivalry dominance priming method (Milton et al., 2021; Pearson et al., 2008, 201; Keogh & Pearson 2018) might be a useful paradigm in forthcoming studies. The essence of this method is that there is an imagery instruction before each rivalry trial, and the induced mental image is expected to affect perceptual decisions about the multistable stimulus (Pearson et al., 2008). The facilitatory effect correlates with the subjective vividness reports (Pearson et al., 2011), and it is not present in subjects with aphantasia (Keogh & Pearson 2018). Although this method seems to deal with the subjectivity of self-reports, the rivalry paradigm is still short of objectivity since participants intentionally report their subjective percepts on each primed rivalry trial, involving criterion level problems, and individual results suggest on demand responses in a significant number of catch trials (Pearson et al., 2011). To solve this issue, a ‘no-report’ version of the rivalry paradigm, based on eye-tracking has been introduced (Frässle et al, 2014; Ziman et al., 2022). Another recently introduced method for the objective study of aphantasia uses the pupillary light response (Kay et al. 2022). During imagery of light or dark objects, the pupils react similarly as in natural vision: they dilate while imaging dark stimuli and constrict while imaging bright stimuli. Kay et al. (2022) found that the degree of imagery-evoked pupillary light response correlates with the proportion of successful priming in the binocular rivalry task and seems to be absent in aphantasia. Since intentional behavioural responses are not required (e.g., choices of questionnaire alternatives or button presses), while behavioural correlates of imagery vividness can be measured, these paradigms are good candidates for future objective studies of visual imagery vividness.
The lifelong changes in visual imagery vividness found in the current study should encourage future research to establish advanced, more objective techniques to measure vividness to determine exact age group standards that should help more precise prevalence estimations of hyper- or aphantasia. In addition to the prevalence estimations, the neural background of these conditions might be better revealed relying on the developmental information confirmed by objective methods, which should, in turn, help the understanding of visual imagery in general.
To sum up, we found a novel developmental pattern showing a declining ability to elicit vivid visual images as age increases from adolescence to middle age. This effect involves both a decreasing proportion of individuals with very vivid visual imagery and an increasing proportion of individuals with weak visual imagery as maturation and ageing progress. These findings may shed some light on the developmental mechanisms of our internal, stimulus-independent processes, and might also help to determine genetic, maturational, and age-dependent factors in the cases of hyper- and aphantasia.
Mac Giolla, Erik, Simon Karlsson, David A. Neequaye, and Magnus Bergquist. 2022. “Evaluating the Replicability of Social Priming Studies.” PsyArXiv. July 8. doi:10.31234/osf.io/dwg9v
Abstract: To assess the replicability of social priming findings we reviewed the extant close replication attempts in the field. In total, we found 65 close replications, that replicated 46 unique findings. Ninety-four percent of the replications had effect sizes smaller than the effect they replicated, only 18% of the replications reported a significant p-value in the original direction, and the 95% confidence interval of the replication effects included the original effects only 26% of the time. The strongest predictor of replication success was whether or not the replication team included at least one of the authors of the original paper. Twelve of the 16 replications with at least one original author produced a significant effect in the original direction and the meta-analytic average of these studies suggest a significant priming effect (d = 0.33, 95% CI[0.26; 0.65]). In stark contrast, none of the 49 replications by independent research teams produced a significant effect in the original direction and the meta-analytic average was virtually zero (d = 0.001, 95% CI[-0.03; 0.03]). We argue that these results have shifted the burden of proof back onto advocates of social priming. Successful replications from independent research teams will likely be required to convince sceptics that social priming exists at all.
Zonszein, Stephanie, and Guy Grossman. 2022. “Turnout Turnaround:
Ethnic Minority Victories Mobilize White Voters.” OSF Preprints.
July 5. doi:10.31219/osf.io/w2dg8
Abstract:
In many countries, the number of ethnic minority representatives has
been steadily increasing. How is such a trend shaping electoral
behavior? Past work has generally focused on the political engagement
of ethnic minorities as a response to having a co-ethnic on the
ballot. In contrast, less attention has been devoted to assessing
whether an ethnic minority incumbent shapes the electoral behavior of
majority-group members. We argue that increased political
representation of minorities can be experienced as an external threat
to a historically white dominant political context. This in turn may
politically activate white constituents aiming to revert their
(perceived) disempowerment. We test this argument employing a novel
dataset that characterizes candidates' ethnicity, covering four UK
Parliamentary general elections, and a regression discontinuity
design of close elections between ethnic minority and majority-group
candidates. Comparing constituencies that are otherwise identical,
except for being represented by a minority Member of Parliament (MP),
we find that an MP's ethnicity matters for electoral participation:
turnout in constituencies narrowly represented by an ethnic minority
MP is 3.6 percentage points larger than in constituencies narrowly
represented by a white MP. Consistent with our argument, we find that
such difference in turnout is driven by majority-white
constituencies, and that voters in these constituencies choose the
party of the minority incumbent’s strongest white opponent.
However, this dynamic does not overpower minorities' incumbency
advantage, but it contributes to polarizing the electorate along
ethnic lines. Our findings have important implications for intergroup
relations, political behavior, and recent political dynamics more
broadly.
Abdulla Alabbasi, A. M., Thompson, T. L., Runco, M. A., Alansari, L. A., & Ayoub, A. E. A. (2022). Gender differences in creative potential: A meta-analysis of mean differences and variability. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Jul 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000506
Abstract: The current study examined gender differences in divergent thinking (DT) using meta-analyses of mean difference and variation. The main objective of the meta-analysis of mean difference was to resolve contradictory findings in the creativity literature regarding the prevalence of creativity among males or females in creative potential. The meta-analysis of variation aimed to test the greater male variability hypothesis (GMVH) in DT. To test gender differences in means (i.e., Hedges’ g), results from 213 studies (k = 1,251; N = 115,289) were analyzed using a three-level approach. Females slightly outperformed males in DT, g = −.065, 95% CI [−.095, −.034], p = ≤ .001. Three-level multiple regression analyses showed that the mean effect size significantly varied by (a) country, (b) DT subscale, (c) type of task, and (d) ability (gifted vs. nongifted). In the second meta-analysis, the GMVH in creative potential was tested by synthesizing the results of 1,152 effect sizes from 187 studies (k = 1,152; N = 101,328). The results confirmed the existence of greater male variability (GMV) in DT, (InVR) = 1.216, 95% CI [1.14, 1.29], p ≤ .001, indicating 21.6% GMV in DT. Multiple regression analyses explained 29.82% of variability in the mean effect (InVR) at Level-2 (within-studies variance), and 5% of the variability in the mean effect at Level-3 (between-studies variance). The mean difference findings support the gender similarity hypothesis, while variation results tend to support the gender differences hypothesis. Limitations and recommendations for future studies are discussed.
Discussion
Gender Differences in Means
Although seminal review research on gender differences in mean DT scores supported the gender similarity hypothesis (e.g., Baer, 2012; Baer & Kaufman, 2008; Kogan, 1974; Runco et al., 2010), an empirical quantitative investigation was warranted. The current results show a small effect size (Cohen, 1988), favoring females. Interestingly, previous findings indicated that females mostly outperformed males in DT abilities (Thompson et al., 2021), yet males have shown a slight advantage in terms of creative performance (Hora et al., 2021). Such a pattern of findings suggest that females may initially show greater creative potential, but that males are able to apply their potential more fruitfully in terms of achievements.
Regarding DT subscales, the results showed a significantly larger mean effect size for fluency, in favor of females, while the smallest gender difference was observed for originality. This is one of the most interesting and significant findings, given that originality is the central feature of creativity (Acar et al., 2019; Runco & Jaeger, 2012). Females also scored higher than males in the composite DT score. Although the composite score is a useful index, it might be misleading since it offers an incomplete assessment of individual differences in creative potential. For educators, the emphasis should be on originality more than any other DT index, first because it is an essential element in any creative work or behavior (Runco, 2014) and, second, because the current findings showed no significant gender difference in originality, unlike fluency, which may be biased against males.
Another important consideration for educators is the type of task used in DT tests when assessing students’ creative potential (e.g., to identify gifted students). The current finding is consistent with some previous studies reporting that females outperform males in verbal tasks (Abraham, 2016; Halpern et al., 2007). This is not to say that educators (or researchers) should avoid using verbal DT tests; in fact, we believe that both task types elicit unique information about an individual’s creative potential. Our recommendation is that both verbal and figural tasks be used to screen students for special programs (e.g., gifted student programs), as using both mediums seem to capture a fuller spectrum of gender strengths. Finally, the comparison between gifted and nongifted samples showed that both gifted females and nongifted females outperformed gifted males and nongifted males, although the magnitude of the effect size was larger in gifted females than gifted males, supporting some previous giftedness and DT findings (e.g., Abdulla Alabbasi et al., 2021; Bahar & Ozturk, 2018).
Gender Differences in Variability
The GMVH was initially proposed as a possible explanation for greater male superiority in different cognitive domains throughout human history (see Feingold, 1992 for a historical review). Several meta-analytic reviews of GMVH in intellectual abilities supported greater male variability in most of the tested intellectual abilities (Feingold, 1992; Gray et al., 2019; Hedges & Friedman, 1993). For creativity, studies on gender differences in variability have been conducted in both Eastern (He & Wong, 2011; He et al., 2013; Ju et al., 2015; Lau & Cheung, 2015) and Western cultural contexts (Karwowski, Jankowska, Gajda, et al., 2016; Taylor & Barbot, 2021), and one study was conducted with an African sample (Karwowski Jankowska, Gralewski, et al., 2016). These investigations attributed different findings to cultural differences (e.g., He et al., 2013), type of task (e.g., Taylor & Barbot, 2021), and the obtained or reported variance ratio (VR). For instance, whereas He and Wong (2011) reported a VR of 1.62 for the composite score of the test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP), He et al. (2013) reported a VR of 1.30, Ju et al. (2015) reported a VR of 1.06, and Karwowski, Jankowska, Gralewski, et al. (2016) reported a VR of 1.82. However, earlier studies were limited in terms of the assessments used (all used the TCT-DP except Lau & Cheung, 2015; Taylor & Barbot, 2021), type of task (all used figural tasks except Lau & Cheung, 2015; Taylor & Barbot, 2021), the capacity for cultural comparisons, and sample size. By retrieving the raw data from 187 studies, we were able to calculate the (InVR) of a sample of 101,328, providing a clearer picture of GMVH in creative potential. Moreover, we were able to test different moderators (see Tables 4 and 5) to explain the high heterogeneity observed in the mean effect size. The mean effect size obtained in the current study was less than most previous studies (except Ju et al., 2015). Note here that a VR between .90 and 1.10 indicates a small effect size, while a VR greater than 1.10 would indicate GMV (Karwowski, Jankowska, Gralewski, et al., 2016; Lau & Cheung, 2015). The major findings from the moderator analysis were: (a) greater male DT variability was observed in verbal tasks (InVR = 1.249); (b) among DT subscales, GMV was observed in the elaboration subscale (InVR = 1.429); and (c) among DT tests, a GMV was observed in Wallach and Kogan’s tests (InVR = 1.316).
First, regarding type of task, the current findings differ from previous meta-analyses on GMVH in other cognitive abilities. For instance, Feingold (1992) reported that males and females did not differ in verbal tests such as short-term memory (STM), abstract reasoning, and perceptual speed, whereas a large male variability was found in mechanical reasoning, for example. Hedges and Nowell (1995) reported a negligible difference between males and females in the VR for vocabulary (VR = 1.00–1.08) and reading comprehension (VR = 1.03–1.16), compared with spatial ability (VR = 1.27) and mechanical reasoning (VR = 1.45–1.74). The current finding (i.e., GMV in verbal DT) is also inconsistent with Lau and Cheung (2015), who concluded that GMV was supported in figural tasks, while not much variability was observed in verbal tasks. Greater male variability in elaboration is one area that deserves further future investigation, given that none of the previous studies on GMVH in creative potential targeted or assessed elaboration. The same is true for differences in variability between DT tests, which was not tested before.
Limitations and Future Directions
The limitations of meta-analyses often originate in the limitations of the primary studies. First, DT tests are not synonymous with creativity. Studies show mixed evidence on DT tests’ predictive validity, with some suggesting test scores are unrelated to real-world creative achievement (Baer, 1993), and others suggesting that they account for up to half of the variance in creative achievement (Plucker, 1999). Nevertheless, DT tests have consistently been the most popular way to measure creativity (Abdulla & Cramond, 2017; Plucker & Makel, 2010), and thus, synthesis of these results continues to be a useful metric of the state of the creativity literature.
The overall sample of the meta-analysis was also limited because creativity research has tended to be conducted more often with youth rather than adults. The mean age of the overall sample was 13.91, and only 25.4% of the included studies consisted of participants above the age of 18 (see Figure 3).
Fig 3
As such, there was an age ceiling that limits the generalizability of these findings. This is important because there is some evidence indicating that DT increases with age (Fusi et al., 2021; Shah & Gustafsson, 2021), at least up to middle-age (until about 40 years-old; Massimiliano, 2015; Reese et al., 2001). The creativity literature overall would benefit from extending data collection to older samples to gain a better understanding of life span creativity.
Additional steps to diversify primary samples would further improve the generalizability of future meta-analyses of DT data. Though the current study attempted to emphasize cultural variability and included some studies in Arabic, the sample still primarily comprised Western, English-speaking participants. Similarly, few to no studies allowed participants to self-identify outside of the female-male binary. Future investigations from more diverse countries, including those speaking different languages, and with data collection that allows for the representation of nonbinary gender identities would provide richer data.
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